The Los Angeles Homeless Containment Thread

[CA4Now]

Luis Flores, Malibu's public safety liaison, said the city is showcasing its preliminary numbers months ahead of the official countywide release “to be proactive with our messaging.” Over the years, he said, there’s been an ebb and flow that creates “a perception that not a lot is being done and that we have a major crisis on our hands. We want to ensure and highlight that a lot of great work is being done.”

Since 2017, Malibu has contracted with the People Concern* for services and currently has two outreach workers and a housing navigator.

A Malibu ordinance prohibits overnight stays “in any public park, public beach or public street (including in a vehicle parked on a public street).” An amendment bringing the law into compliance with federal court rulings specifies that it will not be enforced on people who “do not have access to adequate temporary shelter.”...

* https://www.thepeopleconcern.org/

Malibu’s homeless numbers are down nearly 80% from 2020, city announces:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...official-count

[CA4Now]

The four families arrived in the U.S. by air and bus from El Paso and San Antonio after crossing the Mexican border into Texas. They came from Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras and Venezuela with no connections to Los Angeles. They included a 22-year-old woman pregnant with twins and a single mother with three small children.

Their fare was paid by faith-based groups in Texas, and it was unclear whether the trips were related to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign to send migrants on buses and planes to other states. A call to Catholic Charities in San Antonio, the organization one family identified as its sponsor, was not returned.

Skid Row, an intense environment with half-clothed people wandering aimlessly, open drug use and a pervasive stench, is universally judged an unfit place for children to live. But the new wave of migrants arriving from Texas has added to the strain on both public and private agencies working to prevent that.

The four families living communally on Skid Row became connected at Union Rescue Mission, two blocks away on San Pedro Street, where they stayed for 90 days until they were asked to pay rent.

Since October, the mission has been overwhelmed by migrants, who mostly find their way there by word of mouth and now make up 75% of the 400 family members there, said Kitty Davis-Walker, vice president for public relations.

With donations declining since early last year, the privately funded mission in December decided that anyone staying beyond 90 days would have to help cover their costs by contributing 15% of their household income.

Children on Skid Row: Four migrant families form a tenuous community:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...ck-of-skid-row

[CA4Now]

Nearly 4 in 10 renters in Los Angeles County have worried about losing their homes and becoming homeless in the last few years, according to the results of a new survey from UCLA. A similar share have worried that they or their family would go hungry because they cannot afford the cost of food.

The 2024 Quality of Life Index, prepared by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, suggests that the county‘s renters are feeling particularly intense strain from the steep cost of housing combined with inflation.

Median rent in Los Angeles is $2,083, according to Apartment List. That’s down slightly from last year but still high enough to create significant challenges for renters across the region.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...c-survey-finds

[CA4Now]

Progress!

When Many Mansions, an affordable housing nonprofit, purchased the half-acre parcel opposite what was formerly Sun Valley High School in 2017, the Los Angeles Unified School District approached it with a proposal to develop the land into housing for homeless families with children in the district.

After nearly seven years of overcoming bureaucratic and pandemic hurdles, the project is finished. Families began moving into the 26-unit residential building in December.

Rubang’s family of three was among the first to move in on Day One. This was the first time any of them had a place to call home.

Nearly 15,000 students in the district are experiencing homelessness, according to the LAUSD. However, this figure is likely an undercount since the data relies on self-identification, which many students and families choose not to disclose.

Sun Valley housing project offers stability to homeless families in LAUSD:
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-hou...ilies-in-lausd

[CA4Now]

"If you lost your employment and medical benefits right now, would you have enough money in your bank to pay your inflated L.A. rent for even one month? Even those who can say “yes” might recall a time when they were not on such sure footing. It’s all too easy for many people to fall into homelessness, and then it’s often hard to escape. I was fortunate.

If Santa Monica police had knocked on my window any of those months I was tucked in my Toyota at Ocean Park and 21st and arrested me, I’d have a criminal record. That could have made it impossible to regain my job and income, pay child support, be eligible for certain housing. I was lucky not to end up with a criminal record.

I was also lucky to have a job history and contacts to help me gain new and better employment.

But I was close enough to being unlucky to have some empathy for the individuals still sleeping in their cars, in city parks or on the Venice boardwalk. For me, sleeping in my car was a choice; for many it’s a last resort. They shouldn’t be arrested for running out of options."

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...-living-in-car

[V8 Vega]

Two mens bodies found in a homemade cave in a Northridge homeless encampment. ABC TV news

[JohnG72]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Our politicians have been telling us that there's nothing that can be done about homelessness without building extremely expensive housing units or without investing in cargo containers for $600,000 each, both of which make an extremely hearty profit for contractors. However, now that the Coronavirus is here, all across this nation, political leaders are finding cost effective ways to shelter people. Hmmmmmmm...

This has been the goal from the start. It got thwarted when Hillary lost in 2016.

It’s no coincidence that immediately after Eric Garcetti came into Mayors office, a deal was struck with the ACLU to not sue City of LA over the homeless, enforcement of quality of life crimes ceased, and the homeless population began to rapidly grow, a growth that continues despite unprecedented and utterly inept management by those same politicians.

For what it’s worth, in an interview prior to Garcetti running for City Council, he stated that he believed the government should provide everyone a house.

[V8 Vega]

Homeless set fire to a bunch of cars in downtown LA. They did it before also

[V8 Vega]

a homeless guy throwing rocks on the 110 near the 10 caused a motorcyclest to crash and several cars to get flats.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Suburban_Guy

Wasn't some LA sheriff type out there getting rid of the homeless on Venice beach last year or something? And here were are in December 2023, and clearing out the homeless from Venice beach and surrounding areas is still a monthly occurrence.

The Venice Dell homeless and low-income housing project in Venice, a 140-unit building, with four units for staff and the other 136 divided evenly between apartments for homeless people and apartments for lower-income individuals, will sit on a city-owned parking lot near the coast.

Now that the lawsuit against the city and developers has been rejected, it’s time for the city to stop stalling.

This project has already spent years in development. It’s frustrating enough that building affordable housing often requires years of cobbling together financing and approvals. It’s infuriating that any official in the city of Los Angeles would add to that timeline by putting off the work they need to do so it can get built.

Mayor Karen Bass has said she is determined to get homeless people inside and supports the development of more affordable housing. Yet she has waffled on her commitment to this project, saying last fall that she was in favor of some kind of affordable housing there but deferred to Traci Park, the council member whose district includes Venice and has long been opposed to the current project.

She must do better than that. There is very little affordable housing in Venice, and this project is desperately needed. If Bass truly wants affordable and homeless housing built in the city — and she has made every indication that this is her goal — she will have to push back against community groups and some City Council members who simply don’t want it in certain places and will roll out endless excuses.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...e-dell-housing