Town Hall Wrapup

Don Garza’s reference to the Los Angeles Community Action Network piqued my interest and I dug uip their website http://www.cangress.org/. They seem to be using the playbook of far-left types like ACORN and the Labor/Community Strategy Center. Very divisive with strategies that mostly involve perpetual protest. I hope we as a city are progressing beyond allowing issue be dominated by these dubious self-appointed guardians of the working class.

I thought the settlement was a dead issue, but apparently not. There’s still a lot of heat surrounding this subject. I entered the meeting last night opposing the settlement for various reasons, many of which were reiterated by the panelists. At the end of the evening, I left with a few more reasons but to my surprise I also took away a slightly elevated sense of regard for the ACLU’s perspective.

Orlando Ward, of the Midnight Mission, spoke eloquently about his personal experience getting off the streets. He and Harold Lauderdale, DLANC Rep. and a Skid Row resident made the point that legalizing sleeping on the streets is enabling residents. It’s sending a message to the residents and to society that this is okay. This acceptance will only hinder efforts to motivate lifestyle changes among the drug addicted residents.

I also found Don Garza’s view interesting. He sees no benefit in allowing the homeless to sleep in the designated area between 6am-9pm. What’s the point when as he says, the settlement would allow “for 41.18 d to be enforced outside of these boundaries 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In essence, allowing the homeless to be arrested in skid row during the day and the rest of the city all day, if they were in violation of this ordinance.”

Romona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU, spoke briefly and was the sole supporter of the settlement on the panel. I would have found the evening more valuable if a few more supporting views were represented. That said, I may be naive to a larger agenda, but Romona did not deliver her arguments with the abrasive liberal tone I was expecting. She expressed sincere compassion for business owners and home dwelling downtown residents. Truly, it must be a horrible cycle to be caught up in. Sleeping on the streets, getting arrested, and losing your possessions.

I want to believe that the ACLU does not support legalized sleeping on the streets as a long term solution and I want to believe that if someday homelessness doesn’t exist in our city, the ACLU will move on to another worthy cause. I don’t know, after reading Whitman Lam’s post, I’m back to thinking I may be naive.

What I AM clear about is that it’s NOT ok for a society to let its community members sleep on the street. The residents of Skid Row do not need a bandage. They’re dying and they need long term solutions.

Getting people off the streets and into shelters is a public benefit. They may not be lying around West L.A., but allowing them to camp in even a small area is still letting your hometown go to hell, even if you live 15 miles away and never go to downtown.

Anyway, here’s my big solution. Let’s outlaw TENTS. It seems from a lot of testimony I’ve heard, one of the biggest problems is the tents; inside these tents there’s prostitution going on, drug use, drug dealing, and who knows what else. Not in all of them, but a significant number of them.

Why can’t we outlaw pitching tents on Los Angeles sidewalks? That way, the law doesn’t prohibit people, or even people’s actions. It merely prohibits a certain OBJECT. This is not a panacea surely, but wouldn’t this take a big chunk of crime away from Skid Row? People would still be sleeping there, but it would harder for them to hide criminal activities.

Outlaw tents!!???!! That would violate the constitutional rights of…tents!!!

Scott… outlawing the pitching of tents on LA sidewalks is actually a very interesting and probably do-able idea. If there is such an ordinance though, it should extend a little farther to specifically outlaw “the erection or maintaining of any object, structure or obstruction” not specifically allowed by LA codes or regulations. If tents alone are outlawed, we’ll just be back to cardboard shelters, etc… If the intention is to limit or at least discourage the installation of objects behind or within which various nefarious activities occur, the City should approach the issue as such. 20 years ago I had my days of living in less than desirable circumstances (some of that time was spent on the streets, though not in LA), so I am not one to try to suggest the City “outlaw homelessness”. I do believe, however, that legitimizing the sidewalk campsites amounts to society and the City effectively saying something like “we wash our hands of this problem - “they” can live in tents on the street in CCE, and now we’ve done our part”. It is a completely patronizing attitude, and while I do believe our illustrious mayor does mean well, institutionalizing Skid Row will simply say that it is too tough an issue and it is OK to give up.

PArt of a e-mail I sent to a friend after the meeting

this settlement is about just claiming that the creation of this official containment zone allows the powers that be to ignore the issue of affordable housing. I said it . It is the same battle the City and the county had over who should take care of the homeless. But this time it is a battle between the ACLU and the City and the settlement is just another way to give up on any affordable housing solutions. We can’t solve it that way , so hey we let them sleep on the streets of skid row and we have provided safe decent place to live. Please!!!!

there is another community meeting about this tonight – there’s fliers up on main street (and likely elsewhere). i didn’t grab one or take a snapshot, so of course i forgot the details.

The Meeting is at 6 pm at the James Wood Community Center at 400 East 5th street.

If you live downtown it would be wise to walk . It is on the corner of East 5th Street and San Julian.

PArking may not be available. There are red zones everywhere.

The LAPD , the ACLU , LA can ,Downtown Mental Health will be there. I , and many others will be on the panel. It will be more of a question comment forum .

Russel Brown will be there too.

Hopefully we can have the very zealous who are opposed to the settlement there.

The problem is these are such hot button issues . ANd being it is in the heart of skid row the opposing side of the settlement don’t want to be in a room like this . They always want a controlled environment.

NOt here. We have nothbing to lose and we say what we feel. And most will be surprisedd.

So come tonite.

Don G

Cardboard boxes only! There shall be no tents allowed on public sidewalks. That shows middle class aspiration. We can’t have that in central city east, glorious Central City East.

O.K. - so we have a design competition for SciARC students: cutting edge tents made out of cardboard. No Goretex allowed. It doesn’t melt in the rain. Jimmy Webb: where are you when we need you?