Residents Weary and Exhausted by the Return of Illegal Encampments That Continue to Spread Like Wildfire.
By Nick Antonicello
What will it take for LA city officials to rid Flower Avenue of these transient encampments?
Why are these municipal cleanups seemingly short-lived, as transients are enabled to return to the proverbial scene of the crime without consequence?
Why is living on the street somehow normalized, when those who are destroying the quality-of-life of others, to say nothing of the public safety threat when they return and stick a flower pot on the curb suggests that living on sidewalks is just fine?
For if these cleanups are in fact really just temporary, shouldn’t the so-called service providers who were responsible for the initial cleanup refund what they reaped from LA’s city coffers?
With this $1.3 billion dollar pot of gold dedicated to these failed and incompetent, “not-for-profit” service providers that prey on city funds, why is nothing changing when in fact the homeless population is increasing at a clip of some 10% year over year?
Crickets.
For after the low-hanging fruit in Venice was addressed in the form of initial clean-ups, the hard reality remains that no actual decrease in the homeless population is actually happening or occurring.
Why is that?
And more importantly when will the hand-cuffs be taken off the LAPD to simply enforce the law?
Enforcing the law.
I hear that from time to time. .
For why isn’t this Mayor & City Council contemplating strategies legally and otherwise to prove to Angelenos and Venetians alike that they want to reduce, and eventually eliminate the homeless dilemma?
For does anyone believe that is the true end game of these myopic and detached public officials?
For failed bloated bureaucracies like LAHSA continue to be a white elephant that freely admits they have failed and continue to fail, just what is our new LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath actually planning in her new leadership role at this gargantuan and woefully dysfunctional, multi-layered government agency?
The floor is yours Supervisor Horvath.
For when does the rhetoric of “progress” end and the reality of the streets of LA and Venice get the assistance to actually fix the problem?
For Ground Zero of homelessness is Venice outside of Skid Row, and instead of closing the failed bridge housing experiment on Main Street like thousands urged, freshman Councilmember Traci Park (CD-11) incredibly and disturbingly flip-flopped on the very issue that to many was the genesis of her political being!
For here comes the new boss, same as the old one?
All people want is a safe and clean neighborhood and there seems to be an excuse after excuse that this is somehow, not possible!
For where is the plan, the personnel and the timeline to make this a public policy reality and objective?
When private funding is used to clean streets with flower boxes now used as outside shelter, something is clearly wrong and self-evident in the above photo.
I’ll be the first to praise any elected official who makes promises, keeps them and is on the side of taxpayers, homeowners, tenants and kids 100% of the time.
But why is the backslide tolerated?
And what will be done to recorrect what was a victory for average people who deserve a quality-of-life that is clean and safe?
Nick Antonicello is a thirty-year resident of Venice and covers the local encampment crisis. Have an encampment in your neighborhood that needs to be removed? Contact Antonicello at nantoni@mindspring.com
