Golden City Proposal

31st October 2023

Dear Governor Newsom,

I turned on the news the other day to see another nightmare in this time of civil unrest. This was taking place in our home California and the question that comes to mind when I think of my beloved golden state is: what will we do about homelessness?

Yes, the story was about looting in Oakland, but my own home of Los Angeles is suffering from the problem as are many of the major cities of our great state. To compound the issue, the tourism dollar is what will most likely bring the Specter of prosperity back to us, and the large homeless population of inner-city LA is ward against this spirit.

There are places where we can’t walk in Los Angeles because of all the tents and garbage kept by the homeless. Looting and shoplifting is closing businesses and who would want to come and see a city plagued with trash and human suffering?

Further, not only do we receive the homeless of the rest of the country we also get refugees and all the tired poor masses yearning to breathe free from all the world. California has become a dumping ground for the world’s unwanted and we have no choice but to embrace these migrations. We, the Golden State, need to find a place for these unwanted masses, and I think I know where they may go.

A hundred miles north of the great metropolis of Los Angeles is California City. This is a place tooled to be as large as Los Angeles and with long forgotten unpaved roads where no development has kept the city plans alive.

The reason for the desolation of California City is a lack of an economic engine to drive construction. There is plenty of room for expansion and all the empty plots one would need to build the houses and amenities needed to support the homeless of Los Angeles.

I would call this the ‘Golden City Proposal’ and would mean the designation of part of California City as a rehabilitation center for the state's homeless. We can’t move the homeless encampments and Hoovervilles without a place for the homeless to go so why not build a place for them to go two hours outside of the largest city in the state.

We need a place for the homeless to go and moving them out of the city of L.A. should improve the economy, bring in more tax revenue, and bring more people out of homelessness.

Just a thought,



Richard Leland Neal