captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, october 28: grief and prayers in pittsburgh after the deadly rampage at a jewish synagogue. the catastrophic human cost of the ongoing war in yemen. and in our signature segment: third world poverty in a first world country. next on pbs newshour w. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. seton melvin. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. baara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided

by mutual of america-- designing customized individual du and group retirement ps. that's why we're your provided by:upport has been and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by ieontributions to your pbs station fromrs like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at eri sreenivasan.new york, >> sreenivasan: goning and thank you for joining us. on the day after the oeadliest attathe jewish community in u.s. history, somber officials formally charged the man who murdered 11 people and injured six others at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. 46-year-old robert bowers faces 29 federal and dozens of state charges for homicide and aggravated assault, including murdering victims for exercising their religious beliefs-- a hate crime. he could face the death penalty. >> the fact that this attack took place during a worship service makes it even more heinous. a place of worship is a sacred heace.

>> we will b to help you through this horrific episode. we'll get through this darkest day of pittsbgh's history by working together. >> sreen life synagogue, community members continued to stop at a growing memorial throughout the day. the 11 peoe who died in the mass shooting ranged in age from 54 to 97. joyce fienberg was 75. she retired after a long career er a researcher at the unty of pittsburgh. richard gottfried, 65, had just celebrated his 38th wedding anniversary. 97-year-old rose mallinger was a devoted member of the congregation. jerry rabinowitz, 66, was a family physician. cecil rosenthal, 59, and david rosenthal, 54 were brothers who attended services every saturday. bernice simon, 84 and sylvan simon, 86 were husband a wife. 71-year-old daniel stein was a former president of the new light congregation. melvin wax, 88, was a retired accountant. and 69-year-old irving younger

taught classes on current events at the local community center and had two grandchildren. newshour weekend's yvette feliciano traveled to pittsburgh last night and has been with meembers of the community. >> reporter: 17-year-old emily prheessmaed organize yesterday's vigil led by local hitugh schoolnts. >> i don't think i've accepted the fact that this happened to us. >> reporter: emily and her thother stacy were glued t television this morning when the names of the 11 people killed at the tree of life synagogue were released. emily and her siblings went to hebrew school there, and the amy often goes to the temple for social gatherings like weddings and bar and bat mivahs. >> i mean i could have been there. i know so many people who are part of that congregation that could have been ther and the people who were there just i mean they're there my hearts are in everyone's hearts right now. re>> reporter: theof life synagogue is one of several in

this tight-knit community that isome to a third of pittsburgh's jewish population. it housed three congregations and was a center of activity. like most people we've talked to here, emily and her mom were confident they'd know some of the victims, and they were right. >> i know two of them i know that they were always greeted me, they were very kind souls th. brought smiles to my fa they were very close to my family, one of my best friends. k it's just starting to s this morning. i woke up this morning tired with a pit in my stomach for a second not really knowing why. an happened.membered what these are the people who were in synagogue on a saturday morning. these were the diehards who were there because they wanted to celebrate their faith. they were wonderful older members of our community. >> repor r: emily pressman said she and others in the community felt helpless watching the news

yesterday and needed to take action. >> i mean people were murdered for their faith. it's not just saying something anymorit's not just a pointing a picture and saying go die jew it's them honestly shooting a gueople's faces. and it's killing them. i think people are upset. ai think peop angry and i think there's a fine line between angry and note. and righwe just have to make sure that people don't cross that line. >> i was a member, my family were members of the before it merged with tree of life congregation. it's just really a warm, welcoming environment and place, and so i'm absolutely heartbroken. >> reporter: adam hertzman is the director of marketing for the jewish federation of greater pittsburgh. he says the organization has seen a rise in anti-semitic vandalism over the last few months. >> there were pamphlets put on

elcars in the squiill area with anti-semitic rhetoric on them. and there is, i think, sadly in f is society always an undercurrentcism and anti- semitism. >> reporter: emily pressman says in f this could happe squirrel hill, it could happen anywhere. >> is there a time where ai- semitism has occurred in pittsburgh. yes. i think that happens every year. yes. do i think that's why it has happened, no. we're just an unlucky place when there are unlucky people in a building. and that's all that happened. >> sreenivasan: pbs newshour weekend's ivette feliciano joins me now from near phe synagogue tsburgh.

who we had been speaking with say they are very? positioned to that idea, she todayed attends she has to walk through a metal decked for detector every day and it makes her feel like a militarized place and wouldn't want that at her local synagogue where ishe saalways felt like a safe space for her and a welcoming space, and she feels the presence of an armed guard would change that dynamic. d generally, she expressed some frustration at the notion that the community that was targeted could have done something more to prevent this tragic event. >> ivette, in your report we heard there had been an up tick in anti-semitic van der sloot reism the area, somehow the communitting to that. that is something we heard from the representative of the jewish federati of greater pittsburgh who said, you know, they have seen an up tick, he didn't want

me to overstate the number of incidents, because it generally has been a safe area, but they have seen tha up tick and what they have been doing is working with the local synagogues and jewish schools and jewish agencies to do active shooter trainings in the aand that is something that he believes will continue in the coming weeks. >> sasan: all right, what is next for this community this week? what are the things that are coming up in the next few days? >> what we heard from people that we were speaking with today is that we need to give the families of the victims time to, moe can expect to see a few more vigils this week, and in addition to the grieving and religious communities coming together to mourn, we have als seen a heightened police presence outside of religious institutions andublic buildings, so we can expect to see a lot of that in the coming week. >> sreenivasan: all right. ivette feliciano joining us from pittsburgh tonight, thank you so mu. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: read more about

the people who were killed in the synagogue shooting on our website at pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: for the past three years a saud coalition has bombed and battled iranian-backed houthi rebels ws control yemejor cities. yemen shares a border with saudi arabia and the saudis receive military equipme, bombs, and intelligence from the united states and united kingdom. the war is at a stalemate but the conseq are a catastrophe for civilians. this week, "new york times" photographer tyler hicks and reporter declan walsh documented tofhe threa massive famine in their interactive essay, "the tragedy of saudi arabia's war," which included photos you may find disturbing. declan walsh joins us now via skype from cairo. >> economic, income famine was that is preventable you use one of the characters in here to help tell the story. tell us. >> we met mr. hajagiy standing his three-year-old son who was

very seriously ill and his son had actually died just three weeks earlier. the collapse of the economy really pushepeople like him over the edge. >> sreenivasan:, encapsulate why this war is taking place in the first place. t four war started abou years ago, when this group called the houthi seized control of the capital in late 2014, that was a very alarming development for neing y udi arabia, which viewed the houthis effectiv a proxy for iran, and from march 2015 you had thehen defense minister of saudi arabia who sent saudi warplanes to start bombing houthi targe and that was starting gun for the war. th sreenivasan: when you talk aboue air strikes, there is such significant damage to the infrastructure, that means that goods and services can't go back across that road, including food. >> that's right. so one of the great impacts of the airp strike caign actually

the greatest destruction is the way it is de eroying thenomy of yemen, millions and millions of yemenis unable to buy even sic foodstuffs for themselves. >> sreenivasan: you point tout yes people any governmentank is in almost controlled by the saudis. >> yes, this was one of thet m significant actions of the saudi led coalition over the last couple of years .. they stopped paying the salaries of about 1 million civil servants. that means you have potentially 7 million peopleho are affected by that decision, who live in families who no long very an income. >> sreenivasan: finally i want to ask what the considerations that the times took. these are extraordinarily graphic images, these are not things that u often see a newspaper. >> the times took that position very carefully, e paper felt that in this instance, these images are a reminder famine has not gone away and that in some instances like now, famine can be not a product of naturalan causes, noctual disaster,

tasman made catastrophe. >> sreenivasan: all right, declanalsh of "the new york times" joining us via skype from cairo, tnk you a so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: in july we brought you a story about poverty in alabama, which was spurred by a report from the united nations' special rapporteur on extreme y and human rights, philip alston. alston toured america, spotlighting third-world-style poverty in our first-world ciuntry. newshour weekend s correspondent simon ostrovsky continues following in alston's footsteps with a report on poverty in los angeles. supported in part by a grant from the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, this report is part of our ongoing sees about poverty and opportunity in america-- "chasing the dream." >> reporter: los angeles. the home of some of the most desirable zip codes in the country. but right at the heart of this

wealthy metropolis exist conditions that have been described by the city's own newspaper, the los angeles times as a "national disgrace." one expanse of 50 city blocks is an area that has become synonymous with poverty, crime, and homelessness. it's existed for decades and has dogged successive mayoral administrations that've tried to eradicate it. it's called "skid row" and is home to an estimated 2,000 members of los angeles county'su homeless cty. >> l.a. has one of the highest omnts in the nation. and the reason whyto so many tents out here because 't afford to live in a house. >> reporter: steve richardson, who goes by the na "general dogon," is an activist at the l.a. community actionetwork, which advocates for the city's homeless community. >> the majority of the people that you see sleeping on the s are black and these are folks that have fell to the poverty level. it makes me really mad. >> reporter: long the subject of local and national concern, skid

row recently garnered international attention when it became the focus of a report written by the united nations rapporteur on extreme poverty. philip alston whose job more often involves aessing conditions in the developing world. >> the homelessns on the streets in l.a. is pretty staggering in terms of magnitude, in terms of how long running it is. there is a ronic shortage of affordable housing. >> reporter: nationally, homelessness has been mostly on the decline since 2010, though iticked upward slightly in 2017, to nearly 554,000 people withthour own roof over their heads in a so-called point-in-time count.lo thangeles area meanwhile, has trended in the opposite c direction as tt of living here soared over the last decade forcing thousands onto the street in what has amounted to a nearly 50% increase in homelessness since 2012 to almost 5000 people. the sheer sizef skid row makes

it look like a refugee camp. but according to a 2017 report by several homelessness advocacy groups, the availability of toilets here is worse than in a u.n.-run syrian refug cp. >> it smells of urine evreeryw skid row had about 10 toilets, i think, for thousands of people. so it's a pretty bad setup. >> so this is uh, they call it the big green machine. and, uh, it's a bathroom. >> reporter: according to the la community action network, nearly 1,8 s00 unsheltered people d row share access to just nine toilets like this one which means many oid them altogether and use buckets which are then emptied into the streets and trash cans. >> that was p.t.s.d but i dn't know nothing about that. >> reporter: willy van seals is a vietnam vet suffering from roin addiction, one of almost 3900 homeless veterans in l.a. county. >> i'll show you. the buckets that we use, are to urinate, bowel mothvement.

e's nowhere around here to use the bathroom, and that'spe hard on on you know what i mean? suppose you walk around find somewhere to take a crap? come on now. >> reporter:the authorities know rehygiene is an issue the county health department reported that its teams observee s and urine on eight of ten sidewalks during a survey back in 2012. street washes like this one have been ip nstituted to hop the spread of disease. >> if we don't power wash the streets we end up with what we had years ago when we had a tuberculosis outbreak or hepatitis outbreak or some kind of disease, it has to be done, it has to bdone. >> reporter: officer deon joseph has been patrolling the streets of sw for close to two decades. he says he's seen well-meaning policies to improve health conditions backfire. >> years ago we had 27 porta astties in skid row. my concernhat they would be taken over by the criminal element, and day one that's

exactly what happened. c, when those bathrooms were here, gangsters werging the homeless one to five dollars re use the porta potties for what they esigned for. >> reporter: while we're with him officer joseph receives a complaint. >> i've got these people who have pulled up in front of the doorway. i've asked them repeatedly to move and trying to have a rational conversation with irrational people. i just don't want to do it. >> how are you? i'm sorry to bother you. there's a gentleman here who has a business, and the law says you can't be within 10 feet of his doorway, can you guys move about 10 feet this way so he can have his space? >> reporter: he resolves the situation without incident. breut the u.nrt points to data from the "l.a. times" showing that 14,000 homeless pinple were arrested in l.a 2016, a 31% increase since 2011. the report encouraged authorities to shift from a" criminal justice response" to "" human rights-centered response" to homelessness. >> homelessness is being

criminalized in many ways. and it's as though you sort of keep moving the pieces around the chessboard and suddenly it's going to improve, instead ofyi sa "ok, we actually need to work out how to create places where these people can go." >> i agree with the u.n., we shouldn't be the tip of the spear, fix the system especially in places like sd row where many individuals struggle with dual diagnosis where they're addicts and mentally ill. we odon't want to be the t the spear but we have to be until those solutions arise >> reporter: according to victor hinderliter of the los angeles homeless services authority, mental health and addiction are a huge factor contributing to homelessness. >> approximately 30% of people expneeriencing homele self- report that they have a severe mental health disorder, about 30%er of people encing homelessness self-report that theyta have a subsnce use disorder. homelessness, in and of itself is aie traumatic expe. >> reporter: christina miller, the l.a. mayor's senior project

manaater of homeless sies agrees that addressing homelessness is a multi-tieredoc ss but disagrees that the homeless are being criminalized. >> instead of leading with police, leading with enforcement, ware doing everything we can to lead with services because we know that police officers are not social workers and that is not necessarily in their purview and having an enforcement heavy response is not ultimately going to get people off the streets. >> reporter: activists say they know what will get people off thstreets. >> the solution is simple. this is what the solution is. this isat only thing nds homelessness. it's this right here, house keys. until everybody got them, hey you gotta be good neighbors because they going to be people sleeping on the streets. on there are a lot of solu that we are focusing on currently in terms of trying to expand our interim shelters by capacity. but we also know whathe only solution is to homelessness, which is permanent housing. >> reporter: miller told newshour weekend the city of l.a. had embarked on an

unprecedented drive to build 10,000 units of housing for the chronically holess: those who've repeatedly ended up on the streets or been there for at least a year. it's funded through a $1.2 billion city bond over the next 10 years. that's in addition to a $30 million "bridge-home"terogram dirat providing interim hn ousing ie meantime. and the efforts may have started to pay off. this year, the homeless count in l.a. county went down for the first time since 2014. only people to just under 53,000, but it bucks a six-year-long trend in the opposite dir. >> we are cautiously optimistic, we are celebrating the facthat there seems to be a chatie in the dir of the trajectory and it does tell us that we are doing something rht. >> well they were considerate enough to give us a pantry. >> reporter: jose soto, another veteran, is one of the lucky ones who has recently been housed after years in and out of

prison and skid ro >> i'm really happy with the closet space. but, what do you fill it with? >> reporter: soto, who is in recovery from drug and alcohol add aiction gave our of the residence the city has provided to him free of charge. >> hei've been on and off t streets for what year is it? , 14 years and in my situation, it was all due to substance abuse. i just like to get drunk a lot every day. and then, before you know it, the lifestyle catches up and i end up, i'm one of the people on skid row or under a bridge. reporter: until newer housing comes online homes like this are in vey.ry limited sup only veterans who have gone through a lengthy recovery process from substancabuse qualify for this building. >> they treat us like trash. >> reporter: for vet willy van seals who is still struggling with addiction, that seems like a distant prospect. >> i went through rehab. and when i went through, they promised me when i got through that they would actually give me my voucher and i could go and ind me a place to stay and none

of that happened. this is where i ended up at. >> reporter: so did you manage to kick the habit in rehab? >> nah. >> america paints o selves as a" good samaritan country." i'm glad the u.n. came here, use you see third world conditions right here, you know, in the richest country in the world that's worse than other countries. >> reporter: the united nations report notwithstanding, there are other indications things may be improving for the homeless in a. in 2016, angelinos voted overwhelmingly for a tax increase directed at funding the creation of homes for the chronically homeless. and while tents still line the streets of skid row, this year chronic homelessness has dropped 18% in l.a. county. >> when it rains, you must have something on this floor. >> reporter: but for willy van seals and oers like him, los angeles still has a long way to go. this is pbs newshour weekend,

sunday. >> sreen violinist for the los angeles philharmonic; he's also one of this year's macarthur fellows, recr ognized inging musical enrichment to the disenfranchised population in los angeles wi street symphony." symphony is a community of musicians, my colleagues from the la fill rmon anybody, from the master corral, professional musicians and students from all over los angeles, varying different genres of music who present regular and monthly engagements in shelters and clinics in ski row as well as all five los angeles county jails. and e goal of street symphony is to engage a his, histocally marginalized community of people through artistic performance,nd dialogue a teaching artistry. >> we took the messiah to the midnight mission in skid row

which is one of our partner organizations and the messiah project is a chance for the professional musicians of street symphony to share age with the skid row community. now we work with artists and musicians and singers and composers and instrumentalists who live in skid row. and they are our soloists. and they are our cure rares and ths are the onewho teach us .. about the power of their artistic voice in their community. >> in my mind, the stage is sacred. but i guess the question i am asking is, why is it that the concert hall is the only sacred stage? >> what are the other sacred stages across our city andur within hearts? where we can also make music? and so when we show up to make music in skid row, it is not about being the perfect artistid t, it is about being the

most psent human being. >> sreenivasan: we will have more on the mass kling in pittsburgh tomorrow and with the election just a week away, the pbs newshour will hit the for a special edition from a key state: battleground florida. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. a haood night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz.

sue and edgar wachenheim iii. seton melvin. lthe cheryl and pmilstein family. s.r. p. roy vagelos and diana t. ndage the j.p.b. fion. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcastin by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

♪ -it's the highest natural land point in the state of nevada and a mountain that geits namey to the california state line. if it's anything like it was yesterday, it could be really, really windy up high. once spring snows melt on the neighboring sierra nevada ranges highwapen, making an expedition here a true desert odyssey. and god love that hot tub that i'm about to jump into after kelsey makes me some dinner. -[ laughs ] -[ chuckles] but bagging this peak is only part of the adventur the snow melts off of these slopes and comes down into this big, beautiful valley as you're about to see, where these lonely roads lead, natural treasures are waiting to be found asda set out to climb ne boundary peak.