"Housing, not handcuffs," says LA Councilperson, while his office gripes about homeless people in front of their door

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Originally published at: "Housing, not handcuffs," says LA Councilperson, while his office gripes about homeless people in front of their door | Boing Boing

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I get homeless folks jumping my fence with some regularity, living near some encampments. Sometimes I see them, sometimes I only find the signs someone has been there - stuff stolen or broken, things they dropped (e.g. narconon meeting pamphlets). It makes me nervous, but one guy wearing the ski mask totally freaked me out - he was clearly up to no good.

Looking at the video, I’m struck by the piles of stripped bikes - those bikes were clearly stolen, and there sure are a lot of them.

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Well, on my daily bike rides, I can say that the scene along the Ocean Front Walk has improved dramatically. The last major patch of tents remains on the northern edge of the Walk. The grassy border between the Walk and the bike path is mostly empty though in need of fresh grass seed. I don’t know where the homeless are going. They say they being offered shelter. I hope it’s a real solution and not just for optics during the summer tourism season.

That is scary video you captured. He doesn’t seem phased by the camera at all. I hope you keep your doors locked at all times. Good thing Venice hasn’t given you a hard time for the height of your fence as they have for folks living in other parts of this town. My cameras are constantly recording instances of these folks pulling on the handles of my car doors hoping it was left unlocked.

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This whole process is going to be ugly. They might be able to put up the people on the boardwalk in motel rooms (rather than the failed shelter system no-one wants to go to), but some will refuse to leave and will be dragged off in front of the cameras.

Also, as you say, they’re only a fraction of the unhoused in Venice, and an even smaller fraction of those in encampments throughout the county. Clearing an area to make it more tourist friendly doesn’t come close to addressing the real problem.

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Hope Dixie had a great bubble bath. I have been reading her signs for a year and keeping my dogs away from that little Chihuahua.

Density of tents along the boardwalk and the 3rd/Rose Gold’s Gym encampments seems to be going down dramatically – but it is very unclear where these folks are all going to wind up. The Cadillac Hotel is a great place to land and I am thrilled it is still being used. It is an older, beachfront, hotel that has independent rooms without a joint ventilation system – making it an early COVID-19 safe hotel for local homeless. I think the owner was thrilled to work with the city on HotelKey or whatever that one was called as well.

As an aside: The Candle restaurant across Dudley volunteered to help feed the residents. Having watched some of that process, and how the city apparently found the offer more annoying than helpful, and then chose to bring meals in from downtown… I that awarding contracts to compatriots is still very deeply ingrained in the LA City culture.

Much like you, I have a lot of videos of people with bad intent boldly ignoring the security cameras.

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