It started in the early hours of an April morning, when the Los Angeles Police Department decided to make a sweep of the intersection of 3rd and Rose, in Venice, California. Since the implementation of a city ordinance (in violation of 2 separate state laws) to close Ocean Front Walk (the Boardwalk) between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. – claiming that a city street was now under the mandate of the Department of Recreation and Parks — the homeless population of Venice had been pushed systematically to 3rd Street. Now it was time for them to leave there too. No rest for the weary, as the old adage goes.
As there is still no legal justification for simply removing people from city streets, the City of Los Angeles decided on the next best solution – harassment. Any unattended belongings would be summarily removed and destroyed (in violation of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution).
Among those gathered without access to any other option for housing than a concrete pillow was David Busch. In his belongings was a makeshift toilet, which consisted of a bucket with plastic bags, a shower-sized tent for privacy, toiletries and cleaning supplies.
Although Venice Beach is the second most visited tourist destination in California, public bathrooms are locked at night and no facilities are available for those with nowhere to go or sleep, in one of the richest cities in the richest country on the planet. Basic human services which allow even a modicum of dignity are denied daily to the very poorest among us.
As the police approached David they told him that he must dismantle the improvised toilet – that it was a public nuisance. David refused and was subsequently arrested, ticketed and released on site.
In the days just prior to Christmas, a 12 member jury returned a not guilty verdict, creating a massive public-shaming incident for the city, drawing a spotlight on the city’s policy of withholding basic human services from its own citizens in need.
Unfortunately, even with the public exposure and outrage over the criminalization of poverty, denial of needed services, and outright heartlessness, and after being slapped down by a jury of twelve, city officials trumpeted by City Attorney Carman “I Hate Poor People” Trutanich have doubled down on this insanity by promising to continue prosecuting all those who would dare urinate while homeless.
Shame on you, Los Angeles.
Editor’s note: As we go to press, a positive development has just opened for us in this front of struggle. California Assembly 5, titled the “Homeless Bill of Rights,” was introduced this week by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco. This bill is meant to keep communities from rousting people who have nowhere to turn, and will add “homelessness” to the list of those protected from discrimination, alongside sex, race, religion and sexual orientation. This is the best news we’ve received in a long time as it has the potential of over-turning discriminatory ordinances all the way up and down the coast.
The biggest reason we have a homeless problem is that our leaders, the police, Path and the many other agencies that deal with this issue have no real answers on how to fix it.
In fact, they all make it worse.
Arresting homeless people for sleeping somewhere does not help them.
Giving them tickets they can’t pay does not make a homeless person’s situation better.
“Clean ups” and other tactics to get homeless people moving only shows how stupid our leaders are.
If a homeless person has to move, then he or she will only crash at the next location.
In the mean time, another homeless person is kicked out of their location and takes the place of the person just kicked out.
It’s a cycle that goes on and on.
Homeless people have to sleep somewhere and they will.
If they can’t be inside, then they will be outside.
What part of this do the police not understand?
Also, the economy is still bad.
In the last several years, people have lost jobs, belongings, homes and in some cases, their own families.
Many of these former tax payers wound up on the streets.
If what they went through was not bad enough, here comes the law making things worse.
To prove the fact that no one has answers to the situation, our leaders backed up by the authorities, enact illegal laws to deal with things.
The beach curfew that now extends to Ocean Front Walk is as idiotic a “law” as some of the worst on record.
You can’t treat human beings like animals.
The entire situation is disgusting and wrong.
The motto of the police is to Protect and Serve.
That means protecting and serving all people no matter their income or how they live.
The current treatment of the homeless has to stop.
Either have real answers that help all concerned or shut up.
The law is just making everything horrible.
George Vreeland Hill