Imagine a city map. Then cut off any private property, as well as any space on a public sidewalk, within 150 yards of a school, daycare, park, or library. Also, deduct any location within 1.5 m of a building entrance or exit, 3 m from a loading ramp or driveway, 150 m from an overpass, underpass, motorway access, tunnel, bridge, bike path or subway.
The few remaining rooms are now, if any, the few remaining places it is legal to be homeless in Los Angeles after Mayor Eric Garcetti signed a sweeping new rule Thursday making it illegal for the unhoused, to be in almost all places around the world city.
LA had more than 66,000 homeless people at the last citywide census, up 12.7 percent from the previous year, and these people now face summons, fines, or offenses for lack of housing in public.
Los Angeles City Council approved Measure 13-2 earlier this week.
“That’s what it’s about for me … where can people go, where can people sleep when they have no alternative,” Councilor Mike Bonin said at the meeting they agreed to the regulation.
Mr. Bonin was once vacant himself and was annoyed that the city only had one lodging capacity to accommodate around 39 percent of the uninhabited population each night.
“What about the other 61%?” Asked Mr. Bonin. “Some nights I slept in the car, some nights when my car was in the shop I slept on the beach. I can’t tell you how much turmoil there is in your heart when the sun goes down and you don’t know where to sleep. “
Proponents of the measure say it doesn’t criminalize homelessness, but rather regulates homeless camps that have proliferated in the city in recent years, while minimizing law enforcement contact with this vulnerable population.
“Above all, this regulation does not make homelessness illegal,” Councilor Paul Krekorian said earlier this month. “It does not make behavior that is fundamental to humanity illegal. It guarantees that we will restore walkways that can be walked on again. It protects the users of our public infrastructure and the uninhabited residents of our city from interactions with cars, around loading docks, driveways, etc. It guarantees access to our hydrants, house entrances. “
“We don’t have to choose whether to keep our public spaces clean and safe, and connect homeless Angelenos to the shelter and services they so desperately need. We can and will do both and I support the actions of the council because they will help to achieve this goal in a humane and compassionate way and to address the urgent needs in our communities, “the mayor’s office added in a statement The independent one.
Housing activists have criticized the city’s spending priorities. In the 2021 budget, which began July 1, nearly $ 2 billion will be spent on the Los Angeles Police Department, while less than $ 1 billion will be spent on homelessness.
Accordingly a recent UCLA report, The roots of the LA homeless crisis are deep, stretching back to the years after World War II, when housing construction lagged behind population growth. From there, a clash of racial zoning, harsh crime laws, government cuts in mental health care, and other factors has resulted in LA’s current abandoned crisis that has hit black and Latin American communities particularly hard.
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