Originally published at: LA County Sheriff vows to empty Venice Beach encampments by July 4th | Boing Boing
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If anything in LA is consistent I would expect someone to sue the Sheriff before very much gets done.
It’ll probably take a judge’s order like the one imposed regarding clearing out Skid Row by September. That still doesn’t address where these thousands of people will be housed in the short term. The existing shelter system is a complete disaster and there are only so many derelict and disused motels that can expropriated by the city or county and re-furbished.
The best Housing First solution, tiny home villages, will take years to build, especially after the NIMBYs in wealthy neighbourhoods are told that every parking district will have one. There will also be opposition in some quarters to reserving certain villages for certain communities so as to avoid repeating the core error of the existing shelter system.
I’m glad something is being done, but it’s a shame things had to reach this truly shocking and shameful point to get the city and county authorities moving.
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It is appalling that people focus on the short term fixes rather than actually moving to solve the problem. Shuffling people around to get them out of their sight only further dehumanizes these people who desperately need help. As you say it’s unfortunate that really solving homelessness will take years, and help is needed now… it just goes to highlight what a joke help for homelessness has been and how little cities really care. This is not a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, and even then they’re not willing to throw that much money at it.
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So what’s the solution?
Short term, Victoria BC contracted rooms from hotel and motel rooms. They may have also purchased some of the buildings.
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A partial solution here and not the one I was looking up. Also only targets a small (but much larger than it should be) but significant portion of the problem.
Edit: this is the one I was looking for.
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I think the German stated that these people were being offered hotel rooms on the spot.
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I’d never like to give the impression i have answers, my hope is that homeless folk be treated as human beings which often is far from the case. as educated as i am i really don’t feel qualified to talk about this, i just know what is being done so far is either half hearted or not the right thing to do. I am confident that there’s folks here in BB that know a hell of a lot more about social programs and homelessness than i do.
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This is a big problem with no easy solutions. Cops, city, county, state government, etc. have access to the massive resources needed to address it, but are hampered by bad laws, conflicting public opinion, fucked up cops that are expected to do an impossible job, etc. Private organizations, non-profits, etc. have the resources to address MAYBE 5% of it. In addition, these organizations all have different and sometimes contradictory “solutions” that are nice for the small handful of people they can help, but don’t do much of anything to address the larger issue.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk moves to Texas, Jeff Bezos goes to space, the un-famous billionaires buy another yacht, and a columnist for the Washington Post suggests that it is “unfair” to consider taxing this obscene wealth.
We need to keep working to find ways to answer “I don’t know how to explain to you that you need to care about other people”. When this becomes the dominant ethos for humanity - we really will be living in (insert prophet here)'s Kingdom.
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