[dropcap size=big]L[/dropcap]ate Saturday morning, a homeless man was found dead on the streets of Koreatown. The coroner picked the man up on New Hampshire near Wilshire, steps from the Vermont/Wilshire Metro stop and a block away from a proposed emergency homeless shelter that was set to be built earlier this year.
It was one more death on the streets in a year that saw an alarming spike in crimes against the homeless.
According to Los Angeles County Coroner records, more than 1,200 homeless people have died since 2017. Violent crime against homeless people is up significantly, according to the Los Angeles Police Department's yearly report.
A 2017 report by the Department of Health said that a significant amount of those homeless deaths were caused by preventable illnesses like cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, diabetes, cancer, cirrhosis, severe bacterial infections, and other treatable conditions.
On the same day that the homeless man in Koreatown died, the LAPD announced that crimes against the homeless had gone up 96 percent in the last year – a startling figure.