It doesn’t matter what part of the city that you’re in — the travesty of this is undeniable, for all of us.
JEFFREY KATZENBERG
JEFFREY KATZENBERG
After being instructed by a park ranger to move his encampment, Tom Otterbach, 66,
gathers his belongings along Ocean Front Walk in Venice on May 18.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
gathers his belongings along Ocean Front Walk in Venice on May 18.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
By BENJAMIN ORESKES,
DAVID ZAHNISER
JUNE 30, 2021 8:12 PM PT
Los Angeles is roiled by a humanitarian crisis on its streets, one of the city’s richest residents, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, has begun meeting with local officials to understand homelessness better and to offer some ideas about how he might help.
In recent weeks, Katzenberg has discussed the issue with several members of the Los Angeles City Council, as well as aides to Mayor Eric Garcetti, raising questions about how he might influence homelessness policy and whether he intends to bankroll efforts to get people off the streets.
It’s partly been a listening tour for Katzenberg, who has deep pockets and has donated to countless politicians at the local, state and national level. But he also came with a message, according to three people who spoke with him: People are angry about what’s playing out on the city’s streets and want change.
“I think it goes without saying that the visibility of homelessness is a real thing, and it’s something that clearly sparked his attention,” Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Executive Director Heidi Marston said. “I know this issue is something he’s been interested in for a while, based on our discussions. But seeing ... the conditions of the streets is part of the reason, I think, that he engaged.”
Marston has met with the businessman twice in recent weeks and said he was eager to learn about L.A. County’s complex system to deliver care to its neediest. Katzenberg plans to go out with one of her agency’s outreach teams in the coming weeks, she said.
Several of Katzenberg’s meetings have taken place during the run-up to the council’s recent decision to impose new anti-camping rules, which would allow the city to remove encampments that are near key public facilities, such as libraries and homeless shelters, once offers of housing have been made.
During at least one meeting, Katzenberg suggested that the city not tackle every location at once, but rather focus on regulating the sidewalks that surround schools and parks — areas where children are present, said Councilman Paul Koretz, who met with the film producer Friday at his City Hall office.
Koretz agreed with that idea, saying limits around schools and parks make more sense than targeting areas around freeways.
“I think it is intuitively more important to allow children a safe place to play in parks and a safe path to get to school,” he said.
Four people who met with Katzenberg told The Times that he also wanted to know why so many tents now line the city’s sidewalks and what could be done to deliver additional resources to unhoused people.
In some meetings, Katzenberg urged council members to act quickly on enacting limits on where people can sleep, according to two sources with knowledge of those conversations.
“He wanted to be helpful on homelessness and then it quickly turned to ‘tents down,’” said one elected official who met with Katzenberg and asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly about a private conversation.
Katzenberg has met or spoken with at least six of the council’s 15 members — Nury Martinez, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Mike Bonin, Nithya Raman, Paul Krekorian and Koretz — and is planning to sit down with Councilman Bob Blumenfield. He also attempted to schedule a meeting with Councilman Gil Cedillo, an aide told The Times, and asked to meet with at least one member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Katzenberg asked for an introductory meeting with Martinez, the council president, to discuss her priorities in office, said Sophie Gilchrist, a Martinez spokeswoman. During their June 18 meeting, Martinez and Katzenberg talked about homelessness broadly but did not discuss the anti-camping measures that were proposed by the council this week, she said.
“They did not discuss specific policies that he wanted to have approved, nor did he push for that ordinance,” Gilchrist said. “The concerns that this specific [proposal] would address have been raised by the council president for quite some time. “
In an interview Wednesday, Katzenberg told The Times that the lessening of pandemic restrictions is the reason he began meeting again with experts on a subject that he’s been passionate about for years.
Katzenberg said he is acutely aware of what he doesn’t know, which was why these meetings in the last two months were so important. He also said public officials need to show they are making progress to residents who have taxed themselves in addressing the crisis.
“When we came out of shelter in place, the landscape had dramatically changed,” he said. “It is undeniable. It doesn’t matter what part of the city that you’re in — the travesty of this is undeniable, for all of us.”
Katzenberg has been a powerbroker in Hollywood for decades. The former chairman of Walt Disney Studios, he co-founded Dreamworks SKG, later selling it to NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion. He then teamed up with former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman in 2018 to start Quibi — an effort “to remake the business of short-form video” — which shut down in fall 2020. He is now managing partner of WndrCo, a holding company that buys and develops consumer electronics companies.
Katzenberg was worth an estimated $900 million in 2016, according to Forbes. He sold his Beverly Hills mansion last year for $125 million.
In recent decades, Katzenberg was a top donor and bundler to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. He gave heavily to the campaign of President Biden, raising more than $700,000 at one fundraiser.
Contribution records show that Katzenberg also has been giving locally, donating $50,000 in 2017 to the campaign for Measure H, which raised taxes to pay for social services that help Los Angeles County’s unhoused.
A year earlier, he contributed $100,000 to Garcetti’s campaign for Measure M, the half-cent sales tax to support public transit and transportation programs.
In 2013, Katzenberg put more than $101,000 into the effort to elect Wendy Greuel — who worked with him at DreamWorks — as mayor. Last year, he donated $800 to Ridley-Thomas’ City Council campaign.
Ariana Drummond, a spokeswoman for Ridley-Thomas, said the two met two weeks ago and discussed a “wide range of issues related to the homelessness crisis and economic recovery.”
“The councilmember appreciates Mr. Katzenberg’s interest in leaning into the issue — and applauds both his financial investment and sweat equity to advance the health and wellbeing of our unhoused Angelenos,” she said in a statement.
Raman confirmed she had met with Katzenberg but declined to comment on what they discussed. Bonin declined to comment.
Several people who met with Katzenberg weren’t sure exactly how he planned to tackle the crisis — whether through his philanthropic efforts or through backing political candidates and ballot measures.
Greuel, chair of LAHSA’s board of commissioners, has been introducing Katzenberg to people working on homelessness in the region in recent weeks. She said he’s still trying to understand the complicated dynamics that lead people into homelessness and where he can be the most help.
“Having worked with him in the past, Jeffrey can pick up the phone and help advocate. He can get others to help contribute and advocate,” she said.
Koretz said that during his meeting, Katzenberg offered to help raise money to address homelessness once city leaders have coalesced around a program that needs targeted funding.
“If we come up with something where we could use a few dollars and had something to target, he seemed to be willing to put his own resources in,” he said.
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed reporting to this article.
DAVID ZAHNISER
JUNE 30, 2021 8:12 PM PT
Los Angeles is roiled by a humanitarian crisis on its streets, one of the city’s richest residents, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, has begun meeting with local officials to understand homelessness better and to offer some ideas about how he might help.
In recent weeks, Katzenberg has discussed the issue with several members of the Los Angeles City Council, as well as aides to Mayor Eric Garcetti, raising questions about how he might influence homelessness policy and whether he intends to bankroll efforts to get people off the streets.
It’s partly been a listening tour for Katzenberg, who has deep pockets and has donated to countless politicians at the local, state and national level. But he also came with a message, according to three people who spoke with him: People are angry about what’s playing out on the city’s streets and want change.
“I think it goes without saying that the visibility of homelessness is a real thing, and it’s something that clearly sparked his attention,” Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Executive Director Heidi Marston said. “I know this issue is something he’s been interested in for a while, based on our discussions. But seeing ... the conditions of the streets is part of the reason, I think, that he engaged.”
Marston has met with the businessman twice in recent weeks and said he was eager to learn about L.A. County’s complex system to deliver care to its neediest. Katzenberg plans to go out with one of her agency’s outreach teams in the coming weeks, she said.
Several of Katzenberg’s meetings have taken place during the run-up to the council’s recent decision to impose new anti-camping rules, which would allow the city to remove encampments that are near key public facilities, such as libraries and homeless shelters, once offers of housing have been made.
During at least one meeting, Katzenberg suggested that the city not tackle every location at once, but rather focus on regulating the sidewalks that surround schools and parks — areas where children are present, said Councilman Paul Koretz, who met with the film producer Friday at his City Hall office.
Koretz agreed with that idea, saying limits around schools and parks make more sense than targeting areas around freeways.
“I think it is intuitively more important to allow children a safe place to play in parks and a safe path to get to school,” he said.
Four people who met with Katzenberg told The Times that he also wanted to know why so many tents now line the city’s sidewalks and what could be done to deliver additional resources to unhoused people.
In some meetings, Katzenberg urged council members to act quickly on enacting limits on where people can sleep, according to two sources with knowledge of those conversations.
“He wanted to be helpful on homelessness and then it quickly turned to ‘tents down,’” said one elected official who met with Katzenberg and asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly about a private conversation.
Katzenberg has met or spoken with at least six of the council’s 15 members — Nury Martinez, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Mike Bonin, Nithya Raman, Paul Krekorian and Koretz — and is planning to sit down with Councilman Bob Blumenfield. He also attempted to schedule a meeting with Councilman Gil Cedillo, an aide told The Times, and asked to meet with at least one member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Katzenberg asked for an introductory meeting with Martinez, the council president, to discuss her priorities in office, said Sophie Gilchrist, a Martinez spokeswoman. During their June 18 meeting, Martinez and Katzenberg talked about homelessness broadly but did not discuss the anti-camping measures that were proposed by the council this week, she said.
“They did not discuss specific policies that he wanted to have approved, nor did he push for that ordinance,” Gilchrist said. “The concerns that this specific [proposal] would address have been raised by the council president for quite some time. “
In an interview Wednesday, Katzenberg told The Times that the lessening of pandemic restrictions is the reason he began meeting again with experts on a subject that he’s been passionate about for years.
Katzenberg said he is acutely aware of what he doesn’t know, which was why these meetings in the last two months were so important. He also said public officials need to show they are making progress to residents who have taxed themselves in addressing the crisis.
“When we came out of shelter in place, the landscape had dramatically changed,” he said. “It is undeniable. It doesn’t matter what part of the city that you’re in — the travesty of this is undeniable, for all of us.”
Katzenberg has been a powerbroker in Hollywood for decades. The former chairman of Walt Disney Studios, he co-founded Dreamworks SKG, later selling it to NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion. He then teamed up with former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman in 2018 to start Quibi — an effort “to remake the business of short-form video” — which shut down in fall 2020. He is now managing partner of WndrCo, a holding company that buys and develops consumer electronics companies.
Katzenberg was worth an estimated $900 million in 2016, according to Forbes. He sold his Beverly Hills mansion last year for $125 million.
In recent decades, Katzenberg was a top donor and bundler to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. He gave heavily to the campaign of President Biden, raising more than $700,000 at one fundraiser.
Contribution records show that Katzenberg also has been giving locally, donating $50,000 in 2017 to the campaign for Measure H, which raised taxes to pay for social services that help Los Angeles County’s unhoused.
A year earlier, he contributed $100,000 to Garcetti’s campaign for Measure M, the half-cent sales tax to support public transit and transportation programs.
In 2013, Katzenberg put more than $101,000 into the effort to elect Wendy Greuel — who worked with him at DreamWorks — as mayor. Last year, he donated $800 to Ridley-Thomas’ City Council campaign.
Ariana Drummond, a spokeswoman for Ridley-Thomas, said the two met two weeks ago and discussed a “wide range of issues related to the homelessness crisis and economic recovery.”
“The councilmember appreciates Mr. Katzenberg’s interest in leaning into the issue — and applauds both his financial investment and sweat equity to advance the health and wellbeing of our unhoused Angelenos,” she said in a statement.
Raman confirmed she had met with Katzenberg but declined to comment on what they discussed. Bonin declined to comment.
Several people who met with Katzenberg weren’t sure exactly how he planned to tackle the crisis — whether through his philanthropic efforts or through backing political candidates and ballot measures.
Greuel, chair of LAHSA’s board of commissioners, has been introducing Katzenberg to people working on homelessness in the region in recent weeks. She said he’s still trying to understand the complicated dynamics that lead people into homelessness and where he can be the most help.
“Having worked with him in the past, Jeffrey can pick up the phone and help advocate. He can get others to help contribute and advocate,” she said.
Koretz said that during his meeting, Katzenberg offered to help raise money to address homelessness once city leaders have coalesced around a program that needs targeted funding.
“If we come up with something where we could use a few dollars and had something to target, he seemed to be willing to put his own resources in,” he said.
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed reporting to this article.
Rows of homeless people’s belongings are covered in tarp as visitors walk along Ocean Front Walk in Venice on April 16.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Essential California: The complexities of Venice’s homelessness crisis
By Melissa Gomez Staff Writer
June 11, 2021 5:30 AM PT
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, June 11. I’m Melissa Gomez, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
Venice, a popular tourist spot, has long dealt with a homelessness crisis. Its concentration of unhoused individuals is second only to skid row in downtown Los Angeles.
As many as 2,000 people sleep along the sandy sidewalks, often in tents or recreational vehicles and sometimes in the front yards of residents. The situation has led to increasing tension in the neighborhood as trash piles up and crimes occur. Many residents have directed their anger at city officials, whom they blame for letting conditions along the boardwalk worsen.
One wrote:
“The beatings, the murders of senior citizens, the fires, the victimization of housed and unhoused, the black RV terrorizing families in a school zone, the unanswered emails, unreturned phone calls; there is no excuse for your absence and neglect.”
My colleagues Doug Smith and Benjamin Oreskes chronicled the story of Venice in a piece that explored the complexities of the situation, as well as the future of the boardwalk.
The issue became more complicated on Monday when Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva sent foot patrols to Venice, where they began clearing tents. The move raised questions as to whether Villanueva overstepped his purview. Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represents the area, criticized Villanueva’s actions, saying the sheriff, instead of offering help, was on a public relations push, “promising his own notorious brand of justice.”
The origins of Venice can be traced back to 1905. Developer Abbot Kinney created a tourist spot with canals, a main street of faux Venetian buildings and an amusement pier. The beachside community, after a period of neglect, became one where families of modest income could afford to live, including “intellectuals and beach bums who renounced capitalistic life.”
My colleagues spoke at length with Bonin, who has represented the 11th District since 2013, about his vision for a humane clearing along the boardwalk. He outlined a plan that would begin as a gradual approach, in coordination with homeless service providers, but gave no specific timeline.
“So once all the resources are fully lined up, then they will start offering housing to people, and anyone from that area says that they’re into it, that they want it, then if the number of available beds matches it, they’ll go right in,” Bonin told my colleagues.
By Melissa Gomez Staff Writer
June 11, 2021 5:30 AM PT
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, June 11. I’m Melissa Gomez, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
Venice, a popular tourist spot, has long dealt with a homelessness crisis. Its concentration of unhoused individuals is second only to skid row in downtown Los Angeles.
As many as 2,000 people sleep along the sandy sidewalks, often in tents or recreational vehicles and sometimes in the front yards of residents. The situation has led to increasing tension in the neighborhood as trash piles up and crimes occur. Many residents have directed their anger at city officials, whom they blame for letting conditions along the boardwalk worsen.
One wrote:
“The beatings, the murders of senior citizens, the fires, the victimization of housed and unhoused, the black RV terrorizing families in a school zone, the unanswered emails, unreturned phone calls; there is no excuse for your absence and neglect.”
My colleagues Doug Smith and Benjamin Oreskes chronicled the story of Venice in a piece that explored the complexities of the situation, as well as the future of the boardwalk.
The issue became more complicated on Monday when Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva sent foot patrols to Venice, where they began clearing tents. The move raised questions as to whether Villanueva overstepped his purview. Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represents the area, criticized Villanueva’s actions, saying the sheriff, instead of offering help, was on a public relations push, “promising his own notorious brand of justice.”
The origins of Venice can be traced back to 1905. Developer Abbot Kinney created a tourist spot with canals, a main street of faux Venetian buildings and an amusement pier. The beachside community, after a period of neglect, became one where families of modest income could afford to live, including “intellectuals and beach bums who renounced capitalistic life.”
My colleagues spoke at length with Bonin, who has represented the 11th District since 2013, about his vision for a humane clearing along the boardwalk. He outlined a plan that would begin as a gradual approach, in coordination with homeless service providers, but gave no specific timeline.
“So once all the resources are fully lined up, then they will start offering housing to people, and anyone from that area says that they’re into it, that they want it, then if the number of available beds matches it, they’ll go right in,” Bonin told my colleagues.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin speaks in 2019.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Q&A: How Councilman Mike Bonin plans to fix Venice’s homelessness crisis
By Benjamin Oreskes, Doug Smith
June 10, 2021 5:30 AM PT
After spending weeks reporting on the homelessness crisis in Venice, Times reporters Benjamin Oreskes and Doug Smith sat down with Councilman Mike Bonin, who has represented the area since 2013. In a nearly two-hour interview, he weighed in on how the fights over homelessness have consumed the neighborhood and laid out his vision of how a humane clearing of tents that run along the boardwalk could occur.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LAT: We’ve been talking to people you know over the past two or three weeks and we’ve been hearing a sense of anticipation that something’s coming. Are you planning something like the cleanup at Echo Park Lake?
Mike Bonin: It’s not going to be: Here’s the day, with bells and whistles and pressing buttons. I don’t want to do it this way. But I guess to a certain extent, it’s inevitable to do the contrast with Echo Park Lake, because that’s sort of become part of the frame of this.
So let’s start with the ways in which Venice Beach is different than Echo Park Lake. So even if I were predisposed to do this Echo Park Lake-style, it’s really hard to do it in Venice Beach for a couple different reasons that are purely logistical. It’s freaking huge. I think it would be logistically impossible to close off the entire thing as was done for a couple months at Echo Park.
I base that on two real-life experiences.
It was bad before. It’s unacceptable and intolerable now.
City Councilman Mike Bonin
One is 21 to 22 years ago, we spent $15 million renovating the boardwalk. Even then, they closed off portions of it, but you could still do the boardwalk. It’s not just a park. It’s a park, it’s a beach, it’s a residential area, a shopping district, so you don’t have the same ability to just close it off.
Another example is at the beginning of the pandemic, when the city said the beach is closed, even with cops, the beach wasn’t closed, I mean, you would need more officers than they used at Echo Park Lake in order to physically close off Venice Beach.
I think you have to think of it differently, but you also can’t let the current situation continue where the whole thing is just an encampment.
LAT: Then what will it be?
MB: What we’re doing is we’re tying to do a more gradual, although increasing, approach. The first place we started was the handball courts. It was relatively small, it was 20 people or so, maybe a little bit larger, and that was because that was the first place Rec and Parks [Recreation and Parks Department] was going to open up.
What made it easier for us is that [the L.A. County Department of Public Health] that week eased up on the population restrictions for bridge housing, so we had more beds available right away. That made it possible to do the handball courts, and that went relatively well. Most people accepted a placement. I think a couple didn’t, but most did, after a lot of outreach.
So then the next thing is [opening] the skate park and the volleyball courts. So that happened two weeks ago. So we’re going to continue doing some of those areas. The next area that’s likely to come is going to be sort of the grassy area.
Starting this week [June 6], Monday through Wednesday, they’re doing outreach. This isn’t even starting something. This is sort of a warm up.
So once all the resources are fully lined up, then they will start offering housing to people, and anyone from that area says that they’re into it, that they want it, then if the number of available beds matches it, they’ll go right in.
As people are not immediately saying yes, they will do sort of zones, I believe, starting at the north and going down. They’ll focus really intently for a couple of weeks on an area and try to get people there housed and then they will do the second and the third and the fourth.
We will have the Ramada Inn [run by Project Homekey, which converts hotels into housing]. We will have some more bridge housing slots [at a local shelter]. We have a small amount of shared housing that I’m at work now in advance that hopefully opens up some bridge housing slots, and then people move into them. I have before the budget committee later this month a request that I’ve asked for before, but I think I’ll get it this time for a million dollars for shared housing in Venice. I think it would be like 63 beds right away they could provide.
As part of the budget request, I think was a $3 million or $5 million ask just for homelessness in Venice.
We’re not quite as big as skid row, but this has got to be the city’s second-biggest focus, because it’s one of the largest [encampments] and it’s also very densely populated.
LAT: You have constituents who blame you for conditions on the boardwalk and don’t trust you to do anything about them. Does it make it hard to give this pitch to them?
MB: It was bad before. It’s unacceptable and intolerable now. We can talk about why I don’t say that kind of stuff more than I do. But it’s unacceptable and it’s intolerable. And it’s got to change.
With the beds opening, [A Bridge Home, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s signature transitional housing program] and Ramada will be able to show some additional early evidence of this working. So I think that there will be some signs of momentum. It certainly is never going to win some folks over.
Homelessness on the boardwalk, homelessness in Venice, to a certain extent, homelessness in other parts of my district, and I think in other parts of the city, just exploded during the pandemic. I don’t think there’s any denying that.
I think also things look like they’ve increased even more than they have, because of the way we changed our management of encampments. And so things look different.
Before it was a park that had some encampments in it. Now it has become an area that has become one of the largest campgrounds around and it was, I think, a confluence of factors.
More people became homeless in L.A. during the pandemic. Enforcement changed dramatically. Services changed dramatically.
There’s no perfect good, and there’s no absolute bad, there’s just, you know, a lot of complex choices.
LAT: The lack of a date for when no camping will be enforced on the boardwalks makes it hard for some of the constituents to back what you’re doing.
MB: I’m not going to give one until all the resources are in place and I can be confident about it. The one thing that would be worse than the current situation would be for me to pick an arbitrary date and then not deliver on it or to pick an arbitrary date and then move enforcement in without having the resources to provide the alternatives.
I get why people are angry, and I get why people are frustrated. The only thing that I can do about that at this point is to deliver.
LAT: If you move the ones who accept a placement and then you deal in sections with the ones whose remain, how do you keep that section from reverting?
MB: I mean, that’s what they’ve done with the handball courts. Because you asked about fencing, I don’t know if there will be fencing on the berms or not. If they need fencing up for a period of time to reseed the grass or something, then OK. If it’s just a pretext, then I’m not wild about that idea at all. So I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This is going to be hard. This is gonna be challenging, And there are going to be questions and circumstances that we’re going to be struggling with as we go through it. It’s just going to be different than anywhere else, because of the nature of it. There are challenges that I’m concerned about, too, and I’ll be honest about what they are.
One is, there are a lot of people who will accept [housing]. There are a lot of people who will initially say, “No,” and then will accept. There’s a lot of folks who will say, you know, “Screw it, I’m going somewhere far away,” and then there are some folks who will say, “I’m fine, I’m moving a block inland.” Then you’re even closer to somebody’s home. Some in [the Los Angeles Police Department] have voiced a concern about that.
LAT: There have been these upswings in anger or frustration about the state of things in Venice. Does this one feel different?
MB: Let me first say that, I think that the population of people who are unhoused and the population of people who are housed in Venice have changed. There’s a lot of people who are new in Venice. They certainly weren’t around for the gang violence in ‘90s, or the previous time, and ’87 when there was a big population on the beach. So their perspective is, “This is where I live, and this is how I think it should be.” I think that’s perfectly valid, and that’s a very large, large segment.
The homeless population has also changed. I think that there’s definitely more addiction. I think St. Joe’s [St. Joseph Center] would tell you that there certainly are issues with mental illness. Those are all real. That raises tension understandably. I don’t think that that changes how you should evaluate what the appropriate responses are.
You need to treat criminal activity as criminal activity. And the person’s housing status isn’t relevant to the crime. If you commit an assault, you should be charged, and you should be prosecuted and you should be convicted.
I get worried when we attach it to someone’s housing status. I have also consistently said that we need housing with services. What we’ve come up against now is a public conversation that homelessness is a mental health and addiction issue and not a housing issue.
I don’t get how we got to a place where that’s an either or. It’s got to be all.
LAT: For many people though, they want the crime in front of their door solved.
MB: In the last budget, [we] got more resources for LAPD in Venice. The overtime increased. There’s a dedicated unit for near the ABH [A Bridge Home] again. Over the past year, the deputy chief has assigned an additional car at night for Venice Beach. Arrests for both felonies and misdemeanors are up significantly. I mean, that’s what you do to deal with the crime problem. You do stuff to try to prevent it.
By Benjamin Oreskes, Doug Smith
June 10, 2021 5:30 AM PT
After spending weeks reporting on the homelessness crisis in Venice, Times reporters Benjamin Oreskes and Doug Smith sat down with Councilman Mike Bonin, who has represented the area since 2013. In a nearly two-hour interview, he weighed in on how the fights over homelessness have consumed the neighborhood and laid out his vision of how a humane clearing of tents that run along the boardwalk could occur.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LAT: We’ve been talking to people you know over the past two or three weeks and we’ve been hearing a sense of anticipation that something’s coming. Are you planning something like the cleanup at Echo Park Lake?
Mike Bonin: It’s not going to be: Here’s the day, with bells and whistles and pressing buttons. I don’t want to do it this way. But I guess to a certain extent, it’s inevitable to do the contrast with Echo Park Lake, because that’s sort of become part of the frame of this.
So let’s start with the ways in which Venice Beach is different than Echo Park Lake. So even if I were predisposed to do this Echo Park Lake-style, it’s really hard to do it in Venice Beach for a couple different reasons that are purely logistical. It’s freaking huge. I think it would be logistically impossible to close off the entire thing as was done for a couple months at Echo Park.
I base that on two real-life experiences.
It was bad before. It’s unacceptable and intolerable now.
City Councilman Mike Bonin
One is 21 to 22 years ago, we spent $15 million renovating the boardwalk. Even then, they closed off portions of it, but you could still do the boardwalk. It’s not just a park. It’s a park, it’s a beach, it’s a residential area, a shopping district, so you don’t have the same ability to just close it off.
Another example is at the beginning of the pandemic, when the city said the beach is closed, even with cops, the beach wasn’t closed, I mean, you would need more officers than they used at Echo Park Lake in order to physically close off Venice Beach.
I think you have to think of it differently, but you also can’t let the current situation continue where the whole thing is just an encampment.
LAT: Then what will it be?
MB: What we’re doing is we’re tying to do a more gradual, although increasing, approach. The first place we started was the handball courts. It was relatively small, it was 20 people or so, maybe a little bit larger, and that was because that was the first place Rec and Parks [Recreation and Parks Department] was going to open up.
What made it easier for us is that [the L.A. County Department of Public Health] that week eased up on the population restrictions for bridge housing, so we had more beds available right away. That made it possible to do the handball courts, and that went relatively well. Most people accepted a placement. I think a couple didn’t, but most did, after a lot of outreach.
So then the next thing is [opening] the skate park and the volleyball courts. So that happened two weeks ago. So we’re going to continue doing some of those areas. The next area that’s likely to come is going to be sort of the grassy area.
Starting this week [June 6], Monday through Wednesday, they’re doing outreach. This isn’t even starting something. This is sort of a warm up.
So once all the resources are fully lined up, then they will start offering housing to people, and anyone from that area says that they’re into it, that they want it, then if the number of available beds matches it, they’ll go right in.
As people are not immediately saying yes, they will do sort of zones, I believe, starting at the north and going down. They’ll focus really intently for a couple of weeks on an area and try to get people there housed and then they will do the second and the third and the fourth.
We will have the Ramada Inn [run by Project Homekey, which converts hotels into housing]. We will have some more bridge housing slots [at a local shelter]. We have a small amount of shared housing that I’m at work now in advance that hopefully opens up some bridge housing slots, and then people move into them. I have before the budget committee later this month a request that I’ve asked for before, but I think I’ll get it this time for a million dollars for shared housing in Venice. I think it would be like 63 beds right away they could provide.
As part of the budget request, I think was a $3 million or $5 million ask just for homelessness in Venice.
We’re not quite as big as skid row, but this has got to be the city’s second-biggest focus, because it’s one of the largest [encampments] and it’s also very densely populated.
LAT: You have constituents who blame you for conditions on the boardwalk and don’t trust you to do anything about them. Does it make it hard to give this pitch to them?
MB: It was bad before. It’s unacceptable and intolerable now. We can talk about why I don’t say that kind of stuff more than I do. But it’s unacceptable and it’s intolerable. And it’s got to change.
With the beds opening, [A Bridge Home, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s signature transitional housing program] and Ramada will be able to show some additional early evidence of this working. So I think that there will be some signs of momentum. It certainly is never going to win some folks over.
Homelessness on the boardwalk, homelessness in Venice, to a certain extent, homelessness in other parts of my district, and I think in other parts of the city, just exploded during the pandemic. I don’t think there’s any denying that.
I think also things look like they’ve increased even more than they have, because of the way we changed our management of encampments. And so things look different.
Before it was a park that had some encampments in it. Now it has become an area that has become one of the largest campgrounds around and it was, I think, a confluence of factors.
More people became homeless in L.A. during the pandemic. Enforcement changed dramatically. Services changed dramatically.
There’s no perfect good, and there’s no absolute bad, there’s just, you know, a lot of complex choices.
LAT: The lack of a date for when no camping will be enforced on the boardwalks makes it hard for some of the constituents to back what you’re doing.
MB: I’m not going to give one until all the resources are in place and I can be confident about it. The one thing that would be worse than the current situation would be for me to pick an arbitrary date and then not deliver on it or to pick an arbitrary date and then move enforcement in without having the resources to provide the alternatives.
I get why people are angry, and I get why people are frustrated. The only thing that I can do about that at this point is to deliver.
LAT: If you move the ones who accept a placement and then you deal in sections with the ones whose remain, how do you keep that section from reverting?
MB: I mean, that’s what they’ve done with the handball courts. Because you asked about fencing, I don’t know if there will be fencing on the berms or not. If they need fencing up for a period of time to reseed the grass or something, then OK. If it’s just a pretext, then I’m not wild about that idea at all. So I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This is going to be hard. This is gonna be challenging, And there are going to be questions and circumstances that we’re going to be struggling with as we go through it. It’s just going to be different than anywhere else, because of the nature of it. There are challenges that I’m concerned about, too, and I’ll be honest about what they are.
One is, there are a lot of people who will accept [housing]. There are a lot of people who will initially say, “No,” and then will accept. There’s a lot of folks who will say, you know, “Screw it, I’m going somewhere far away,” and then there are some folks who will say, “I’m fine, I’m moving a block inland.” Then you’re even closer to somebody’s home. Some in [the Los Angeles Police Department] have voiced a concern about that.
LAT: There have been these upswings in anger or frustration about the state of things in Venice. Does this one feel different?
MB: Let me first say that, I think that the population of people who are unhoused and the population of people who are housed in Venice have changed. There’s a lot of people who are new in Venice. They certainly weren’t around for the gang violence in ‘90s, or the previous time, and ’87 when there was a big population on the beach. So their perspective is, “This is where I live, and this is how I think it should be.” I think that’s perfectly valid, and that’s a very large, large segment.
The homeless population has also changed. I think that there’s definitely more addiction. I think St. Joe’s [St. Joseph Center] would tell you that there certainly are issues with mental illness. Those are all real. That raises tension understandably. I don’t think that that changes how you should evaluate what the appropriate responses are.
You need to treat criminal activity as criminal activity. And the person’s housing status isn’t relevant to the crime. If you commit an assault, you should be charged, and you should be prosecuted and you should be convicted.
I get worried when we attach it to someone’s housing status. I have also consistently said that we need housing with services. What we’ve come up against now is a public conversation that homelessness is a mental health and addiction issue and not a housing issue.
I don’t get how we got to a place where that’s an either or. It’s got to be all.
LAT: For many people though, they want the crime in front of their door solved.
MB: In the last budget, [we] got more resources for LAPD in Venice. The overtime increased. There’s a dedicated unit for near the ABH [A Bridge Home] again. Over the past year, the deputy chief has assigned an additional car at night for Venice Beach. Arrests for both felonies and misdemeanors are up significantly. I mean, that’s what you do to deal with the crime problem. You do stuff to try to prevent it.
Dixie Moore, 47, who is homeless, assesses her situation before trying to move her encampment along Ocean Front Walk in Venice.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Homeless camps, trash and crime have transformed Venice boardwalk, eluding easy solutions
By DOUG SMITH, BENJAMIN ORESKES
LOS ANGELES TIMES EXCLUSIVE
June 10, 2021 5 AM PT
Venice Beach has long been L.A’s haven for the offbeat and out-of-step, a magnet for throngs of the curious drawn by the precarious balance between natural beauty and human eccentricity.
But recently, that magical Venice has become a caricature of itself. Shamed almost daily in eyewitness videos of trash, mayhem and fire, its milelong ribbon of tents and shanties is now held up as the hallmark of everything broken about Los Angeles.
“The beatings, the murders of senior citizens, the fires, the victimization of housed and unhoused, the black RV terrorizing families in a school zone, the unanswered emails, unreturned phone calls; there is no excuse for your absence and neglect,” one resident wrote as part of what has become a daily barrage of screaming emails directed at city leaders.
But could Venice, a quintessential beach community that is one of California’s most popular tourist destinations, rise again? There’s a plan for that, emerging from behind-the-scenes talks among a coalition of Venice activists, city officials and deputies of the area’s city councilman, Mike Bonin.
In an extensive interview with The Times, Bonin disclosed outlines of his plan to clear the illegal encampments in what he characterized as a more orderly and humane replay of the closure of Echo Park Lake in March. A coordinated push by homeless services providers and city crews will clear the homeless camps in small zones, Bonin said, using robust outreach, offers of shelter or housing, and lots of persuasion.
Bonin, who is under withering criticism from Venice residents who blame his inaction for the neighborhood’s condition, said he finds camping on the public land unacceptable and promised to end it. But he would not commit to a deadline until he’s confident the resources are available to meet it.
Bonin has since gotten into a tug-of-war over methods with Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who sent foot patrols to the boardwalk on Monday and said the tents should be cleared by July 4.
“Even if I were predisposed to do this Echo Park Lake-style, it’s really hard to do it in Venice Beach,” Bonin said in the interview, and vowed that enforcement, if necessary as a last resort, would not be the heavy-handed policing that accompanied the closing of Echo Park Lake.
“It’s freaking huge. I think it would be logistically impossible to close off the entire thing as was done for a couple months at Echo Park.”
The plan largely reflects a blueprint a group of community activists has been pressing on the 11th District councilman in private talks over the past several weeks.
Those activists, a collection of unlikely allies who say they are seeking the middle ground in an emotionally wrought and divided community, have all criticized Bonin for allowing the homeless camps to grow uncontrollably.
They say they are encouraged by his promise to do something but remain skeptical that he will follow through.
Brian Averill, founder of a group he calls the Venice Boardwalk Action Committee, stands near a homeless encampment in Venice.
“I’m really pressing for a deadline,” said Brian Averill, founder of a group he calls the Venice Boardwalk Action Committee. “If you don’t have some sort of ticking clock to share with the people out there, they are not going to take it seriously.”
Averill, a surfer and freelance photographer who rents in the storied Ellison building, has joined two other grassroots groups, one founded by a speechwriter and the other a martial artist, in a coalition they call Venice Clean and Safe for the Summer.
“The idea is to hold the city, specifically CD11, accountable to making some progress on this proposal,” Averill said.
In January, Averill’s group proposed breaking what seems an insurmountable problem into pieces. A document he submitted to the city suggests starting at the north end of the boardwalk, where the tents are most condensed, then moving south in phases until the boardwalk is clear.
Something like that strategy got underway in May, in a less ambitious manner than Averill and his allies had in mind. The city‘s Department of Recreation and Parks, in response to the loosening of pandemic guidelines, ended restrictions on recreational use of four handball courts adjacent to the boardwalk. The three-walled enclosures were full of tents and about a dozen people.
The people agreed to move to shelters, and crews moved in on May 18, taking away tents, furnishings and detritus in dump trucks. Two weeks later, the crews were back with another incremental step: clearing tents and possessions from the spaces on the boardwalk marked for vendors to set up their wares, and from certain areas in the park along the beach bike path.
The two cleanups left largely intact more than 200 tents and homemade structures strung along a narrow earthen berm that separates the concrete boardwalk from the bicycle path and beach beyond.
The trauma and discord that may lie ahead were on display when workers removed a small camp that had encroached on the Roller Skate Dance Plaza at the north end of the recreation area.
As a gallery of cellphones and cameras zoomed in, a man whose tent and possessions had just been swallowed by a mechanical loader waved his arms and yelled at the scrum of videographers, “I hate you all.”
Then he pulled down his pants with nothing on underneath.
His was far from the only angst in the air.
A woman filming on behalf of a pro-homeless group called the Venice Justice Committee lashed out at a beefy, long-haired man who was recording for his YouTube channel, “German in Venice.” She called him “a hater” exploiting the homeless man’s pain for profit. His video of the event has drawn 300,000 views so far.
Before this confrontation, Recreation and Parks rangers told people where they could keep their possessions, and that at some point they wouldn’t be able to stay by the boardwalk anymore.
While that was getting underway, Kenneth Stallworth, 62, sat outside his tent on the beach, taking in the morning breeze. Stallworth has been homeless for eight years and said struggles with gambling left him with little money. He’s been receiving general relief, but it’s not enough to afford rent or permanent place to stay.
He has had a placement in a nearby shelter but rarely stays the night. He prefers a tent by the beach.
“The police, they give me tickets all the time. What they really want to do is intimidate,“ he said.
Stallworth walked off to run some errands and begin his day. Minutes after he left, a crew from the Department of Recreation and Parks picked up his tent and the couch he’d been using as a bed and placed them on a flatbed truck heading for the dump.
Built on a drained marsh in 1905, the Venice of developer Abbot Kinney was a quirky tourist attraction with canals, a main street of faux Venetian buildings and an amusement pier. Consolidation with Los Angeles and an oil drilling boom in the 1920s gave way to an era of neglect that rendered Venice into that Southern California rarity, a seaside community affordable to those of modest income, including intellectuals and beach bums who renounced capitalistic life.
Venice today is a fractured mixture of that celebrated bohemian culture, with its inherent attraction to beach lovers and itinerant youth and a more recent contingent of highly paid tech workers and well-heeled homeowners.
Much of it is concentrated west of Highway 1, where clapboard surfer shacks, aging brick apartment buildings and tourist shops redolent of ‘60s counterculture coexist with trendy restaurants, multimillion-dollar designer houses and the offices of tech giants.
As many as 2,000 people sleeping in tents, tarpaulin shacks, recreational vehicles and sometimes residents’ front yards — a concentration of homeless people second only to skid row — make Venice a place of intimate daily contact between those of means and society’s dispossessed.
Drawn by Venice’s mystique and reputation for tolerance, the homeless people there transcend simple categories. More than anywhere else in Los Angeles, most are outsiders, having migrated from other parts of the city and other states around the U.S.
At the north end, where the Santa Monica border brings an abrupt end to camping, Kenny Abby, originally from the Midwest, sat bare-chested in a lawn chair, bronzed and contented amid an outdoor closet of apparel and found items.
“It’s lovely,” Abby said of his prime spot. “Since COVID, it’s been easier to stay here than ever before.”
A few spaces to the south, a woman who would not give her name displayed her herbs and succulents on a stout structure of green two-by-fours. Farther still, a free-spirited woman who gave her name as Miriam Rabbeinu had surrounded her tent with a gallery of her feminist-themed artwork.
Interspersed with several other artists were musicians, playing for money or just playing. A tougher-looking crowd held forth at the picnic tables with boom boxes blaring and looks that said, “Don’t ask.”
Moving through the scene were the spaced-out and the shouters, airing grievances real or imagined.
Along the boardwalk, Vernon English — who came from Chicago in 2017 — sold his art, effusive swatches of color evoking Mark Rothko. He’d built sets in the Midwest but knew he wanted to do something more creative.
So he came to Venice. At night, he covers his art with a tarp and beds down in the alleys — making sure to avoid the larger encampments, which he said tend to be full of trouble. He pays for art supplies by helping shop owners along the boardwalk clean up and hopes to afford a rental apartment.
At the moment, that proposition is daunting.
“This is the best office space ever,” he said. “Still, I want to save up six months’ rent. That’s a ton of money.”
Homelessness in Venice has been a much debated —and litigated — subject. In the late 1980s, more than a thousand locals signed a petition complaining about hundreds of tents on the beach.
Decades later, activists sued in 2015 to strike down the City of Los Angeles’ overnight beach curfew, which they say was only enforced to drive out homeless people.
Lisa Redmond, a homelessness activist with the Venice Catholic Worker, is helping provide outreach and services on the boardwalk and says it’s no surprise people flock there. Aside from its inviting ocean view, there are nearby toilets and running water — necessities that are hard to find when one is homeless.
While she thinks Bonin’s plan is the most humane option on the table, the whole endeavor, which she sees as being driven by pressure from nearby homeowners and business owners, leaves her frustrated.
“I think Bonin is caving into the whims of the people that want the beach cleared,” she said.
There’s no definitive cause or starting point for the surge of homeless people, but it’s generally agreed that the city’s suspension of homeless cleanups during the pandemic has contributed to its rapid spread.
A pivotal event was the placement of one of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s A Bridge Home shelters on a former MTA bus storage lot a few blocks inland where trendy Abbot Kinney Boulevard meets Main Street.
Trying vainly to mollify hostile opposition, Garcetti and Bonin promised extra police patrols and sanitation to keep the streets around the new shelter free of camps.
Just the opposite happened. Only days after the March 2020 opening, the city suspended homeless camp cleanups in accordance with its interpretation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, and the shelter cut its capacity in half.
An expanse of tents quickly bloomed where there had been only a scattering. Third and Hampton streets, with two of Venice’s most popular restaurants at either end, were rendered into homeless alleys, with tents and rickety structures covering sidewalks on both sides of the street. Around the corner, on Sunset Avenue, tents have taken over the sidewalk in front of a modernistic apartment building. More tents, and the black RV that neighbors say is terrorizing them, appeared farther south around a dog park and Westminster Elementary.
Given license by a freeze on ticketing, recreational vehicles in various states of disrepair filled the two-block commercial portion of Main Street in front of the gigantic binocular facade of the building now occupied by Google.
How much the coronavirus is at fault is debated.
Venice homeowner and activist Mark Ryavec, who was trounced in a 2017 attempt to unset Bonin, blames the councilman for misinterpreting the CDC guidelines, which urged localities not to disrupt homeless camps.
“CDC guidelines did not say, ‘Go live at the beach,’” Ryavec said. “The CDC guidelines say, ‘Stay where you are.’”
Whatever the cause, the effect was dramatic.
A crime spike forewarned by shelter opponents became a reality. A Times analysis of LAPD crime data for the Venice Beach area showed that in 2020, assaults, robberies and trespassing were all up more than 50% over the prior year. Burglaries climbed 15%.
The Los Angeles County Coroner recorded 19 deaths of homeless people in Venice during 2020. Eight were due to drug overdoses and three were ruled homicides, two by gunshot and one by blunt trauma.
The Los Angeles Police Department has reported even sharper crime increases this year.
In the first week of June, a security guard on Washington Boulevard was severely wounded by a homeless man wielding a shattered bottle, and an elderly man singing on the boardwalk was punched to the ground in an apparently random attack.
On Monday, a woman with a knife near Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino was arrested after he made a campaign appearance on the boardwalk. That occurred shortly before Villanueva was spotted on the boardwalk, criticizing elected officials for their response to homelessness and vowing to do more. Sheriff’s deputies began what they said will be regular patrols Monday.
Residents have begun recording videos showing fights outside their homes, syringes and human waste, mentally unstable people in their yards, and fires that break out regularly. Several of the videos have been turned into slickly produced montages portraying Venice in the throes of mayhem.
Like many of her neighbors, Soledad Ursua, who owns a vintage wood house between the shelter and the dog park, installed a surveillance system and built a fence with an electronic keypad — the latest architectural trend in Venice — to enclose her tiny front yard.
“We have a major drug problem on our hands, and it is being disguised as housing crisis,” Ursua wrote to Garcetti in June 2019 when the shelter was under construction. “I am not able to sleep through the night anymore. There is always a group of people doing drugs outside my home.”
Ursua, a member of the Venice Neighborhood Council, has led its activist health and safety committee in pressing Bonin to follow the example of Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who had Echo Park Lake fenced off this year after removing a large homeless camp. Because the boardwalk is a city park, it could be cleared under the same municipal ordinance that underpinned the evacuation of the lake, they say.
Bonin has criticized O’Farrell over the last-minute turmoil that tarnished that operation as more than 100 stragglers were hastily evacuated under threat of imminent eviction. Then police swooped in to roughly squelch a show of civil disobedience by homeless rights advocates.
Instead, he said, he believes that a large-scale push of outreach by service providers can achieve the same result without the heavy-handed tactics.
He can point to a precedent. Last fall, Bonin called on St. Joseph Center, the nonprofit social services agency a few blocks away, to concentrate outreach on a string of tents on a strip of land beside the city-owned Penmar Golf Course.
Over about a month, Chief Executive Val Lecia Adams Kellum said, St. Joseph identified 77 people in the camp and was able to move 70 into six motels, including two run by Project Roomkey, a statewide program that converts hotels and motels into temporary housing. It was done with minimal police support.
Bonin said he now plans to repeat that on a larger scale. The effort began Monday when St. Joseph outreach workers began what has been dubbed Homeless Connect Days, sitting at “triage” tables to identify those living on the boardwalk who want to move indoors. Bonin said L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, whose district also encompasses Venice, is committing space in detox and mental health facilities for those who need them.
At some point, Bonin said, a small area will be cleared as housing becomes available, and gradually that area will be expanded to the entire boardwalk. Living space for more than 100 people will become available in the coming weeks, he said, including a Ramada Inn with 35 rooms and 63 beds in shared housing.
That is fewer than the 167 people estimated by St. Joseph to be living on the boardwalk. Bonin was adamant that no one would be required to leave without an offer of housing.
Bonin’s most strident critics don’t believe he means it. They have launched a recall petition, whose supporters accuse the councilman of tolerating the camps because of “knee-jerk support for the homeless” while using the pandemic as a pretext.
“My belief is that until Bonin leaves office, Venice Beach will remain overrun by homeless encampments, drug sales and use, and crime (and fires),” Ryavec wrote on his Venice Stakeholders Assn. website.
Members of the Venice Clean and Safe for the Summer group say they are working with Bonin to see the plan through.
“I think the last stall they have is, ‘We’re trying to get housing for everybody,’” said Alex Stowell, a former owner of a boxing gym and 19-year renter on the boardwalk who now runs a photo business called Venice Paparazzi.
Stowell is the founder of Team Venice, a coalition of Venice Beach sports leagues that pressed the city for the handball court cleanup. He has joined with Averill and two longtime Venice property owners,
Connie Brooks and Cari Devine Bjelajac, who formed a group called Friends of the Venice Boardwalk.
They have been meeting regularly since May with representatives of the LAPD, the Department of Recreation and Parks, St. Joseph Center, and Kuehl’s and Bonin’s offices. They supported the triage table as a first step but insisted on being involved to make sure it obtains the information they think is needed.
“You need to know who is out there,” Stowell said. “Names, how many people and what they want. Who wants to live outside?”
Faulting the service providers for not already having that information, they have begun doing their own outreach work, walking the boardwalk and listening to stories. That’s how they learned that Rabbeinu, the artist, had been arrested. She has not returned.
In a recent foray, homeowners Brooks and Bjelajac caught up with Stephen Smith, whose tent sat among half a dozen others atop a knoll that curls away from the boardwalk.
After chatting about his plan to go off the grid in Northern California, Smith, a 65-year-old who lost a family business under a crush of health problems, recounted witnessing a gang rape late one night.
Then he pointed out the victim, a young woman who was walking in aimless circles talking to herself.
It had traumatized him, he said, because he was helpless to stop the attack by a group of gang members.
As they spoke, a man who had been yelling profanities at his partner inside a tent followed her onto the boardwalk and smacked her with a jacket before walking off.
The next day, Brooks reported, the same man assaulted a jogger. Anyone who frequents the boardwalk has seen it before.
“Anybody can see there’s a recipe for real disaster out there,” Stowell said. “As that becomes the undeniable reality, they’re going to have to make a move or face a bad future.”
By David Zahniser
Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2021
She's been at City Hall six months. Now Nithya Raman is being targeted for recall
Voters in Southern California have launched yet another bid to remove a politician ahead of the regular election cycle — this time targeting a Los Angeles city councilwoman who's been in office for just six months.
© Provided by The LA Times Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, seen on election night last year, is the target of a recall effort by some of her constituents. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)CD4 for CD4, a campaign committee formed last month, served Councilwoman Nithya Raman with a recall notice outside her Silver Lake home Wednesday. On its website and elsewhere, the committee argued that Raman's office is too inexperienced, too unresponsive and too politically radical for her constituents to endure a full four-year term.
Raman, 39, did not respond to each of the group's claims. But in a statement, the councilwoman she said she is focused on her "broad progressive agenda" — helping renters, small businesses and people experiencing homelessness, among others.
"I love the people and the neighborhoods of this district. That’s why I ran to represent it," she said. "I invite the organizers of this recall to work with me on making it an even better place to live, work, and raise our children.”
Assuming that its paperwork is in order, CD4 for CD4 would need to collect more than 27,000 valid signatures between July and early November to get a recall on the ballot in Raman's 4th Council District, which stretches from Hancock Park north to Sherman Oaks and east to Silver Lake.
Raman defeated Councilman David Ryu by a comfortable margin in November, becoming the first council candidate at City Hall to oust an incumbent in 17 years. She is far from the only politician in California to experience a recall threat.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is already scheduled to face voters in a recall electionthis year, while foes of L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón have begun gathering signatures for their own countywide recall bid. Critics of Councilman Mike Bonin are laying plans for a recall effort — one that could run smack into next year's election schedule if it is not launched soon.
Raman won her seat last year with support from some influential leftist political groups, including the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Recall backers have highlighted Raman's working relationshipwith that organization, which favors the abolition of police departments and prisons, saying it is one sign that the councilwoman has a "far left radical agenda."
Allison Cohen, the committee's lead recall proponent, criticized Raman over her office's approach to homelessness and for supporting a plan to cut Los Angeles Police Department staffing by 250 officers. She also questioned Raman's decision to go to Echo Park Lake in March, when scores of activists protested plans for removing a homeless encampment with nearly 200 tents.
"Emails are not returned. Calls are not returned. People have been trying without success to get meetings with her," Cohen said. "Yet she shows up in Echo Park as part of that protest situation. It's not even her district."
Cohen, the editor and publisher of the Los Feliz Ledger, said residents are also upset that Raman came out against a planning department proposal for height limits on stretches of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz.
Jesse Zwick, a spokesman for Raman, has argued in recent months that the councilwoman's stance will spur the construction of more affordable housing. Raman, for her part, said her office has provided outreach to dozens of homeless encampments that had "long been neglected" and worked to restore park funding.
"We’ve worked with constituents in every single neighborhood of the 4th District to effectively address their concerns," she said.
Under the city's rules, Raman has 21 days to respond to the recall notice, if she chooses. The 120-day period for gathering signatures would begin July 7 — as long as the city has approved the petition form, said Jinny Pak, who manages the city clerk's election division.
To qualify for the ballot, recall proponents will need to gather valid signatures from 15% of registered voters in Raman's district.
If they succeed in that effort, L.A.'s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America will probably step forward to help the councilwoman. Erin O’Neal-Robinson, co-chair of that group's electoral politics committee, called backers of the recall effort “right-wing extremists who are throwing a tantrum" and said voters made clear last year that they wanted Raman.
“She’s one of our candidates. We’re going to support her however we can," she said. "But time will tell what shape that takes."
A Judge Vacated the CDC Eviction Moratorium.
What you need to know.
By Erin B. Logan
Staff Writer
May 5, 2021 4:34 PM PT
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority when it issued a nationwide eviction moratorium.
The moratorium, implemented under the Trump administration and extended to June 30 under President Biden, aims to protect the millions of Americans unable to pay rent amid the economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August, one month before the moratorium began, as many as 40 million people — 43% of households in the U.S.— were at risk of eviction, according to a joint report from the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program.
While the order did not cover all renters — it applied to individuals who earn less than $99,000 and couples making less than $198,000 — it was a way for many, still struggling amid the pandemic-driven economic downturn, to avoid homelessness.
As of March, 15% of adult renters have yet to catch up on payments, according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report. Renters of color face even greater hardship. More than 20% of Black adult tenants were behind on rent; the figure for white non-Latino renters was 9%.
Here’s what you need to know:
Why is this happening? The 1944 Public Health Service Act gave the federal government the authority to prevent the introduction, transmission and spread of communicable diseases.
In an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, the CDC last year deemed it necessary to delay mass evictions, in part to avoid an influx of people moving into homeless shelters or with family or friends.
Though loopholes in the moratorium allowed many to slip through the cracks, it helped keep millions of people in their homes.
It also created a backlog of rent owed to landlords, with estimates in the tens of billions. Landlords have repeatedly challenged the CDC order, saying it creates an undue financial burden. Federal courts have issued conflicting rulings.
In the Wednesday decision, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, ruled that the CDC order must be vacated.
“The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not,” Friedrich wrote in her ruling.
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Does this mean evictions are inevitable? Not necessarily.
Jobs are coming back. And, the American Rescue Plan Act gave the Treasury Department the authority to dole out nearly $47 billion in relief to states and municipalities to help people pay back rent and utility bills. Though the rollout has been shaky in some states, the money was expected to reach people by June, when the moratorium was set to expire.
Many states and local governments have enacted their own eviction bans. The judge’s ruling does not affect moratoriums in Los Angeles or California.
In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom extended until June 30 evictions protections for tenants affected by the pandemic. And New York recently extended its moratorium through August.
The Department of Justice said it would request a stay on the judge’s decision until an appeal had been decided by a higher court.
Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, tweeted that the Biden administration should defend and enforce the eviction ban “at least until emergency rental assistance provided by Congress reaches the renters who need it to remain stably housed.”
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
DOES THIS MEAN EVICTIONS ARE INEVITABLE?
Not necessarily.
Jobs are coming back. And, the American Rescue Plan Act gave the Treasury Department the authority to dole out nearly $47 billion in relief to states and municipalities to help people pay back rent and utility bills. Though the rollout has been shaky in some states, the money was expected to reach people by June, when the moratorium was set to expire.
Many states and local governments have enacted their own eviction bans. The judge’s ruling does not affect moratoriums in Los Angeles or California.
In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom extended until June 30 evictions protections for tenants affected by the pandemic. And New York recently extended its moratorium through August.
The Department of Justice said it would request a stay on the judge’s decision until an appeal had been decided by a higher court.
Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, tweeted that the Biden administration should defend and enforce the eviction ban “at least until emergency rental assistance provided by Congress reaches the renters who need it to remain stably housed.”
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
What you need to know.
By Erin B. Logan
Staff Writer
May 5, 2021 4:34 PM PT
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority when it issued a nationwide eviction moratorium.
The moratorium, implemented under the Trump administration and extended to June 30 under President Biden, aims to protect the millions of Americans unable to pay rent amid the economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August, one month before the moratorium began, as many as 40 million people — 43% of households in the U.S.— were at risk of eviction, according to a joint report from the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program.
While the order did not cover all renters — it applied to individuals who earn less than $99,000 and couples making less than $198,000 — it was a way for many, still struggling amid the pandemic-driven economic downturn, to avoid homelessness.
As of March, 15% of adult renters have yet to catch up on payments, according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report. Renters of color face even greater hardship. More than 20% of Black adult tenants were behind on rent; the figure for white non-Latino renters was 9%.
Here’s what you need to know:
Why is this happening? The 1944 Public Health Service Act gave the federal government the authority to prevent the introduction, transmission and spread of communicable diseases.
In an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, the CDC last year deemed it necessary to delay mass evictions, in part to avoid an influx of people moving into homeless shelters or with family or friends.
Though loopholes in the moratorium allowed many to slip through the cracks, it helped keep millions of people in their homes.
It also created a backlog of rent owed to landlords, with estimates in the tens of billions. Landlords have repeatedly challenged the CDC order, saying it creates an undue financial burden. Federal courts have issued conflicting rulings.
In the Wednesday decision, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, ruled that the CDC order must be vacated.
“The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not,” Friedrich wrote in her ruling.
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Does this mean evictions are inevitable? Not necessarily.
Jobs are coming back. And, the American Rescue Plan Act gave the Treasury Department the authority to dole out nearly $47 billion in relief to states and municipalities to help people pay back rent and utility bills. Though the rollout has been shaky in some states, the money was expected to reach people by June, when the moratorium was set to expire.
Many states and local governments have enacted their own eviction bans. The judge’s ruling does not affect moratoriums in Los Angeles or California.
In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom extended until June 30 evictions protections for tenants affected by the pandemic. And New York recently extended its moratorium through August.
The Department of Justice said it would request a stay on the judge’s decision until an appeal had been decided by a higher court.
Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, tweeted that the Biden administration should defend and enforce the eviction ban “at least until emergency rental assistance provided by Congress reaches the renters who need it to remain stably housed.”
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
DOES THIS MEAN EVICTIONS ARE INEVITABLE?
Not necessarily.
Jobs are coming back. And, the American Rescue Plan Act gave the Treasury Department the authority to dole out nearly $47 billion in relief to states and municipalities to help people pay back rent and utility bills. Though the rollout has been shaky in some states, the money was expected to reach people by June, when the moratorium was set to expire.
Many states and local governments have enacted their own eviction bans. The judge’s ruling does not affect moratoriums in Los Angeles or California.
In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom extended until June 30 evictions protections for tenants affected by the pandemic. And New York recently extended its moratorium through August.
The Department of Justice said it would request a stay on the judge’s decision until an appeal had been decided by a higher court.
Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, tweeted that the Biden administration should defend and enforce the eviction ban “at least until emergency rental assistance provided by Congress reaches the renters who need it to remain stably housed.”
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
What Happened to L.A.'s $1 Billion for Homeless Housing?
January 29, 2020
This project was reported and produced by Sandhya Kambhampati, Swetha Kannan, Iris Lee and Andrea Roberson. Doug Smith contributed reporting.
The figures were illustrated by Lorena Iñiguez Elebee and Jon Schleuss.
The Times compiled data from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department, which oversees Proposition HHH projects. Homeless population estimates are from the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority’s 2019 count.
The projects' total costs are much more than $1.2 billion. The HHH fund covers about 30% of the building costs. Developers must raise the rest of the construction costs elsewhere.
According to HHH rules, the majority of the funds should be used to build permanent supportive housing units for homeless people. No more than 20% can be used to build affordable housing for low-income families and individuals. A small portion is set aside for shelters and other facilities for homeless people.
This analysis does not include projects funded by the mayor's innovation challenge, which involves $120 million set aside from the $1.2 billion HHH funds. That program was approved to seek faster and less costly building methods. The $120 million will go toward six projects totaling roughly 1,000 apartment units. The locations of those projects have not been determined.
January 29, 2020
This project was reported and produced by Sandhya Kambhampati, Swetha Kannan, Iris Lee and Andrea Roberson. Doug Smith contributed reporting.
The figures were illustrated by Lorena Iñiguez Elebee and Jon Schleuss.
The Times compiled data from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department, which oversees Proposition HHH projects. Homeless population estimates are from the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority’s 2019 count.
The projects' total costs are much more than $1.2 billion. The HHH fund covers about 30% of the building costs. Developers must raise the rest of the construction costs elsewhere.
According to HHH rules, the majority of the funds should be used to build permanent supportive housing units for homeless people. No more than 20% can be used to build affordable housing for low-income families and individuals. A small portion is set aside for shelters and other facilities for homeless people.
This analysis does not include projects funded by the mayor's innovation challenge, which involves $120 million set aside from the $1.2 billion HHH funds. That program was approved to seek faster and less costly building methods. The $120 million will go toward six projects totaling roughly 1,000 apartment units. The locations of those projects have not been determined.