Posted on 01/11/2019 8:15:59 AM PST by EdnaMode
With swelling transient encampments abutting seven-figure homes, the beachside enclave has emerged as a flashpoint for the inequality shaping Los Angeles — and a real-world test case for the liberal ideology of the area’s showbiz residents.
After the first attack, Randy Osborn figured it was just his turn. Tire slashings in his east Venice Beach neighborhood had become commonplace. But when his vintage Land Rover was hit a sixth time in the course of a few months, Osborn, who runs a small virtual reality company and has lived in Venice for seven years, began to worry he was being singled out.
"It may have been random, but it sure felt targeted and concentrated," says Osborn, who now protects his tires each night with a jury-rigged plywood-and-chain contraption that has so far deterred the assailants. Every time he takes his family out of town, he worries about his house being robbed. "It's not a very fun way to live," he says. A lot of residents within Osborn's 15-block area just east of Lincoln Boulevard — where actor Viggo Mortensen owns a home and director Jon Favreau is opening a production office — have similar stories. And though they can't say for sure, Osborn and others suspect the crime is tied to several homeless encampments that have sprung up nearby in the past 15 months.
Los Angeles is grappling with a homeless epidemic. "It's the worst human catastrophe in America," says Andy Bales, a pastor who runs the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row. Faced with a growing crisis, city leaders last year budgeted more than $100 million for affordable housing, addiction treatment, job placement and mental health services. And yet, as L.A.'s real estate prices soar, so does the city's homeless population. And nowhere have the twin forces of inaccessible housing and inequality created a more explosive mix than in Venice Beach, a hotbed of entertainment executives and talent where the median home price is $1.9 million. Many of these residents are now grappling with a quality-of-life issue that defies their own liberal ideals.
Sleepless in Seattle and Community producer Gary Foster, who moved to the area two years ago from Westwood and works with the homeless advocacy group The People Concern, says he was surprised by the number of residents who expressed exasperation with — if not outright disdain for — the transient population. "They tend to be liberal, they want to do good in the world, but they're balancing their beliefs with how that might impact the value of their real estate," says Foster, who began his activism after producing The Soloist, about a journalist who discovers a musical savant living on Skid Row.
The Frank Gehry-designed home of artist John Baldessari. "There are actually [residents] advocating driving the homeless out of Venice — shipping them off somewhere, which is such a proto-fascist move," says television writer Evan Dunsky, a 27-year resident of the area. "And then what? Do we have to build a wall around Venice?"
Venice is now home to the largest concentration of homeless anywhere on L.A.'s Westside, with nearly 1,000 non-domiciled people. During the past 18 months, several encampments have swelled in more residential areas where homes can easily sell for eight figures and up. Tents, many of them equipped with mini refrigerators, cupboards, televisions and heaters, vie with pedestrian traffic.
Residents who live near the encampments say mail regularly goes missing. Break-ins have jumped. Hypodermic needles and human waste are appearing on sidewalks and at local playgrounds. Residents have complained to police about harassment and even physical assaults. "This is more of a criminal problem than a homeless problem," says nonprofit worker Carly Voge, who lives next to the so-called Frederick camp adjacent to the Penmar Golf Course.
"There are crime problems in Venice," concedes Mike Bonin, whose Council District 11 includes Venice Beach. Bonin has come under intense criticism for his handling of the homeless crisis by Venice residents displeased with his support of a measure to introduce a massive, $5 million transitional housing project in their city. At the same time, Bonin says, "I can't accept the idea that there is an inextricable link between crime and homelessness. It is wrong, it is not backed up by the data, and it leads to bad policy."
Disagreements over the potential causes of the crimes have begun to factionalize Venice's neighborhoods. "It was six months of terror, absolute terror," says radiologist Maria Altavilla, who lives in east Venice. She says that the period of increased health and safety concerns coincided with the expansion of the homeless encampments the past year. She recently arrived home with her two children to find a woman shooting up in her yard. Lately, her husband has expressed a desire to move because of his frustration with the encampments. Several residents shared an unconfirmed theory — suggested to them by a local patrolman — that certain assailants were using the social media app NextDoor to monitor which residents are most vocal about their opposition to encampments and then targeting those individuals for retribution.
As the problem worsens, homeowners are banding together to try to reclaim patches of sidewalk in an effort to deter future encampments. At the corner of Millwood Avenue and Lincoln, bulky wood planters now hog much of the sidewalk. Those planters emerged mysteriously two months ago outside a Staples office supply store that was once a popular resting spot for a handful of tent dwellers. The same pattern can be seen on another block, further south on Palms Boulevard, where similar metallic planters have recently appeared.
Others have put up unpermitted planters to eat up sidewalk space on Millwood Avenue
On Venice Boulevard in front of Vice Media's offices, a chain-link fence was erected to prohibit tents from going up. Residents around Penmar Golf Course have started a GoFundMe page and have hit their goal of raising $80,000 to fill a pedestrian pathway with native plants and landscaping — a project being called the Frederick Avenue Pass-Through but whose real objective is to deter the large encampment that has ballooned there.
"Honestly, I think we are a step and half away from vigilantism," says a talent manager who has lived in the area for two decades. "I feel like this is heading toward a Guardian Angels type situation that you saw in 1970s New York. Someone is going to go out there with a lead pipe and give someone a serious beatdown. It's awful to say, but I don't see what prevents that from happening."
Life in Venice Beach has always come with its own distinct form of urban grittiness. Unlike its bougie neighbors to the north in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, Venice has embraced its counterculture past. It's the land of head shops and street art that celebrates icons like Jim Morrison, Dennis Hopper and Jerry Garcia. And, to a degree, that grittiness added to the area's allure, helping turn Venice into one of L.A.'s most desirable neighborhoods. Venice now counts as residents actress Emilia Clarke, screenwriter Mark Boal and Participant Media's David Linde, among many others in the industry. The area also has become "Silicon Beach," home to tech giants Snapchat and Google.
Dunsky has witnessed Venice's transformation from a battleground for gangs to one that boasts several Michelin-starred restaurants. A self-proclaimed progressive, Dunsky says he fears that recent gentrification has altered people's sympathies. "There is a fever of money in Venice that has nothing to do with its past. Whatever progressive elements were historically here have dwindled, and they're being replaced by tech money."
When property values get low enough, someone will come
in and buy them up, then suddenly the “homeless” problem
will disappear.
Saw this happen in Atlanta in the 70s and 80s.
Now it’s called Colony Square.
14th street was hippy central and property values went
down, the property was bought up and suddenly the city
police moved all activity down several blocks and up
goes a skyscraper.
They were bums until PC called them vagrants. Then the bums made vagrant a pejorative.
Then the vagrants made vagrant a pejorative so a kinder, gentler, word was needed. We got homeless.
Has homeless achieved pejorative status? Is it time for, as the article uses, non-domiciled people?
_____________
I love the term ‘non-domiciled.’ What about ‘unhomed’ or ‘unroofed’?
If the light bulb ever goes on with the average liberal in regards to what “their” politicians are doing directly affects them in a very negative way the dems may be in a bad spot.
I had a meeting with Gary Foster on the Sony lot about ten years ago. It didn’t go well.
A couple of years ago, I read through a book....’Citizen Hobo’. It puts everything into prospective when comparing with this current crowd. They are simply modern-day hobos. The only difference is drug usage in the mix.
I’m reminded of the preferred designation for street corner drug dealers -— unlicensed pharmacists.
I suspect that was a message....and the message was GET OUT. Or maybe payback. I wonder if he said or did something prior to the vandalism to trigger it. Could have been something as simple as rebuffing a request for money.
Wasn’t there a female television star who recently had the crap beat out of her by a homeless vagrant?
MJ legalization just makes this problem worse.
There is a song lyric that goes “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose lose”. The “homeless” are the most free people in America.
They have adjusted their lives to live in a world none of us would want to live. Yet they survive because they can pretty much do what they want, including stealing from others, or just destroying property. They have no bills, and they have no responsibilities. If they get sick, the government cares for them. If they go to jail, it is just a minor inconvenience.
The normal rules of society do not apply to them for the simply reason the progressive refused to allow anyone to hold them accountable for their action. With no restraint, why should they obey societal rules. Want to take a dump in the middle of a side walk, go ahead. No one will say anything. Want to walk through a store and take things, go ahead. Even if they call the cops nothing will happen. Want to go sit in a public library smelling like you have not bathed in months (because you haven’t) go for it.
The homeless actually have more rights then the normal tax paying citizen. Since they are not afraid of the law.
Just 50 year ago the bums would have been ran out of town before it got this bad.
Gehry designed the Experience Music site in Seattle. It looks like someone dumped the contents of a garbage can into the street.
Portland, Seattle and much of CA.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you....unless you live in a very rich neighborhood.
“I can’t accept the idea that there is an inextricable link between crime and homelessness. It is wrong, it is not backed up by the data, and it leads to bad policy.”
IMO That’s nothing more than a politician trying to hold onto his job right there.
Open-air dwellers
“It’s the worst human catastrophe in America,”
Where’s that tiny violin? This problem could have been avoided. Entirely engineered, perhaps with good intentions, but that and $4.00 will get you a cup of coffee.Brought to you by “Progressive” policy from the compassionate and tolerant democrats.
Serves him right for trying to have a nice vehicle in california without a secure place (e.g. locked garage) to park it at home AND at work (e.g. armed security guards where use of deadly force is authorized).
I learned that lesson decades ago in ventura county. There’s a high concentration and quantity (millions) of low lifes in california.
Oh, believe me, they're not idle. Anything outside is fair game for them to steal - children's bikes, wheelchairs, walkers - you frequently see frankenstein'ed trailers following BMX bikes, loaded with even more stolen stuff, heading back to the encampment to be dumped there (and then they'll complain someone stole from their horde...)
Only need $5 for a little taste of heroin or meth, you can get that just by selling a couple garden hoses to the thrift shop. The walking dead are out each and every night.
IIRC, Paulette Perrett (was ABBY on NCIS) has been assaulted TWICE on the streets of Burbank.
And walk around in a daze wondering how did that happen idiots on the march.
Even back in the 80s and 90s, Venice Beach was one giant outdoor homeless shelter. I remember walking along the beach in the early morning and it looked disgusting — trash everywhere. Bums and drug addicts passed out on the beach and walkway, some having thrown up all over themselves. Just wall it off and turn it into an asylum.
“If they go to jail, it is just a minor inconvenience.”
Actually, as I understand it, many go to jail deliberately to take advantage of the benefits of being there.....think about it. Free food and lodging in an environmentally controlled building etc. I understand there could be some peril in being there and it’s not Holiday Inn mind you but in many cases I would imagine it’s better than where they were.
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