I am a member of the local community Neighborhood Council. There are 97 such councils in Los Angeles. All are officially recognized organizations that are certified by the city and receive funding from the city.
In the past year there has been a cry at the multiple meetings I attend about the homeless and the city’s lack of action to help those poor people. The mayor, Eric Garcetti, has recently proposed that a homeless shelter would be created in all 15 city council districts.
The sad reality is that no one wants those facilities in their neighborhood. Proof of that is the plan to build a facility on a main thorough fare in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. It was deterred for about a year because of objections by neighbors.
Now a planned “temporary” shelter in Koreatown neighborhood on a city owned parking lot has been confronted with hundreds of people waving and carrying signs protesting that plan. The protestors actually took to the street yesterday and blocked traffic at a major intersection for three hours.
So the homeless will continue to be pushed from location to location and everyone will be tsk tsking the plight of the homeless but not really willing to actually participate in solving the problem.
Interestingly a majority of voters did vote to raise taxed for building housing and providing services for the homeless. They just don’t want the housing or the services in their neighborhood.
Coast Contact 