which is how. well the watch of the horse i am i rolled with and on top of the wallace and our own top of the wallace recently traveled to minneapolis with a wall of forgotten natives here is what she thought. when he up list minnesota has a population of approximately four hundred twenty two thousand people with a twenty eighty nine year old budget of over one and a half billion dollars with twenty four million dollars allocated for affordable housing is comes just two years after the completion of the u.s. bank stadium the new home of the vikings football team it can comfortably sit over sixty six thousand football fans it was made possible by about three hundred fifteen million dollars from the state of minnesota and approximately one hundred fifty million dollars from the city of minneapolis for the billion dollar projects

the super bowl that was held here just last year netted the city over three hundred seventy million dollars but for the people here at the tent city known as the wall of forgotten natives they wonder where all that money could have gone. because just a mile from the billion dollar stadium is an encampment of between one hundred fifty and two hundred tents housing almost exclusively members of the indigenous peoples of minneapolis and their families encountered first came to my attention i was really through the conversations i have with my staff back and probably mid to arrive when there was maybe like four tents or four or five tents or early august that was really when it started to get more attention and i think in the. both in the community but also within the city and the county because the tent city i think down them grew very rapidly one week ago the spartans there. so you get us you know

forty johnson writes week it's kind of politically that but my staff has been down here doing outreach and trying to connect people to health care services and a number of things for quite a while and something we've been funded to do through the state of minnesota for over the last six or seven months and while many news reports falsely claim that the majority of the camp are people with opioid addictions that had been evicted from public housing our investigation found that only about twenty five percent of the residents are there or due to opioid addictions or drug arrests frank pair of national information coordinator for the american indian movement explains currently what's going on right here and always over call of the wall of forgotten need of just got over one hundred sixty five close at two hundred tents up and down there's three or four block area if you're not you're a couple of months bringing attention to homelessness of american indians in our own homeland this land here was look or a flat we got people out here from from little kids. to grandmas and droppers in

their seventy's remember to use luckily the frankly street corridor that the encampment is in contains most of the organizations that are available to help american indians but even going a few blocks away for that house as permanent challenge which is where people like antony stately the c.e.o. of the native american community clinic comment i formed a partnership with the red lake nation and also arden ization called the outgroup. the three of us went into a partnership together to deliver onsite medical services because it became. fairly evident to me and to a number of the folks that i work on my own with that is that miley there's a saying that there are a number of people here who had on that made up medical or chronic medical conditions like. open sore eyes and that several people didn't like these metaphors and several of other people had other. the conditions

so really my my desire to kind of get medicals onside medical services were recognizing that they were not going to go even five hundred feet to the big cliff that is right at the corner or two blocks to my clinic to get medical care because . all kinds of issues raised by. the homeless and all the things that that all the things that are important to them that mean everything to them or the world or their belongings and their temple and when they would leave to go and do things like seek services either at my cleric or across the street at the outside edge and services ten people and sometimes two other things which is a traumatic event to somebody who's a mess currently it's made october the temperature during the day is around in the fifty's but it does get down into the thirty's at night which is why the plan right now is to move the people that are currently living out of all the forgotten natives across the street to a location behind me which is owned by the red lake nation now eventually there's going to be affordable housing for these people on that list how many on the ground

feel that the city's goal of getting everyone at the encampment into permanent housing by december is lofty at best james alan cross the founder of natives against heroin who've been overseeing the camp and explains why i think it's going to go well in the over a year i think that the first process of is get them over to their their center over there their role like birds as well to go and help people that don't want to be and for the rules or curfew or so we all continue to talk with this city called the mayor and everybody else in the hierarchy about why that a place where we're going to have these relatives because i know they don't want to see or take from any coming here to be with their people instead of sleeping in cars or under bridges is a step up and gives them a sense of community that isn't always possible when suffering from homelessness especially when you're a member of an oppressed people but as thomas anderson told me it's not about us and them the wall of forgotten natives is all of us i think that. the police

brutality obviously the lack of understanding of when people need help and healing they look at people as less when it comes to you know nonviolent drug offenses that are policies and statutes that are not law. people are just dismissed they use the word crazy the use the word mentally ill they use the words of labeling to where they can dismiss things that are all that's their problem that's not you know our problem it's not our children that's their children when there were like i said all four of those directions all directions all nations all conscious of you being. you know into the home and that means we're all related we're all relatives. who've powerful most powerful you know you were very. describable but more i mean there's like kids there's older people there with no homes no to go to or you see you know police cameras with generators with us always open fire pits and things like.

they're not allowed anything no i mean with the one thing as we saw you know fire was there there had been one of the small fires that we saw somebody driving by had been concerned call them and there's been a small fire but it was put out that is one of the issues is that they're not allowed to have generators which could be a much safer way of keeping people who are murdered are running things that they're not a lap so it puts them in a position of having to burn wood for heat and as you said it just gets harder and harder as as time goes on and it's only going to get colder being from the midwest i can tell you as you know you know it's only going to get colder every day it's node the day before we had gotten there i mean it melted but as they said most of these tents and. structures are not going to withstand even the snow that comes in a window in minnesota winter so that is one of the reasons of trying to at least get a large group of people over across the street to that spot but that the red lake nation which is that first they have to demolish the buildings. and they have to

clear it off and then what they're going to do is put three or so large fema like trailers we're not talking about a camper trailer start with very large trailers they have about fifty beds each but they're heated the downside to that is there's little to no privacy and these there are sort of bunk beds and all of that so you have a lot of people probably aren't going to want to be in that situation it's much like a shelter but it's a better situation for a lot of people because they'll be with people they know and that's that's the one . move that's being made one group about twelve people have been county i believe had given them. a fourplex so twelve people got a home this week and that's it's kind of work as it's housing is the biggest one i mean you're surrounded down there by by large highrises that have immigrant housing and yet they're still waiting for their affordable housing has kind of amazing when you think that like ok everyone deserves houser to get out enough to do this and

immigrants and those i was you know know it's amazing to me is that. you know what's amazing to me what you're saying is that like these people deserve homes just as much as anyone else goes because it's like their bijan is people who are you know that's what's incredible i mean the the a median income according to u.s. census data twenty fifteen was the average white minnesota household tickled sixty seven thousand dollars a year while american indian households make thirty six thousand dollars a year that's ridiculous it's a problem that could have been prevented you know with a little pre-planning right and not some pre-planning i mean it can be done which is what you can see through those high rises and they say we know you can build down here you know you can do it and that's what's really the tough part of saying you know they see that there's you know there's a lot of immigrant housing which is great and there's a spot for native american heritage but that takes federal funding there isn't the state and the local the county either don't have enough or aren't willing to give up enough money to just fund that on which means you need to have federal funding

and look. the median home purchase price in the city of minneapolis is about two hundred fifty seven thousand dollars which is about like i think almost thirty thirty some odd percent above the national average the average cost of living in minneapolis went up five percent and the average cost of a two bedroom apartment in the city of minneapolis for rent is sixteen hundred dollars so you're looking at people who aren't even making minimum wage and these are people that address this so they can't vote and it's just an ongoing thing which is why we're going to there's a lot more to tell about this story and we'll have stories every day and be sharing as this story develops this is a huge important story and thank you so much trouble there for good not there covering this like you said we're not going to let this one last thank you so much for art as we go to break court watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics you cover the facebook and twitter see our full shows that are coming up we speak with him friends of the house and justice league on the massive income inequality that continues the growth in u.s. cities across the nation stay tuned to watch it all.

and your own pal dot com not that. long type of time to pull enough. to know more i. am only. in slump in there is a trade in young girls sold into an underground sex in the street sometimes but the people they trust the most. down.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sport lessness i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. prosecution will need to become almost. a softball design. where you push us off the threat of fines somebody no longer seem to i mean yeah i mean i mean did our political pressure on that god you've only known concluded to unearth her security jennifer knows when to pull your bundled up business models he was my american corporations jadhav lawson called police sold on good mental disease as an m.p. use the controls on the scene and the solution. lies

up in association. i noted when he saw some dogs it is just really deleted an investigative documentary. ghost war on oxy. one of the crown jewels of the american south is the beautiful and scenic atlanta georgia home to the avengers movies the n.f.l. zid lana falcons delta airlines and of course our good friends c.n.n. according to a recent bloomberg report based on the gini coefficient as calculated by the u.s. census bureau atlanta now takes the crown as the city with the greatest income

disparity in america yes while atlanta may be home to multiple fortune five hundred companies including coca-cola the poverty rate in the city sits at about twenty four percent nearly one in four according to the census bureau in fact eighteen percent of households and atlanta make over one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year while over nine percent makes under just ten thousand a year these statistics prove that income inequality is not just a problem contains the west coast or new york city but is a scourge affecting all communities across the country here to help us better understand what brought the city of atlanta to the top of the income inequality list so we can better combat this epidemic as a whole it as a whole is ten friends and one of the co-founders of the housing justice league and the program director for the american friends service committee is atlanta economic justice program welcome. it's great to be on so tim while most people would assume you know the cities with the biggest income inequality would be places like new york city or los angeles you know it's kind of shocking to see

a land of the top of the steel why is this. well yeah i mean it is shocking you'd think maybe sam cisco but the reality is that large urban areas outside of the south. very and. seventy's and eighty's when safety nets around affordable housing some of those safety nets include rent control community lead rent board just cause a vixen law mandatory inclusionary zoning for major developments and a culture of community benefit agreements between major developments and the communities that they seek to extract wealth from so atlanta is about forty years behind the rest of the country when we talk about urban centers in addition to that we got hit very hard by the housing crisis eleven million people lost their homes but it disproportionately affected the atlanta area. and since then since two

thousand and twelve ninety five percent of everything built in the city for housing is considered luxury while on top of that we lost five percent of our affordable housing stock each year since two thousand and twelve and we've had this escalation just a cascade of mega developments that have gone or some of the largest welfare checks and in atlanta history and we continue to do these mega developments that shovel tens and millions in some cases billions of dollars into corporations right out of the taxpayers' pockets. so one of on the one hand you hear reports that the economy is strong especially from the white house obviously and it makes one wonder why are we seeing such high unemployment in places like atlanta when these are home to fortune five hundred companies you've got coca-cola you've got the airlines aren't these supposed to be these huge job creators. yeah yeah and so i think it's

important to emphasize the effect of the housing crisis on atlanta a lot of low income folks on fixed incomes actually own property. and those folks. lost all of their wealth and we have some neighborhoods i think the most impacted neighborhoods and they recall pittsburgh it's right close to downtown they lost eighty six percent of their wealth and so what happened in neighborhoods like that is more than half of the properties all of a sudden are vacant now what happened in atlanta is a company called blackstone and other companies follow their lead they came in and bought tens and thousands of these bank owned vacant properties fix them up just nice enough to rent and now they're there bundling these leases and actually securitizing them and training them on wall street and so what we had here was this recovery that left a lot of people behind and folks that still have not figured out

a way to catch up in this economy and so the recovery was it's a bit of a false recovery especially around housing in atlanta you know atlanta's not the only city that's been hit with companies like blackstone that come in and buy all of their bank owned single family home stock but that happened here and so there is this artificial recovery that has left behind almost half of the city. while that's really it and i think it's also it's important to note that i think while we're are under. this is really a nationwide crisis it's hitting every urban community some cities are responding better than atlanta our minimum wage is seven twenty five here so we're tone line with the federal minimum wage and so as the property values are going up as a result of grabbing all of the available housing stock the cost of living has gone

way up and wages have been stagnant for twenty years here in atlanta i mean it is impossible to survive and thrive off seven twenty five in atlanta where our median income is about sixty two thousand dollars a year you've got a great toy and it was. want to get to the next is when you talk about cost of living. how much it does got to play that's playing such a huge role in you know just ever widening this income gap and ever widening the gap between rich and poor at the example because it is a very important also you know you see rents skyrocketing across u.s. cities i'm sure that ladder there you see it out in los angeles you see it even in minneapolis is you know talking about earlier you know how is that i mean look if people can't afford homes that's one thing but now people can't afford to you know rent. how you can't get a job you can earn a living if you can't afford a place to live how much is that playing into this as well. i mean that's that's

a huge factor and i do think that. we have to look at that the housing crisis and how it was dealt with and the very folks that caused the housing crisis have figured out a way to profit off the crisis that they created through buying up all this hot housing stock and creating what some people forsee is as our next bubble around real estate is when companies like blackstone decide to dump this but i do want to make an important point here that what we're dealing with in atlanta and i think other cities as well but what we're dealing with in atlanta is not actually a crisis of economic resources. our city budget is not a random shopping list it is a list of our moral priorities and really since two thousand and twelve we continue to spin most of our extra money as a city with these men on these mega developments that basically give hundreds of millions of dollars to folks at r.t.

have so much i mean for one example is our stadium i know a lot of cities are dealing with these the economics of sports stadiums but we have one of our richest residents arthur blank who started home depot walk into the mayor's office and say hey i know no one's asking for it but i'd like to build a new giant stadium to take the place of this perfectly fine stadium and i want you to give me seven hundred million dollars to do it and so there is no public discourse the mayor just makes an announcement hey we're going to give seven hundred million dollars away to build this stadium that no one asked for so we're what we're really in a crisis we're in a crisis of political will we're a price is a crisis of moral priority if we as a city and as a country continue to prioritize those that have so much for these mega developments and the rest of us have to pay for it we will continue to widen this gap. between is it basically a transfer of wealth from the public good into. a multi-billionaire in the case

of like the falcon stadium or in atlanta right now we have another may good development that's being proposed with the cia i'm group out of l.a. to turn over two point five billion dollars of taxpayer money so they can build this corporate town in the middle of our city it's a real crisis of political will we are at a place in atlanta that if we reworked that budget to reflect the values of the land of the values that i believe most of our residents hold we would be we would be able to be in a position where folks had enough where we could build communities where folks could survive and thrive regardless of what their wages are i believe that we have a moral priority to make sure that folks are able to not only survive but thrive in the communities they work on work in regardless of how much their pay is so that means if we are saying minimum wage is seven twenty five we have a moral obligation to make sure that we have the ability to house those folks in a way that they can survive and thrive and we can do it the resources aren't top

stickle here it's the political will and that's the next question i have for you is how did you. land or other citizens affected by the same thing as you point out this isn't just key to atlanta is affecting the entire country how sure this is how do so this is reversed this political will get it back to where. readjust our political priorities in this country so that we're not seeing income gaps of this size and wealth gaps the size. well you know we heard before that all politics are local and that's one of the one of the things that we've been doing in atlanta and you know i've seen a partners around the country doing the same thing is it is it is time for us to start looking at our city budgets as a moral document and to really look at look at our city budgets and say how how can we do better so what we're doing in atlanta is we're building up tenet associations because. the same times we're developing analysis we have to base build we have to

create a base of people that care about these issues and are going to show up at the those important moments to be their city council meetings and to really get involved in the political process here so we in the last four years we've built up eleven tenet associations complexes around the city that's a voter base that has a base of folks that we can continue to grow and grow and grow and so what we need to be doing is not only coming up with smart sensible economically sane analysis our city budgets in these major projects we also have to be base building we have to be putting that analysis out to folks in order to do that. organizers around around the country have to focus on building a base of folks and so we're starting that base with the very folks that are most affected by these economic issues and that is where the low road work of the great work out there to my daughter so once again tim friends one of the co-founders of

the housing justice league program director of the american friends service committee atlanta economic justice program good big title there thank you so much tom for coming on and educating us today means a lot of. pleasure to be here. outside of the tragedy horror and wasted tax dollars the war on drugs has also brought us some also we say innovative examples of human ingenuity and creativity when it comes to smuggling drugs across the border national or state and no better example of this can be found in the recent thwarted efforts of a drug trafficking ring in southern california who attempted to ship nearly ninety pounds of methamphetamines to hawaii twenty five of which is disguised as ancient five hundred year old aztec calendar stones statues and decorations nine members of a truly creative with crafts orange county drug ring were indicted by the d.a. for the shipments for the defendant facing a series of charges including conspiracy to distribute i mean imagine

a world without the war on drugs and the shadow economy it produces where the the creativity of these nine folks could be channeled in the right directions to benefit society the magic bill is really a genius and really incredible for the creative right there what are their craft their makers their basis what they're making that's what. screws point it's up to bad we couldn't do we've got to have this war on drugs or if that is our show for you today remember everyone in this world we are told that we are above the sword so you all i love i am tired roll over and on top of the wall and keep on watching those hawks and a great night everybody. i

don't have faith in this government official of president i don't have faith in the system i see i've got it i'm too liberal the system is not decided for people like me who move. as long as there's. different reports here for different reasons lost a job lost a home. most people in philadelphia are only about two paychecks away from homelessness. extenders survival guide look stay single malt in the store and simply travel all

the services. be sure it's military you going to get a. public no. repatriation scheme will get the rest in seven years. though of the seventy year olds kaiser report. when lawmakers manufacture consent to step into the public wealth. when the ruling classes protect themselves. with the final. listen to the one percent. to ignore middle of the room six. million real news is. cranking gave americans a lot of new job opportunities i needed to come up here to make some money i

could make twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year truck so i chose to drive truck people rush to a small town in north dakota was an unemployment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to gold but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here and just slow down so much they lost their jobs that laid off the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. and it's a tough reality to deal. with

a battle. crimea in mourning the first funerals are held for some of the twenty killed in wednesday's college massacre the survivors called the tragedy of the. b.s.a. the separation silk long don't want to see. the bones of the change. of news today there's outrage in the u.k. after the release of a radical islamist cleric. supporting islamic. face who could take the.