Opinion: She tried to rent motel rooms for homeless people. A NIMBY hospital stopped her

BAKERSFIELD — There is no shortage of excuses in California about why we continue to let tens of thousands of people live — and often die — in filthy encampments on street corners, in alleys and under freeways year after year. Anna Laven, executive director of the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative, did not expect to hear them from a doctor in charge of a hospital.