By Daniel Denvir
CityLab
Los Angeles politicians want to crack down on homeless people crowding city sidewalks without seeming like heartless jerks. That will be a challenge.
Last month, the L.A. City Council overwhelmingly approved two ordinances that encourage the seizure of homeless people’s property when it is deemed to be “stored” on sidewalks or in parks. A move to evict homeless people themselves could follow later this year.
“L.A. as a city has done less than any other major city in the country, with the possible exception of Houston… to actually house homeless people,” says Gary Blasi, a lawyer with the Public Counsel law center and a longtime advocate for people without housing. “It’s gotten out by far the worst, most punitive laws in the country, either on the books already or in the pipeline.”
This year, the City of Los Angeles’s homeless population was estimated to be 25,686, a 12 percent increase from 2013, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2015 count [PDF]. Forty-three percent are unsheltered, and the number of tents, make-shift shelters and occupied vehicles rose an astonishing 81 percent, to 5,706. LAHSA’s methodology, like that of other point-in-time counts nationwide, has shortcomings—in part because it relies on sending out a horde of volunteers to identify people who look homeless. But no one seems to dispute that encampments have in recent years sprung up across the city in huge numbers. While some business owners and residents want homeless people off the streets and out of the parks, advocates say they will remain outside as long affordable and permanent supportive housing is scarce.
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