In the summer of 2019, Fox News embarked on an ambitious project to chronicle the toll progressive policies have had on the homeless crisis in four West Coast cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. In each city, we saw a lack of safety, sanitation and civility. Residents, the homeless and advocates say they’ve lost faith in their elected officials’ ability to solve the issue. Most of the cities have thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem only to watch it get worse. This is what we saw in San Francisco. 

San Francisco is a city of extremes.

It has more billionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world, but it also has a homeless problem so severe that it rivals some third-world nations. On any given day you can see souped-up Lamborghinis and blinged-out trophy wives in one part of the city, then walk over a few blocks and see piles of human feces, puddles of urine and vomit caked on the sidewalks. The misery of homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction hits deep in San Francisco and has turned parts of a beautiful city into a public toilet.

SAN FRANCISCO HUMAN FECES MAP SHOWS WASTE BLANKETING THE CALIFORNIA CITY 

As the problem grows, residents are finding themselves at a crossroads. The compassion for those struggling is constantly being challenged by a fear for their own safety and quality of life. It never had to get this bad, say critics, who are appalled that it’s getting worse every day.

“I won’t visit my son who lives out there again,” Amelia Cartwright told Fox News. “It’s disgusting. I went there a few months ago for the first time and this guy who looked homeless and really beat up spit on me. Can you imagine? He spit on me!”

While it might be a shock to the system for some, residents say such interactions are common.

One cleaning woman who works downtown told Fox News a homeless woman comes by every day, curses at her and spits on the window.

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Lately, the cases of citizens being harassed by mentally ill street people has taken a dangerous turn.

Last week, Austin Vincent, a homeless man, was caught on camera attacking a 26-year-old woman outside her condo complex. As he threw Paneez Kosarian on the ground, he allegedly talked about saving her from robots and offered to kill another woman nearby so he could earn her trust.

Vincent was arrested and pleaded not guilty to a false imprisonment charge and two counts of battery and attempted robbery. Instead of being thrown in jail, Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken released Vincent over the objections of the district attorney’s office. Her decision caused a huge backlash in the community and was slammed by Mayor London Breed and other city officials. The judge eventually ordered Vincent to wear an ankle monitor.

On Monday, Vincent was arrested again for an alleged assault that occurred in February. The police said he was armed with a knife and approached a woman and her friends as they waited for a ride. Vincent allegedly threatened to kill the woman and lunged at the group.

The controversy over Vincent’s initial release is just the latest example prompting people in the City by the Bay to say they don’t feel safe on the streets. Outraged residents Fox News spoke to in late June said they’re tired of waiting for their elected officials to come up with a plan and complain no one ever seems to be on the same page.

What’s equally frustrating is that the city still manages to blow through hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year to address the crisis and blames everyone but themselves when the homeless count rises.

“It’s not as though we don’t see the problem,” a former Apple employee told Fox News. “There’s no way to escape it.”

“It’s not as though we don’t see the problem. There’s no way to escape it.”

— Former Apple employee 

In May, city officials braced themselves when a preliminary homeless count was released. They expected the numbers to rise and they were right. Initial data showed that it had jumped 17 percent from 2017. The double-digit growth was bad enough but then it got a whole lot worse.

When the final report was released a couple of months later, it showed the street count increase would have been 30 percent if the city had stuck to the same definition of homelessness as they had in the past. This year, San Francisco opted to use the federal definition instead of the one they wrote themselves.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of homelessness includes people who are living on the streets, in cars or in shelters. San Francisco’s own definition widens the category to people without a permanent address who are in prison, rehab or hospitalized. If the city used the same measurement it had in years past, the numbers would show an increase from 7,400 to 9,784 — or 30 percent in 2019.

City spokesman Jeff Cretan explained the change by saying San Francisco is “looking at the HUD numbers because it helps us work in collaboration with other places like Los Angeles or our neighboring counties.”

Some homeless advocates weren’t on board with that logic and accused the city of manipulating the findings to make it seem as though more progress had been made when, in fact, the numbers showed the opposite.

The city has also blamed the rise in homelessness on big tech companies that have moved to the area, including Twitter, Salesforce, NVIDIA and Eventbrite. They say the businesses have brought high-paying jobs with them, which has caused housing prices to soar and pushed people who can’t afford to keep up financially out of the area or onto the streets.

TOP TECH CEOS BICKER OVER CHRONIC HOMELESSNESS

Jose, a Bay Area Rapid Transit worker who has been living in San Francisco for more than 20 years, told Fox News he fears he too could be homeless one day.

“What’s happening is that they are building too many condominiums and kicking the people out,” he said. “I’m lucky they haven’t kicked me out yet.”

According to a 2018 report from HUD, a family of four living in San Francisco making $117,422 a year qualifies as “low income.” For singles, a salary of $82,000 or less puts them in the bracket. In comparison, “low income” for a family of four in New York is  $83,450 per year.

In his 2019 report on housing affordability in the San Francisco Bay Area, Compass economist Patrick Carlisle said “affordability percentages remain low by historical standards, and the Bay Area typically has among the lowest in the nation.”

According to data from the California Association of Realtors, only 17 percent of households can afford to buy a median-priced home. In San Francisco, that’s $1.7 million.

“It’s impossible to buy a home here,” resident Doug Stall told Fox News. “You’ve got these ridiculous housing prices, crime and these people crapping on the streets. Why would anyone want to stay?”

But to say the city hasn’t tried to address the problem would be wrong. It has. The problem is that it has backfired spectacularly.

One of the biggest statewide blunders is Proposition 47.

Supported by the California Democratic Party and championed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the referendum was passed by a wide margin in 2014. The idea behind it was to reduce certain non-violent felonies to misdemeanors in order to free up resources for cops and prosecutors to go after serious, violent offenders. This included downgrading fraud, forgery, shoplifting and grand theft as long as the total value of the stolen property was less than $950.

It also included illegal drugs.

“The goal was to be more helpful to society, helpful to the homeless issue, helpful to the police department and the court system. But as we saw, it’s a total failure at this point,” Richie Greenberg, a former mayoral candidate, told Fox News.

He added: “The intention was to help, of course, but what it really wound up doing is that it made San Francisco more attractive to those who are both homeless and those who are drug addicts to move here. We are now finding that homelessness is increasing. Drug addiction is increasing and the number of people here — the numbers are increasing, as well.”

The city has also been pro-active in building “navigation centers.” Billed as a new type of homeless shelter, the centers provide homeless San Franciscans room and board while case managers work to find jobs, sign them up for public benefits and make sure they receive health care services. Unlike traditional shelters where people with partners, pets and possessions are not allowed in, they are welcome in the navigation centers. While good in theory, some warn that there are hidden dangers involved in the navigation centers.

Susan Dyer Reynolds, editor-in-chief of the independent community newspaper Marina Times, says the centers “are not sober facilities, and people steal and break into cars to feed their habits.”

In June, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to back a pilot program that would allow the city to force people suffering from serious mental illness and drug addiction into treatment. That didn’t sit well with liberals who argued that it would be a deprivation of civil liberties.

SAN FRANCISCO TO FORCE TREATMENT FOR MENTALLY ILL DRUG ADDICTS AMID CRITICISM PLAN VIOLATES CIVIL RIGHTS 

A few frustrated residents say it might be time to cut and run.

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“The city is running out of strategies,” Anna Suarez told Fox. “I’m moving to Austin.”

In the midst of a possible trade agreement with China, President Trump has taken the “long view” on negations with President Xi, according to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday and said the administration is waiting for a better deal.

“The president takes the long view on all of this… He wants a better deal,” she said. “He inherited a very imbalanced, non-reciprocal, unfair trade deficit with China. And when I say trade deficit, I mean we’ve got half a trillion dollars.”

Conway said the United States economy should not have to bow to China and claimed Trump’s unwillingness to roll over is what helped get him elected.

“It makes no sense to the average American worker. We were told, ‘Just go find a new line of work. Your job has been outsourced,'” she said.

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“Or we have to somehow give money to, or be on the losing side — as the world’s No. 1 economy to the world’s No. 2 economy. It makes no sense to Americans. It’s part of how the president got elected in the first place.”

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Conway reiterated the president’s claim that an immediate deal would give a shot in the arm to the U.S. economy, but said the administration doesn’t want to push a bad deal on the American people, just to score short-term political points.

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“The president said yesterday that he could do a deal right now, and that the economy would take off like a rocket… but he doesn’t want to do a deal if it’s a bad deal,” she said.

“Too many presidents in the past have done that. And we ended up where we are, which is a half a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China — the world’s second-largest economy, where the technology transfers and the theft of intellectual property went unabated and unpunished. So this president is waiting for a better deal for this country.”

The decision to bar two United States congresswomen from entering Israel has sent shockwaves through both countries.

Israel’s denial of entry to Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar,  who had planned to visit Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories over the weekend, has been condemned by top US Democrat politicians. It has also been criticised by a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Shortly before Israel announced its decision, US President Donald Trump had called for the two Muslim congresswomen to be blocked.

The US president has in recent months taken decisions that many say have given Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu much political support.

But what does this mean for the long-term ties between the US and Israel?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum – Deputy mayor of Jerusalem and a member of the Likud party

Ariel Gold – National co-director of activist group Code Pink

Gideon Levy – Columnist at Haaretz newspaper

Source: Al Jazeera News

Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are ramping up their criticism of Israel’s decision to block them from entering the country, where according to Tlaib “racism and the politics of hate” are “thriving.”

But in defending its decision, the Israeli government is citing the radical history of the group that was slated to sponsor the trip.

That group, named Miftah, has a long record of anti-Israel rhetoric that includes downplaying attacks on Israelis and even describing suicide bombers as “sacrificing their lives for the cause.” It’s a record poised to see new scrutiny as senior Democrats reportedly weigh retaliatory measures for the snub of the two freshman Democrats and the Trump and Netanyahu administrations hit back.

TLAIB, OMAR SHARE IMAGE BY ARTIST ONCE CELEBRATED IN IRAN’S HOLOCAUST CARTOON CONTEST

“The organization that is funding their trip is Miftah, which is an avid supporter of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement), and among whose members are those who have expressed support for terrorism against Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

Netanyahu cited Miftah as he alleged the lawmakers had ulterior, anti-Israel motives in their planned Israel trip.

For instance, a 2006 Miftah report dealing with the Second Intifada – a wave of Palestinian violence in the early 2000s – discussed a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing under a section titled “Fighting Back.” It described the attack, where Wafa Idrees blew herself up with a bomb that killed an Israeli and injured more than 100 others, as “the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause.”

More recently, Miftah’s founder, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee, spoke against referring to Palestinian attackers as terrorists in a 2017 interview.

“They are seen by the people as resistance and you cannot somehow adopt the language of either the international community or the occupier by describing anybody who resists as a terrorist,” she told Germany’s DW.com, describing “this whole labeling thing” as “unfair and unjust.”

Miftah has not responded to Fox News’ request for clarification on their organization’s stance on violence.

The organization’s position on BDS is far clearer.

“The BDS movement, to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, which arose out of Palestinian civil society, is also a crucially important force, which has great potential and deserves international attention,” wrote a member of Miftah’s Media and Information Department in 2010.

“Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) give us hope,” a 2012 piece said. More recently, a June 2019 document authored by Miftah promoting an interview with Birzeit University lecturer Dr. Ghassan Khatib said, “There must be coherence between official Palestinian diplomacy and public diplomacy, one form of which is the BDS movement.”

Israeli law allows the country to bar anyone who promotes BDS from entering. Omar and Tlaib are vocal supporters of the movement and had planned a trip with a group that appears to endorse it fully. Their colleagues in the House, meanwhile, passed a resolution in opposition to BDS in July with a 398-17 vote.

“These two members were going, they were claiming to be representatives of the U.S. government, but they were seeking to undercut U.S. foreign policy and not represent our actual stance as a government,” Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.

Miftah drew accusations of blatant anti-Semitism in 2013, when they published an article that gave credence to the medieval blood libel, the false claim that Jews use Christian blood to make matzah for the Passover holiday. They apologized after the article drew backlash, stating that “the article was accidentally and incorrectly published by a junior staff member.” They added that all their staff had been informed “as to the disgusting and repulsive phenomena of blood libel or accusation, including its use against Jews.”

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When the blood libel article resurfaced amid discussion of Omar and Tlaib’s planned trip, the organization took a more combative tone in addressing it, accusing “vicious hate-filled groups” of “unfounded accusations and fabrications” about Miftah, while again blaming the publication of the article on a junior staffer’s “misstep.”

Omar and Tlaib are not the first members of Congress to plan a trip to Israel through Miftah. In 2016, Reps. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., Dan Kildee, D-Mich., Hank Johnson, D-Ga., Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., went on a trip that Miftah organized alongside the American Global Institute.

When the House voted on July’s anti-BDS resolution, Cartwright and Kildee voted in favor, while Pocan opposed it and Johnson voted present. Gutierrez is no longer in office.

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The 2016 trip garnered attention due to its itinerary, which reportedly included a meeting with Shawan Jabarin, an alleged member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organization.

When asked about the trip, Cartwright did not go into details, but told Fox News, “I have taken two trips there with different groups, to look for opportunities to learn from the people there and support a vibrant democracy,” adding, “I do go wherever I think I need to go to learn the facts. As a U.S. Congressman, I think that’s part of my job.”

The congressman also stated, “My support for our great alliance with Israel has been 100% and will continue undiminished.”

At the same time, the 2016 trip – which was allowed by Israel to proceed – provides potential fuel for those claiming Omar and Tlaib were unfairly singled out in being blocked. The backlash has not settled since last week, when senior Democrats, as well as some Republicans and even pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, challenged the decision to nix the trip.

“Israel’s denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great state of Israel,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a press release.

Britain’s Prince Andrew on Monday tried to bat back renewed scrutiny of his longtime friendship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, despite new video showing the royal at the disgraced financier’s Manhattan mansion in 2010 — two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution involving a minor and was forced to register as a sex offender.

Epstein, 66, hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy, the New York City medical examiner said in a report released Friday. The official results followed a week of speculation about the shocking death at the federal facility in Lower Manhattan. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to the latest charges and was being held without bail at the time of his death.

In the wake of the suicide, concerning allegations about the Duke of York’s relationship with Epstein have reemerged, including accusations made by Virginia Giuffre, who claims Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince nearly two decades ago, when she was 17.

EPSTEIN’S ATTORNEYS ‘NOT SATISFIED’ WITH AUTOPSY RESULTS THAT CONCLUDED FINANCIER DIED BY HANGING

In a statement released Monday, Buckingham Palace said Andrew was “appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes.”

“His Royal Highness deplores the exploitation of any human being and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behavior is abhorrent,” the Palace said.

The statement was released after the Mail on Sunday newspaper obtained a Dec. 6, 2010, video appearing to show Andrew inside Epstein’s opulent Manhattan home as the prince waves goodbye to a young woman.

The video was recorded two years after Epstein’s controversial deal in which he pleaded guilty to a Florida state felony charge of prostitution involving a minor. The terms of the deal included generous work release conditions for Epstein.

The duke was also photographed with Epstein in 2010 in New York’s Central Park after Epstein had finished serving his 18-month prison sentence. The photos sparked controversy at the time and led Andrew to quit his role as a UK trade envoy in 2011, according to Sky News.

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A document dump on the Friday directly preceding Epstein’s death came after a federal appeals court ordered the release of court papers in a defamation lawsuit Giuffre brought against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged “madam,” Ghislaine Maxwell. The civil case was eventually settled.

Included in the documents, however, are portions of a deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, who said she was 21 years old in 2001 when Andrew grabbed her breast at Epstein’s mansion in New York.

Sjoberg testified the incident was sparked when “someone” suggested those gathered take a picture, at which point Sjoberg said she and Maxwell went to a closet and grabbed a puppet of Andrew.

“They told us to go get on the couch,” she said in the 2016 deposition. “And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap. And so then I sat on Andrew’s lap, and, I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine.”

She added: “I knew it was Prince Andrew because I knew him as a person.”

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The court papers also include a photograph that has been in circulation since 2015 showing Andrew with his arm around Giuffre’s bare waist in London in 2001. Giuffre said she was 17 at the time the photo was taken.

Buckingham Palace has previously denied allegations the prince had sex with Giuffre, and told The Sun that Andrew was not a party to the U.S. proceedings in which his name had appeared and denied any illegality had occurred.

“Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue,” the palace said in a statement at the time.

Epstein’s death caused public and official outrage over how such a high-profile prisoner could have gone unmonitored.

Fox News’ Tamara Gitt, Robert Gearty, Nicole Darrah and Samuel Chamberlain, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Radio host Howie Carr said Sunday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s Native American policy proposal is nothing more than “a laundry list of free stuff” to bribe voters, ahead of the 2020 election.

The presidential hopeful released a wide-ranging plan in a Medium blog post on Friday writing that funding certain programs for indigenous people was “not optional,” but “required.”

“If it’s like all of her other policy proposals, it’s basically a laundry list of free stuff that she’s proposing to give to whatever group she’s speaking before,” Carr said Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

He claimed Warren likely would get into a bidding war with fellow presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over who could promise the most federal funding, and criticized her for using her heritage as a political prop.

“She says America has mistreated Native Americans. What worse form of mistreatment is there than to check the box when you’re a Caucasian?” Carr asked. “She claims that she’s been cleared, but no one really buys that she didn’t use her heritage to get ahead.”

Carr also commented on Warren’s rising poll numbers and said they’re more reflective of former Vice President Joe Biden’s gaffes, and had nothing to do with the substance of her campaign.

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“I think it’s more a reflection of just the weakness of Joe Biden,” he said. “I mean, he turned in a pathetic performance last weekend at the Iowa State Fair.”

A Fox News poll last week found Warren’s support among Democrats rose to 20 percent, compared to just 4 percent this past March. Biden’s numbers remained unchanged.

Fox News’ Dana Blanton contributed to this report.