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Fenced out: LA businesses find new way to keep away homeless
The Guardian ^ | August 24, 2018 | Carla Green

Posted on 08/24/2018 6:41:18 AM PDT by EdnaMode

he day the fence arrived, Gabe was sitting next to his tent, right at the heart of Los Angeles’ Skid Row. It was a chain link fence – about six feet tall – placed at the edge of the sidewalk, where it neatly enclosed Gabe, his neighbors, and the tented homes they have made for themselves on the streets of what is sometimes called the homeless capital of the country.

“They put the whole sidewalk inside the fence,” said Gabe, an older black man with kind eyes and a disarming demeanor who has lived on the streets of Skid Row for about five years. He was scaling a fish over a red plastic cooler as he talked. “I felt like we were in prison on the sidewalk. It felt like we were in prison and could get out, but still in prison, you know what I mean?”

Local activists and police officers were called. Eventually, the chain-link fence was moved to free Gabe and his neighbors. It wouldn’t be the last of the fences.

As street homelessness continues to spiral upwards in Los Angeles, with just over 25,000 people living in cars, tents, and other makeshift shelters across the county, a new phenomenon is prompting frustration among the city’s homeless population: business owners fencing in portions of the sidewalk, seemingly to keep homeless people off them.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Local News; Society
KEYWORDS: ca; california; fence; fences; homeless; homelessness; la; losangeles
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To: Big Red Badger
Nobody messes with the Jesus...


21 posted on 08/24/2018 7:30:36 AM PDT by TADSLOS (1. DonÂ’t Forget Nothing.)
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To: EdnaMode

Apparently written by a scholar of Tearjerker Journalism 101.

Doesn't matter how kind his eyes are or how disarming his demeanor is if he is blocking the flow of commerce. That still makes him part of the problem, regardless of what the tearjerker Guardian writer wrote.
22 posted on 08/24/2018 7:36:23 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: EdnaMode

Awwwww. He may be a bum, but he has kind eyes and a disarming demeanor. Now I feel bad ...


23 posted on 08/24/2018 7:49:10 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: EdnaMode

So it is not OK for business owners to protect a portion of the sidewalk from the vagrants because it belongs to everyone. But it is OK for the vagrants to block the sidewalk with their lice and MRSA infected trash piles.


24 posted on 08/24/2018 7:59:36 AM PDT by Yogafist
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To: Crucial
Homelessness is increasing across the country fueled by illegal immigration and the opioid epidemic. and in part by greedy land and building developers and city officials in the back pockets of said individuals.
25 posted on 08/24/2018 8:04:09 AM PDT by Ron H. (Pray unceasingly - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
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To: MplsSteve

I’m a native Angeleno. There’s been a Skid Row downtown since before I was born.

Over time it’s simply grown. Not unlike a lot of other social problems in this country.


26 posted on 08/24/2018 8:05:36 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: NorthMountain
.....Helping the poor is the purview of the civil society: churches and private associations, and even We the People individually.

And that was the way it was from the the time of the founding of this great nation until our Democrat run government started this trend with welfare and all the other freebie hand outs ballooning and expanding the homelessness crisis. Churches and a multitude of other civic minded organizations did all of that until elected Democrat government officials figured out how to leverage votes with welfare programs thus pushing out the other NGO's helping the poor, the down and out.

27 posted on 08/24/2018 8:12:02 AM PDT by Ron H. (Pray unceasingly - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
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To: NorthMountain
I reject the notion that government spending helps the poor. I see no evidence to support that claim. It seems instead to create more poor.

So did Ben Franklin: “I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

28 posted on 08/24/2018 8:27:14 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: EdnaMode

The Los Angeles County & City officials have admitted that they have over 50,000 homeless. I figure it is twice what they will admit to.

This number of 25,000 is PURE FICTION.


29 posted on 08/24/2018 8:30:26 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: EdnaMode

LA deserves this misery - they and their Hollywood lowlifes - glamorized ‘homelessness’ and pushed this BS on the rest of the country.

Southern California and San Francisco can sink into the human poop covering their streets and business areas and the rest of us would laugh.


30 posted on 08/24/2018 8:36:44 AM PDT by GOPJ ("Talk is cheap" - - "Action is what counts.")
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To: Crucial

Homelessness is increasing across the country fueled by illegal immigration and the opioid epidemic.””’

YES- And the ACLU forced Reagan to close the mental hospitals. Now, they are on our streets.


31 posted on 08/24/2018 8:40:22 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: metmom
If they don’t like the fences, they can get off their lazy butts, get a job, and work to support themselves.

Be great if it were that simple, but it's not.

Most of those "lazy butts" are broken in spirit, mind, and body. They're at the end of a long and winding road that began far away from skid row.

Many of those people were once respectable citizens who earned their keep in life. Many had little choice in the matter of their circumstance, because they were born into it. Some wound up there because a stupid life choice set them on a path of chain reactions that resulted in total failure.

Sure, there are some actual lazy butts on skid row, but far more of that kind are living much better lives, milking the welfare system.

I've known too many people who've 'hit the skids', to ever be so judgmental. But for the grace of God, and fierce determination, myself and my family almost wound up there, ourselves.

32 posted on 08/24/2018 8:48:22 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: MplsSteve

I was homeless during a dark time after my divorce. I stayed drunk. 100% of the homeless man I encountered were addicts and/or mentally ill. The long term homeless want to take what handouts they can, stay blitzed, and be left alone.


33 posted on 08/24/2018 9:07:22 AM PDT by youngidiot (The corporate tax rate should be zero.)
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To: Windflier

And I know of church ministries that minister to those street people and some come to Christ and still want to stay on the street.


34 posted on 08/24/2018 9:08:15 AM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith......)
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To: Puppage

We have MORE homelessness as a percentage of population today than we had during the Great Depression when we had twenty-five percent unemployment snd no ‘welfare’...


35 posted on 08/24/2018 9:10:21 AM PDT by GOPJ ("Talk is cheap" - - "Action is what counts.")
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To: metmom
I know of church ministries that minister to those street people and some come to Christ and still want to stay on the street.

Okay, so they're ALL really rotten horrible bums, who are beyond even Christ's redemption.

You know that's not true.

It's true that some of them are too acclimated to the homeless life to ever be normal again. Some of them have never known a 'normal' life, and cannot adapt to the real world, which is completely alien to them.

But many can still be helped, and would be only too happy to escape that nightmare. My point is, they're not all just "lazy bums" who choose to live that degraded life.

36 posted on 08/24/2018 10:24:39 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Puppage
Another view (seems to work. :-) ):

37 posted on 08/24/2018 2:04:24 PM PDT by Oatka
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