Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/02/los-angeles-spent-1-73m-on-anti-homeless-signs.html
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All that money wasted on just… hurting people already down… just… PUT THEM IN HOUSING, FFS!!!
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If you want to see more monumental waste on short-term non-solutions to homelessness like this one, wait until the city has to rush to “clean up” the city for the 2028 Olympics (a boondoggle in and of itself).
The frustrating thing is that Karen Bass has largely taken a Housing First approach, after decades of other mayors refusing to do so. However, the interim housing programmes (mostly old motels purchased by the city and a smattering of tiny house villages) have only made a slight dent in the problem. The encampments are still there, the permanently moored RVs are still there, Skid Row is still there. One can’t avoid seeing it in L.A.
So they also waste money on cosmetic garbage like this in order to appease conservatives and liberal NIMBYs who’d rather sweep the problem under the rug. I fear the STDS9 Bell Riots scenario you often reference, with Sanctuary Districts, might follow in course and become reality.
As hard as it was to get Housing First solutions implemented, there are other issues too many people don’t want to confront. In the end, decent housing in L.A. County is unaffordable to most working people who make the city run-- especially those with young families. In the end, the toxic legacy of the Reagans means the city is hobbled in addressing the needs of the unhoused who have mental illnesses or are plagued by substance addiction. And in the end, global warming will keep people flocking to SoCal more than other regions because at least they don’t have to live rough on the streets in snow and risk freezing to death (or alternately roasting to death in the desert southwest).
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It’s an old term for graphic design work that was ready to be photographed and turned into printing plates. Now it means a digital file that has the right image quality and technical characteristics to be ready for printing.
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Obligatory Anatol France quote:
‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.’
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While $1.7 million is a lot to waste not helping, that is less than one thousandth of either the LA police or sheriff’s annual budgets. If the city took what it spent criminalizing people and instead invested in them, housing and healthcare suddenly become very affordable
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If that sign in the article’s picture is an actual example, it looks like they are location-specific, which would presumably further drive up the cost.
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I lived in the hellscape that was Los Angeles Council District #11 under Mike Bonin, the previous representative. He wisely decided not to run for re-election, after allowing sidewalk encampments everywhere in his district (the only ones he got rid of in a hurry were those along the route Bernie Sanders traveled when he came through the district). His designated successor lost in a landslide. Things are better now: both for those put into housing…and for everyone else in the district. The voters spoke loud and clear on this one.
I’ll bite, as a “Council District representative”, what powers did he possess to alleviate the situation?
Same ones his successor had, except for the willingness to use them. He had been homeless himself, and was unable to bring himself to move people out of encampments. His successor, Traci Park, used LAMC 41.18 to clear encampments near schools, churches, and other “sensitive” areas, as well as places where they were in danger. Everyone moved out of the encampments was given the opportunity to move into transitional (read, temporary) housing. Many refused, and simply relocated, but this had the effect of breaking up the truly massive encampments, which were indeed a cancer.
What the hell happened to Karen Bass? She was one of the good ones, in congress. Now? Just another hack shoveling money at the cops, and not accomplishing much else…
I assume it’s as @gracchus says above: she’s obligated to spend money on this kind of bullshit, to get more useful things done as well.
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For that money, they probably could have set up 50 units of tiny home transitional housing.
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If housing is what makes people normal, rent control would be a lot more straightforward.
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