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| New plan for skid row; "most of it is a drug problem"... | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 18 2006, 09:58 AM (1,117 Views) | |
| Steve Miller | Mar 18 2006, 09:58 AM Post #1 |
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Bull-Carp
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You might recall my posting on the rapid gentrification of the old "Toy District" in downtown LA, AKA "skid row". Developers are converting the big old factories to lofts at a record pace, some of which are selling for $800 per square foot+. Sales are brisk. I was down in that part of town yesterday to do some work on a freezer building (huge seafood freezers are another common feature in the neighborhood) and was astonished to see that the street had been swept clean. Not only had it been swept clean of the trash that collected at the curbs, the bums were gone and along with them their shopping carts and cardboard houses. If the city of LA goes in and re-paves the street, that block could start looking pretty good. So today I find this article. It makes sense - the movers and shakers downtown have taken an interest in the neighborhood because it's a money-maker. The mayor likes the idea of private enterprise cleaning up an area that has always been a source of embarrassment. The homeless advocates have been crying about conditions in that neighborhood forever (it's home of a huge new soup kitchen) and may finally be able to focus some attention on it. Interesting that they have only recently figured out that the problem is drug addiction. I could have told them that, as could anyone else who spent 5 minutes talking to some of the residents. It's a crack problem, pure and simple. Interesting too, is that the city has started sweeping the streets in that area. They haven't swept streets in that neighborhood for years, even as most of the rest of the city is kept pretty clean. Nothing like a few influential developers holding the mayor's feet to the fire to get the city to do what they should have been doing all along. This plan sounds realistic - we'll see how it goes. Mayor, Businesses and ACLU Are in Same Camp on Skid Row By Cara Mia DiMassa, Times Staff Writer March 18, 2006 Leaders from the ACLU and downtown business interests have joined Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in backing a cleanup plan for skid row that involves cracking down on crime but not sweeping up homeless people from their tent cities. The consensus gives a decisive boost to the plan and comes after years of debate and competing visions about how Los Angeles should tackle crime and blight in skid row. It also marks the first time two of the main adversaries in the skid row debate downtown business and civil libertarians have agreed on an approach. The united front arrives at a key moment, amid a new push by state and local officials to improve conditions in a district that has the largest homeless population in the Western United States. State legislators are considering several bills to address skid row's ills, including the so-called dumping of criminals and patients in the area. The various parties are lined up behind a plan put forward by criminologist George Kelling, who has called for the LAPD to crack down on the drug dealers, prostitutes and other criminals on skid row. His strategy would put dozens more officers on the streets of skid row, with an emphasis on experienced beat cops rather than rookies. In addition to the heavier uniformed police presence, there would be more undercover officers assigned to target the area's drug bazaars. But the plan would leave in place for now the homeless encampments that stand near the increasingly gentrifying sections of downtown where historic buildings have been converted into upscale lofts and condos. Police Chief William J. Bratton is considering Kelling's plan as well as a second, more aggressive, proposal that calls for sweeps designed to move homeless people from the streets. Bratton is expected to make a decision in the next few weeks after consulting with various officials including Villaraigosa. Downtown business interests, traditionally the biggest advocates for a "take back the streets" approach to cleaning up the area, say they support Kelling's plan even if it would allow homeless people to remain in their tents for now. "We've come to the sad conclusion that most of it is a drug problem," Central City Assn. President Carol Schatz said. "You may be getting a huge number of people off the street by simply enforcing the law." The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has long criticized the Los Angeles Police Department for being too aggressive in its actions on skid row, has come to a similar conclusion. Ramona Ripston, the organization's executive director, said she has in recent months gone on police ride-alongs, met with homeless services providers and realized that above all else, skid row needs more police. "Sometimes," said Ripston, "you reach a moment where we have to do something. We can't let that continue to go on down there . One of the steps we need to take is to try to purge that neighborhood of the criminal element." The ACLU's sign-on is considered particularly significant because the group has successfully blocked in court several previous efforts by the city to clean up skid row, including Bratton's original 2002 campaign. But even with Ripston and Schatz as backers, the Kelling plan has an even bigger advocate: the mayor. Villaraigosa says the city has tried blanket sweeps before and then became ensnarled in the courts. Any plan relying on sweeps to rid the area of tent and box cities, like the one proposed last week by LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon, is doomed to failure, the mayor said. "As far as I'm concerned, there's only one option on the table: the George Kelling model," Villaraigosa said. "We're committed to addressing the causes of crime." Kelling argues that the department must reduce crime before the city can tackle the underlying social and medical causes of homelessness downtown. Adding officers in skid row would be similar to the "flood the zone" technique the LAPD has used with some success in reducing crime in parts of South Los Angeles. The plan, however, would not immediately make a dent in the thousands of homeless people who camp on the streets of skid row nightly. Current LAPD policy allows homeless people to set up tents and cardboard box dwellings as long as they remove them by 6 a.m. By contrast, Gascon has proposed to Bratton a more aggressive plan that would involve regular sweeps of areas where thousands of homeless people set up nightly tent and cardboard cities. Gascon suggests that police with help from service providers and prosecutors go through the tent cities, identify who is there and deal with them appropriately. Those suspected of crimes would be arrested, those with drug problems would be offered treatment and others would be given shelter beds. Among downtown's business interests, officials said they would like eventually to see an end to the tent camps. But several downtown leaders have expressed concern that there are now not enough shelters to house the homeless people who would be swept up, making it likely that they would just move to different parts of downtown. They are not the only ones trying to find common ground. Ripston joined the city's homeless commission last year and said that has helped her better understand the problem. While saying that she believes "the antagonism between the ACLU and the LAPD is overplayed," she also said that having more police officers would offer a temporary fix. "We have to come up with some short-term remedies," Ripston said, "even though they are not going to solve the problem." Indeed, even if the LAPD steps up patrols and targets drug dealers, officials agree that the underlying problems won't change without more money for shelter space, long-term housing and treatment for drug addicts and the mentally ill. As the residential population downtown continues to grow it's currently at about 24,000 and is expected to double by 2015 they say the political will for fixing downtown's ills is strong. (There are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 homeless people downtown). Villaraigosa is spearheading a $50-million effort to build thousands of heavily subsidized apartments for the most intransigent street people, placing them in buildings that will also offer medical care, counseling and job training. Officials hope the money will come from a state housing bond measure being considered in Sacramento. Los Angeles County has already received $70 million to help thousands of mentally ill and homeless people. Those funds came from the voter-approved Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act. Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an advocacy group for the homeless that has often been at odds with the business community, now finds herself on the same side as her sometime adversaries. She said her organization agrees with Bratton that police cannot solve skid row's problems alone. "Between Kelling and Gascon, we choose Kelling," Dennison said. "But it doesn't work without all the other stuff happening at the same time." |
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Wag more Bark less | |
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| Jolly | Mar 18 2006, 01:52 PM Post #2 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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When people pay $800/sqft for property, it ain't gonna have bums littering the streets....even cleaned up bums. They're gone - they just don't know it yet.... |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| kenny | Mar 18 2006, 03:45 PM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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$800 a square foot? ![]() What good is one square foot of property? Don't they have larger parcels? Then again at that price everyone can be a landowner. <_< |
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| Rick Zimmer | Mar 18 2006, 05:02 PM Post #4 |
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Fulla-Carp
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One of my graduate classes is a studio class working with the Skid Row Housing Trust to find solutions to this. It is not easily done. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Larry | Mar 18 2006, 05:32 PM Post #5 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Rick, maybe what they should do is appoint a delegation to go in and see just what it is the crack addicts want...... |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| kenny | Mar 18 2006, 05:55 PM Post #6 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Uhm . . . let me take a crack at this . . uhmm . . . . crack? |
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| Larry | Mar 18 2006, 06:00 PM Post #7 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Rick, Kenny is calling you..........
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| apple | Mar 18 2006, 06:58 PM Post #8 |
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one of the angels
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He was sure back in the sixties that everyone was hip Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip And they forced him to become a man while he was still a boy And in each wave of tragedy he waited for the joy Now this world may change around him But he just can't change no more He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do Should he hang on to the old Should he grab on to the new He's an old hippie... his new life is just a bust He ain't trying to change nobody He's just trying real hard to adjust I was just thinking if i were rich i'd set up free laundry and showers for the homeless.... get them ready to think about returning to life as we think it should be. |
| it behooves me to behold | |
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| Steve Miller | Mar 18 2006, 07:24 PM Post #9 |
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Bull-Carp
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That's part of the problem - the homeless already have those things, and they're located in the skid row area. It's one of the reasons that other towns drop their homeless people off in that neighborhood - it's where all of the support services are located. It's a little like feeding stray cats. No one wants them to starve, but if you start feeding 'em they never leave, and more come in every day. |
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Wag more Bark less | |
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| kenny | Mar 18 2006, 07:34 PM Post #10 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The problems of the homeless are much deeper than just drugs. Homelessness and drugs are symptoms. My brother is homeless. My sister and I have not heard from him for many many years. Now she's moved, so I guess that's it. ![]() I blame crappy parenting. Don't know how I turned out okay. (Debatable, I know I know.) Anyone can have kids. No license or training is required. :rolleyes: |
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| Rick Zimmer | Mar 18 2006, 08:38 PM Post #11 |
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Fulla-Carp
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The non-profit my students are working with does not necessarily deal with the drug addicts on Skid Row. There are other services for them, mainly the Rescue Missions. Lots of funding for drug addicts -- not that any of it works all that well. But its there. The men and women this group works with are primarily the mentally ill. Those who are referred to as "chronically homeless." They purchase the old run down hotels, renovate them, and then provide rooms, medical care, psychitric care, and food to them. These are the type of people who up until Ronald Reagan was Governor would have been institutionalized. He, however, closed the state's mental hospitals to save money, promising funding for local facilities, but never delivered on that promise. The problem the Trust is now facing is two fold. One if the sudden escalation in cost of the property. The other is the need to move quickly when buying property because the real estate investors can move quickly. This was not a problem, of course, before this property became good investment property. But because of their funding sources, they cannot necessarily come up with the option money, much less close in 60-90 days as the real estate investor can. So, the question the students are working on is where does the Trust now go to to find the property it needs. There are land use issues, social issues, political issues, neighborhood issues, financial issues, law enforcement issues, building (structural) issues, etc -- lots of issues that need to be considered and addressed. It's a good learning experience for budding urban planners -- to find out there is more to planning than just worrying about how to preserve green belts and how to design shopping centers. It is good for them to realize there are human beings out there --truly vulnerable and helpless human beings -- who need their planning skills to help them survive as much as any middle class group of homeowners need their skills to maintain the quality of their neighborhood. The good thing about this is that whenever I have a class in an area like this, there are always a couple of students who shift their career goals to working in areas like this and on problems like this. Sometimes it feels good to be an educator. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| kenny | Mar 18 2006, 08:41 PM Post #12 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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| Larry | Mar 18 2006, 09:17 PM Post #13 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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You being entrusted with the forming of young minds is one of the things I find scary about you. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Axtremus | Mar 19 2006, 12:11 AM Post #14 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Rick,
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| Mikhailoh | Mar 19 2006, 06:13 AM Post #15 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Then where are the former skid row occupants to go as we gentrify the inner city? They're going somewhere, you can be assured. Relocating the problemn does not solve it. I've been down in that district and a plainer, less interesting landscape cannot be found. Big square boxes taking up the whole of each block. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to live there. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Jolly | Mar 19 2006, 06:41 AM Post #16 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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There are too many people on the street that need to be behind locked gates. But hey, we reformed...down here we used to have instituitions with self supporting farms. Therapy through work...self pride through self accomplishment. Heck, now we stick 'em in a group home, wait for 'em to go off their meds (they always do) and chunk 'em in the hoosegow... |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Mar 19 2006, 08:42 AM Post #17 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Actually, Mik, if the area continues to develop as a high end residential area with the planned lofts, retail improvements, streetscape improvements, circulation improvements, nightlife development, etc. it is going to be a very nice area. Why here? It is also within close proximity -- in many cases Manhattan type walking distances -- to the Financial District, the Arts District, The Civic Center (City, County, State, Feds), the Music Center, The Garment District, the Toy District and the Design District. From an urban planning standpoint it is a fascinating evolution and is really private-sector redevelopment at its finest. The reason this area deteriorated was because the industrial buildings -- most of them built in the early 1900's -- had become obsolete as industrial spaces. They simply could not be used efficiently or effectively. More importantly, because of seismic requirements, they were simply too expensive to retrofit and make them safe for people to be in them in case of an earthquake. Thus, they either became vacant or were used solely for warehousing, more often than not, for dead files and things of that sort. Thus the area deteriorated. In the late 1980's or early 1990's, a developer named Tom Gilmore took a major risk. He saw the intense urbanization in which people in New York and other major cities lived, and thought it was feasible in Downtown Los Angeles. He convinced a few investors and a bank and purchased one building, which he renovated into lofts. It was an amazing and instant success. He did another, and then another and then another. And thus, the boom began. The main thing Gilmore understood was the changing demographics in Southern California and Downtown Los Angeles. There are a growing number of unmarried, well paid professionsal, or married professionals who do not have children. Add to this the then-beginning transition of the baby-boomers to empty-nesters. These people did not want suburban living which focused on people with families and required extensive time spent in maintaining a home and a yard. They wanted to live in an area that was close to where they work and was focused around and provided adult oriented entertainment and lifestyle. Of course, the seismic retrofitting which was too costly for industrial use leasing out at $.25 a square foot and even too clostly for redesign as offices leasing at then- $3.00 a sq ft became very viable when the building was subdivided into residential units selling then in excess of then $300,000 a unit (not they are in the neighborhood of $800,000-$1,000,000 a unit.) And since they are lofts, the interior improvements are primarily structural, with little detailed improvements to the units. So this is all basically market-driven with the market doing what it does best. I see it as a good thing, indeed a very good thing, even though it creates major problems for the homeless. I believe the solution for the homeless, though, will also be "market-driven" to the extent non-profit and government social programs are altered, in response to the private sector market. In the 1970's, the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles made a conscious decision to mass the homeless in this area. It was out of the way, no one went there, there was no development interest there, it was close to City and County facilities that could provide services. Thus, they focused their financial commitments and the non-profit sector into this area -- and thus Skid Row grew and, if you will, flourished. What I see happening, almost naturally, is not so much a relocating of the homeless from one location to another, but the beginning of the dispersion of the homeless to a variety of locations throughout the megalopolis. Like anything else that is market driven, it is being planned for and led by necessity by the private (in this case the non-profit) sector. Government is respkonding to the non-profits as they find solutions and opportunities. This is part of what my students are working on. I do not see another "Skid Row" being created in Los Angeles at this time. I expect we will see a variety of enclaves, some larger and some very small, being created in Los Angeles, as well as in other major cities in the area -- Long Beach, Pasadena, in the San Fernando Valley, etc. This will reduce the intensity of the social problems created by congregating the homeless all in one area (a good thing) but will also make the provision of social services more difficult and probably more costly, (not a good thing). When talking to those in the non-profit sector serving the homeless, they see a significant oppoprtunity now that this problem is back in front of the government officials (note the article Steve started this thread with). Los Angeles is behind the times in developing the service network needed. Los Angeles has generally responded to the issue fo homelessness in one of two ways -- hold them in jail, then get them down to Skid Row. Jail 'em then dump 'em. Not the way human beings should be treated In a few metorpolitian areas in the country, though, they handle it differently and, it appears, more effectively for both the homeless as well as the community as a whole. They have developed a strong working relationship among the police, the courts, the government social service providers and the non-profits. If the police pick up a homeless person or a drug addict, their first action is NOT to take them to jail. Their first action is to contact the government social service providers. The indvidual is taken to a shelter where they are immediately in contact with these social service providers who determine the best course of action and then work with the non-profits to take in the individual. It seems to be effective in those areas which have adopted such a system and is certainly far more humane in working with those who are mentally ill or drug addicted. This is the system that the non-profits and experts in the field want to develop in Los Angeles. So, while there is a masssive problem of dislocation occuring right now, one which is harming the homeless far more than anyone else as you might expect, it may likely lead to a far better system in providing the services needed and, because of the disperal rather than the massing of the homeless, less impact on any spoecific area of the City or neighborhood. It is a fascinating transition to watch, even if somewhat of a side-show to the massive growth going on in Dowtown Los Angeles, which is also fascinating to watch -- at least it is for urban planners. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| kenny | Mar 19 2006, 09:01 AM Post #18 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Where do they go? Good question. The adjacent cities of Santa Monica and Long Beach are getting more than their share because they have programs to feed and house some of them. Most other cities have no food programs or shelters; the residents don't want them in their city. Long beach opened a shelter last year. Its location was a political hot potato. Nobody wanted it on his or her block. It ended up in an industrial area. They get to sleep there but have to get lost during the day. There is a limit how long they can stay too. I think this one is only for males, and no children. It's a real problem. And yes, Ronnie RayGun kicked the mentally ill out and closed the California state hospitals to save money. Now they just wander the streets pushing their shopping carts, unwashed, talking to themselves. Meanwhile Bush wants even more tax cuts for his rich buddies, as his exploding budget deficit can now buy 28 solid gold Eiffel towers. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11...2090441,00.html Yupers, compassionate conservatism at its best. |
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| Nina | Mar 19 2006, 09:10 AM Post #19 |
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Senior Carp
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I was surprised at so many homeless in Santa Monica. Even in the chi-chi areas, like the Promenade, and of course all on the beach. These weren't drug addicts (unless you consider alcoholics drug addicts). Frankly, I'm not even sure if they were alcoholics. What they were, however, was stark raving loony tunes crazy. The drug addicts aren't out roaming the streets--they're sitting hidden in various crack houses. I have no clue what the solution is. I'm guessing at some point there will be some type of altercation or high profile situation that involves a homeless person and then everyone will get all fired up for a few weeks, go on a bum sweep and "take care of the problem." Which undoubtedly means moving the homeless on to the next beach. Even if the homeless were all rounded up, cleaned up and medicated, the odds are they will all go off their meds at the first opportunity. Are we backing ourselves into a corner where being crazy is a criminal act in and of itself? And the homeless "bum" type individual is only one type of homeless. There are plenty of working homeless, living in their cars, raising their families (kids often without schooling), etc. This is a huge problem. |
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| Rick Zimmer | Mar 19 2006, 09:26 AM Post #20 |
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Fulla-Carp
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The statistics I have seen show that LA has the largest homelss population in the nation. Part of this is because LA is one of the largest cities in the nation. Much of it is because of the weather. What would be most helpful would be to get the state hospitals back where these people can be given the treatment and care they need. But alas, I don't see that happening. Our society no longer cares enough. We will fight to the political death over abortion using slogans like "respect for life" but we will do all sorts of political contortions so as not to have to actually treat the lives of those who are most vulnerable with the respect their humanity demands. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| ivorythumper | Mar 19 2006, 10:25 AM Post #21 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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So Kenny and Rick: Do you think the homeless should all be rounded up and reinstutitionalized? What would the the ACLU and the liberal democrats say about that? Was Reagan wrong to allow this to happen? Rick, perhaps you can verify that it wasn't actually a bill signed by Reagan's predecessor Pat Brown that started the deinstitutionalization, but which came into effect during Reagan's tenure. I've heard of this, but never seen evidence. Still, the public consensus from things like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest made it a minor civil rights issue, and this was not done for purely economic reasons. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Mar 19 2006, 11:11 AM Post #22 |
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Fulla-Carp
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We, as a society, have a moral obligation to ensure that the homeless are housed, fed and cared for, at least to a minimum standard befitting a human being. -- especially those homeless because of mental health problems or because of some sort of economic catastrophe in their lives. Whether that is through smaller, local facilities or through larger institutions, we are obligated to provde for them. I dont really care what the ACLU says or anyone else. I care about these people being treated with the dignity befitting a human being, a child of God. At the time Reagan was governor, there was a changing view of how best to provide for these people and there was a view that institutionalizng them in larger facilities was not the way to go. It was felt that they would be better served if they were housed and cared for closer to the community and in smaller facilities. What Reagan did was his and his alone, though. He closed the institutions but never established much less adequately financed the localized network. It was his failure on this second part that laid the groundwork for the problems in California today. Had he established that network, it would be there today and would be functioning. As for the impact of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest{/i] making institutionalization an issue, this occured in the borader society because of the movie, not because of the book. The movie was released in 1975, after Reagan was out of office. Further, the movie raised the issue of how the mentally ill were treated in these facilities, not the use of such facilities themselves. But how we got ehre is not as important as where we are going. In Los Angeles, changes are occuring. They are difficult ones and are especially damaging to those least able to protect themselves. Somehow, if we are a moral society, we must find a way to resolve it. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Larry | Mar 19 2006, 11:53 AM Post #23 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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We as a people may have that obligation, but we are *not* obligated to accomplish it through government. Your answer is to always look to government, and blame government officials when they don't use government as a nanny the way you think it should be used. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Steve Miller | Mar 19 2006, 06:26 PM Post #24 |
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Bull-Carp
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Who else is going to do it? |
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Wag more Bark less | |
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| Larry | Mar 19 2006, 07:45 PM Post #25 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Steve, you just don't get it, do you?....... |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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11:29 AM Jul 11