Venice Beach park bench - Notice the block in the middle so homeless can't sleep on it
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."
That certain percentage is near 100%. Even those who get disability checks or pensions - why waste that money on an apartment and all those bills? They want to keep all that money to buy the booze and drugs they want and have none of those annoying rules to deal with.
Most real shelters that have drug testing and strict rules almost always have room available; they want a hand out, not a hand up.
Al Fresco Domicilaries ...
“Informal settlements”
I had to go to LA last year on family business and took my two nieces along. They wanted to go to Venice Beach, so we went. What an experience! Bums, dopers, drunks, old hippies, mentally ill talking to themselves. Not the fresh air you would expect to breathe at a beach — everything smelled of pot — no wonder — there was a pot shop doing a lot of business. My nieces were propositioned by creeps. (They left me alone - LOL!) We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Hope I never have to go back to CA!
*Perrette*
Ping
“I wonder what will happen in Ca. Clearly it is a battle between working people and idle vagrants.”
Idle vagrants who have the State and many times the local governments “behind” them.
I booked a vacation for me, my father and my brother in California way back in the 80s. We were in Phx but thought it would be fun to see California.
I found the most reasonable rate at a hotel, and it was in Venice across the street from the beach and with a boardwalk right next to our hotel.
Was amazed to see so many creepy, scary people on the beach, bums, transient’s, druggies all around there and thought, ‘wow’ Venice is becoming a bad location and we watched our backs!
THIS was back in the 80s!
Elections and liberals in power/control at all levels have severe consequences for the rest of us!
It’s heartbreaking to me that you had that experience in Venice — but rather than see it as an isolated incident confined to my state. Please let it be a cautionary tale of what our ENTIRE country will look like should the ever left-leaning Democrats regain control of our government (which they’re on their way of doing) and GOPers remain wishy washy about pursuing Trump’s agenda.
Red states like Texas, Kansas, and Arizona are up for grabs now. Turning ‘Purple.’
At the moment the trend seems to be for people to just move out of liberal cities, but pretty soon there won’t be greener pastures to turn to.
This is why it’s vital we stay alert, vote even in small town local elections, and get involved in whatever way we can. Write to our representatives. Encourage people around us to run for office etc...etc...
I need to take my own advice.
” Binen, who spends four hours a day online organizing against the shelter, says his activity has pushed him rightward.”
One down, 60 million to go.
I lived there from LaGuardia to Bloomberg and would in no way claim to know what Fun City is like today.
When life gets painful enough for Evan, he will either agree that tough measures need to be taken, or he will move out. Reality has a way of staying right in your face.
I wonder if conservatives could pay the homeless to set up shop in these mild climate areas as payback for the export of infectious California Lefty ideology to red states?
Nancy has at least two mansions in Northern Californicator land,
One in Gay trashed Frisco, and a huge Mansion and several acres of land on the west side of St Helena with walls and gates.
Wouldn't you?
Venice Beach park bench - Notice the block in the middle so homeless can't sleep on it
Many choose to, as it’s a dirt-cheap no-responsibility lifestyle. In that climate, with sufficient free money & services available, living in a tent is rather appealing.
Many don’t “want” to, but having ended up there find little motivation to actually exit the lifestyle. Sure a roof & bed is nice, but in that region it’s stupid expensive, vs a practically free tent in a comfortable climate.
Progressives just doesn’t grasp that a significant part of progress is an existential motivation to move away from a prior problem. Instead, they “progress” toward making it more comfortable/viable to remain in victim status ... then wonder why people are in that victim status.
It’s called “Socialism”.
There’s a powerful, rich, ruling upper class and a destitute group of peasants beneath them with nothing in the middle.
“Barbra Streisand will be tearing down her fence and opening up her home to the homeless and illegals.”
Liberal BaWah does not want anyone using the beach below her mansion. In spite of State laws banning people from keeping people of the beaches next to their mansions.
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