This is Jacobin Radio and I'm Susie Weisman.

This is Jacobin Radio and I'm Susie Weisman.

Gary Blaisey,y, longtime housing activist,

Advocate for the Homeless,

UCLA Law Professor and Poverty Lawyer,

joins us to discuss the double-digit increase

in homelessness in LA County and City, indeed around the country.

The numbers, while staggering, only highlight what is visible on streets in every neighborhood,

but there are misconceptions about what's driving this surge in people living

on the streets.

Put simply, says Gary Blasy, homeless people are homeless because they cannot afford housing,

mostly in neighborhoods where they have grown up and lived.

We get Gary's analysis of the scope of homelessness, the effectiveness or lack thereof of the

city, county, and state measures to deal with it, and we'll get Gary's ideas about what more can be done. We then talk to

author and activist Paul Buell whose latest book is a graphic biography of the

American Socialist and Labor Leader Eugene V. Debs, one of the American socialist and labor leader Eugene V. Debs.

One of the most important Americans of the 20th century, according to Bernie Sanders, who

also called Debs, the most effective and popular leader that the American working class has ever had.

We talked to Paul about Debs' life, ideas, and struggles as a fighting union leader of the Pullman

Railroad Strike, socialist Party leader who was jailed

for opposing World War I, and ran for president from prison winning over a million votes.

All this in just a moment on Jacobin Radio.

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