“We have a choice between the status quo of allowing sidewalks and streets full of encampments, or offering people a safe place to keep their personal belongings while getting them connected to the services that will get them off the street permanently,” said Councilman Mike Bonin in response to seeing the deed for the Westminster Senior Center and the letter from the Venice Stakeholders Association (VSA) attorneys.
“The Venice Stakeholders Association (VSA) is fighting to keep clutter on neighborhood streets in a misguided attempt to deny services to the homeless.
“That is a status quo that I, and many neighbors in Venice, find intolerable. I was well aware when I initially proposed my plan to address and reduce homelessness in Venice that there was going to be controversy over some of the solutions that I offered. But controversy is better than inaction, and the only thing I am not willing to consider is allowing the status quo to continue.
“I have asked the City Attorney to assess the validity of the VSA letter. While that is happening, we will move forward with an open and transparent public process that will evaluate the variety of solutions I have offered in Venice, including expanded storage that provides a real solution to the problem of growing encampments on neighborhood streets.”
Insanity!!! The spread between the winners and losers in the recent VNC election was so great, the whole thing would have to be done over… and when is trying to make one’s town cleaner and safer for EVERYONE considered racist? This is about primarily white transients and criminal activities. Good luck to the winners – As one of the founding VNC Boardmembers, we were unable to do much positive because of the constant attacks from these self-appointed SAVERS OF VENICE with distractions like a barrage of procedural complaints and shit like instant runoff voting. In the end it is, and always has been, about screwing up the town to “keep rents and property values down”(and how has that been working out for you folks??)and channeling millions to the local social services to help get “people off the street” (and how has that been working out??)- PATHETIC!!! http://savevenice.me/press-release-venice-groups-request-investigation-into-potential-election-fraud/
This is why we need to SAVE VENICE: We need to save Venice from homeless bashers who for some insane reason are jealous the government is showing that they care about “Everyone”. See you at Venice Beach, neighbor. http://www.savevenice.me
“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.”
Oscar Ameringer
That’s not art. That’s war. This is art: Save Venice http://www.savevenice.me
I’m reading an outright description of a land grab and squatting. While I’ve read about squats taking over abandoned private properties, I’m not aware of precedence like this to take over public lands. This doesn’t bode well for maintaining a Civil society.
The tragedy then is compounded by ineffectual government leadership unwilling it seems offer ideas, solutions and actions that can actually help those in need.
I believe revolutions do not have to be physically radical or violent to induce real lasting and positive change. I’ve always believed in humans ability to innovate and be good to their neighbors.
I’ve mentioned Roshi Glassman In NY and his Greystone Bakery program- permanent housing, skill training to become a baker, counseling: all in one location. No piecemeal ad hoc interventions with unintended consequences. This wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented, looks like there is a working model.
Of course this doesn’t hapoen overnight to address the thousands who need homes, skills, work and help who make our City home, but it should become a goal.
I’ve also mentioned in other blog posts that wouldn’t it be great to marry the passion of social service advocates (who now I’m convinced some drank Alinky’s kool-aide, who fight with devil may care fervor, reacting to the moment now in real life, and so justify to themselves using deceit, radical actions etc to achieve their ends), and find the right big hearted business mogul to lead an enterprise that actually helps elevate people who need it?
To me the failure is the stuckness in old patterns, dogmatic thinking: by all sides of the agenda. Bonin to me has shown no real bravery in his thinking and actions, likely just following in the footsteps of his mentors. Ruth Galanter? And the social service orientated groupthink here in the blogosphere keeps sounding off the same arguments, as likely real estate developers might as well.
Well the status quo in Venice Beach sucks. Cities need to renew, redevelop and change or else they die. So do people too, if they do not grow and introduce dynamic new thinking, they resign their souls and their integrity to being something less than they are capable of. At worse leads to outright corruption.
Yes there is an immense homeless problem in Venice. But I cannot understand any real reasoning for spending our hard earned resources that taxed away from us to house only a handful compared to the thousands who could be better served and more quickly with those monetary resources, by rehabilitating existing infrastructure, buildings etc. To me this move to build on the Venice lots as proposed fails beyond the pale.
I also mentioned Richard Rorty in another blog: the most ethical and moral way we can live is for the progeny we have yet or may never meet.
I see absolutely no progress with the manner of actions between these opposing camps in Venice Beach. Isn’t it time to reach civilly across the aisle and work together?
The tide is changing no doubt. During this transition we’re afforded an opportunity to foster something to serve better all of Venice. Just saying.
This is wealthy against non-wealthy in Venice. Times do change, and building along with it. The negative impact is when it’s not serving the whole community. Now all of sudden wealthy people in Venice and the westside fear loosing something they bought worth millions. This happened when the government stepped in started actually doing something for the whole community. It was shocking for people like Mark Ryavec to see that the City actually does care about all of it’s people, not just wealthy and well off people. Bringing the balance back into Venice is the main goal. And it includes everyone not just wealthy people. It’s all about power. The government is funding money and gives incentives for everyone to thrive and the wealthy realize that will only bring real estate prices to a halt and even downwards. This is a time for everyone but the wealthy are not throwing in the towel and giving up on their Venice dream home being worth millions of dollars more within 5-10 years. The government is essentially saying enough is enough. Now the government is actually doing something positive to level things out. The Westside can actually be more affordable to live in and that includes Venice. Homeless housing is up next on the horizon almost literally in Venice and we need even more low income housing then what the city is proposing in Venice. That is how you Save Venice. http://www.savevenice.me
@LivingisfreeinVeniceCalifornia
Appreciate your thoughtful reply and reading your point of view. We do not agree on everything, but have common ground. I want Venice to remain a diverse and dynamic community, absolutely. That’s one of the most important reasons why our family makes our home here.
Example, there are many aspects of the transformation of Abbot Kinney these last ten years that to me have fallen below cringe worthy, and I think have lessened much what was wonderful about Venice Beach. Where’s Double Vision? Where’s Hal’s? Lithium Gallery? Not the former night time ghost town I remember, but for me the first year or so of first Fridays. Take a stroll, see my neighbors out, the gentle promenade with folks you know, enjoy some music in someone’s shop, have a glass of wine in the sculpture garden. Sentimental. Nice. But now overrun with tourists, Disneyesque teen crowds, and food trucks. Nice? not so much now… But there was a middle ground that offered a diverse and rich urban town by the sea.
But at the same time, the lawlessness, crime, violence, rampant and public drug use and the unabated filth in our public spaces, it’s beyond abhorrent. Perhaps more the worse, the City’s failed leadership and abject neglect and abuse foisted onto the residents of Venice Beach, our families, friends and neighbors, far too long. If the middle does not hold, watch it all crumble in absolute dissolution and perdition, both sides of the same coin. Rich and poor alike. The middle of the bell curve has been quashed, and the ends of the spectrum have turned to fat heads and tails. And so increases the risks.
Can developers who take on the risks in building and refurbishing also understand what it means to serve the whole community? I don’t know, but the tides are moving, and now is the opportunity to start tracking it right. I think if a developer were truly enlightened of mind and heart, to understand that what the strange attractor in the chaos is Venice’s diversity itself, then we are afforded an opportunity that excellent, thoughtful and inspired projects can be built that elevate the community, and that developers can make a meaningful, real contribution to the whole of Venice within their plans and efforts.
Here I think might be the first issue that can be addressed: the tenor of that first meeting of ideas and personalities, that even before the first conversation, everyone has convinced themselves with an expectation that a fight has already begun, even before the first hello.
Showing up with a shiv and loaded wrist rocket of ideas secreted agendas, not the Way. Is that the right attitude to progress, to making Venice better? A wholesale, secret NO to everything has kept this jewel of Venice buried deep in the mud. Stepping in already distrustful, shut tight to a real, rational dialogue. Entropy takes over. Then when no one is paying attention, the bad actors sneak in, driven by perhaps by greed, perhaps power, and so take advantage of the ennui.
I do not like the giant unimaginative, monolithic boxes that max out every possible residential square foot in our neighborhoods. BAD architecture. (You realize that the banks during some the building boom time put conditions on the designs before they’d fund the loans, right? Bankers were ad hoc architects, dictating what could and could not be built. Designers were required to turn out shit before projects could get funded. A travesty!) But by not having engaged the developers really, by only seeing everyone as adversarial, no wonder someone taking a risk would want to skirt process. Perhaps the better approach is education and well considered criticism, not an endless barrage of ad hominen attacks and demonization of personalites. Let those who take those development risks understand too that the intangibles beyond just cash and a build by right maxim utterly, completely are far more valuable in the end for their property values. Rather than the No, what about “This is what we would like to see that can be done to make Venice incredible. Lets talk more about it.”
I believe all facets of the jewel are important, refracts the light, makes the ROYGBIV come alive. It’s possible to bring out the best in the other.
All it takes is Vision. Venice is in desperate need of renewal, conservation of some true historical elements, and the introduction of the new. We can have the most compelling, inspiring beach town in all of the US. All the bones are here. And there is no exclusion in the idea. Bake diversity into the cake, and take care of consideration of all the stakeholders. 21st Century, lets move forward, let Venice grow up, and with care and effort it can become something new, something better.
No doubt this is ready for plenty of criticism, so pollyannish in my thinking. But I’m imagining what Venice will be like in 20 years. Diverse, inspiring, and I’ll add that onto my earlier post qualities, inclusiveness and equanimity.
Why not? Dream bigger and engage with sincerity. You may be surprised who you may influence to a better Venice.
People keep talking about rehabbing existing buildings but does anybody even know how many of these buildings even exist. Frankly I think the reason we have so many homeless people here is pretty obvious but unfortunately nobody wants to do anything about it and those that do are automatically smeared as being racists. And that problem is illegal immigration. We have well over a million people in this city who have no legal right to be here. They are not only working jobs that any American could be doing but they are all obviously the root cause of why we have a housing shortage here that is resulting in landlords being able to raise rents to the heights of ridiculousness. Anyhow I’m done. Let the racist smears begin. I really don’t care if people think I’m being a racist for stating the obvious.
New California laws protect illegal immigrants in California. California is a safe haven for illegal immigrants. I also know that the minimum wage is rising and that will also help them afford to keep living in Los Angeles and the Westside. Land lords raise rents to make more money. There is a shortage of housing because everyone and their grandma wants to live on the Westside now. The root cause of this problem is greed, not illegal immigrants. This is why we need to Save Venice. http://www.savevenice.me
No actually dude the root cause of all the problems we are having in this country is all the naive useful idiots like you who make no distinction between legal and illegal immigration and who think that we can raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour without the prices of everything rising to cover all these raises for people who are working jobs that were never intended to be careers.
I think you are wrong again. There are people who work for the city hauling trash and they get paid over 15 an hour plus great benefits. What I’m getting at is that you are wrong to blame illegals for this. They are not the root cause of housing shortages. People with careers are coming to live on the Westside and the developers tear down small bungalows and build giant box houses with many units. These units are only for people with high income. This is why we need to Save Venice. We do it by including everyone even if they don’t make 100,000 a year or more. Here is a good link for you to start your education on racism: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/racism Also look up discrimination. I am sure some people would love to see the round up of latinos, blacks, and the homeless happen but we have laws to protect us from that now. We are not going backwards in time. We need to Save Venice and also ourselves from hating on each other.
Let the people decide what the distinction is between legal and illegal. That’s what we are here for to decide what we all want. Just don’t discriminate while doing it. You just can’t press a magic button and expect to see illegals all vanish. As much people hate to admit it, America was built by illegal immigration. Don’t forget things like The Trail of Tears: The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of Native American nations in the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The relocated people suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route, and more than ten thousand died before reaching their various destinations. Some leaders would like to make us forget that ever happened. I don’t know you Graham. Just don’t ever forget that our memories can never be erased. All we can do is try and create a better world. http://www.savevenice.me
The continued and accepted inaction and ineffectiveness of Councilman Mike Bonin seems to know no bounds. There is virtually thousands of pounds of stuff on OFW. You would need a warehouse to stockpile what is left there any single day. Is a broken chair or shopping cart that was in all probability stolen a personal possession? There are homemade racks with bike parts and tires on OFW. Hundreds of tents, chairs and alike. Is there a public locale in America that tolerates such recklessness? His logic seems to mean if you oppose his really bad ideas, you must be for the status quo he is protecting! Since his address on solving the homeless issue, what has he done? Is it any different then when he said he was going to hire someone to manage Venice Beach? Both were in response to bad press and yet he trolls on doing nothing once again. The only way to change things is to find someone who will run against him and beat him at the polls. He is the worst kind of Machiavellian who only reacts to political push back. Threaten his political career and standing and you might get his attention.
It’s this continued act of entitlement you keep talking about that gets you no respect. It’s working against VSA. It’s over now. The rich got richer and they still got no respect in Venice. It takes the idea of city hood to try and get respect. That isn’t respect. That’s your little kingdom of rich folks holding on to the wealth. Money can’t buy respect. Now you are feeling what goes around comes around. Save Venice.
And once again Nick you are spinning the truth.There is a Parks and Recreation truck that drives down the boardwalk every night and picks up anything that’s laying around unattended and throws it in a dumpster.
Mr.Bonin, “more status quo” you say.. Well I say B.S. TO THAT! Thee only “status quo” is the fact that you continue along with your core of local enablers Lucks, Sobel, St. Joe’s etc to “move things around” and therefore allowing in this unconscionable manner to keep Venice the cesspool that it has continued to be & increased under your watch since coming to office. As a tax paying, law abiding citizen I am fed up with all of your vain attempts to just “move the problem around” and not truly clean up Venice. The crime, defacation, squatting & drugging 24/7 that is going on on 3rd, Rose, Sunset, 4th, the Boardwalk, Lincoln, East of Lincoln behind Ralph’s… The list goes on is downright disgusting. NO AMOUNT OF STORAGE is gonna clean up this mess. What is gonna clean it up is to STOP ENABLING, PERIOD!! And let the police do their job again! It’s been said ad nauseam, but a real majority of your constituents are absolutely fed up! How about listening..?? As has also been stated a million times, if this shiTe was going on the any of your other areas ( Palisades, Brentwood etc. ), you’d be running around like a race horse to clean it up. So no more excuses here, we want the encampments taken down for good and the laws enforced again around here. Anything less is a real dereliction of your elected duties.. Like Nick said, “how will putting in storage lockers change things on the streets..?” I can answer that, it won’t and it hasn’t. You’ve already tried that and things are exponentially worse around here.. No more chicanery. Thank you.
**I see upon re-reading my reply / post that my opening line said, Mr. Bonin, “more status quo” you say… Obviously I meant to say Mr. Bonin, “NO” more status quo” you say… (sorry for not proof reading before hitting send…)
Interesting that you think the deed regarding the Westminster Senior Center should be abided by but that laws that the courts have already ruled as being unenforceable should be enforced again. So I guess in your world the laws are for the rich and the poor can just go fuck themselves, huh ?
Your plans are enabling the status quo Bonin! Nothing will change, you’re just shuffling the problem around. Like a con man at the side show palming the ball while moving the cups around! Where are the plans for homeless services in the rest of CD 11?
AND . . you can’t just ignore or circumvent a condition placed upon the property when the City took it away from the original owners through condemnation back in 1950. The taking was allowed by the court under the conditions specified. The City cannot ignore that now. The park belongs to the public and must be used as ordered by the court. Period.
Has Bonin ever explained how, once this storage is built, things will change on the streets? If we can’t clean up the filth now, why will building a storage locker change anything? Will this somehow stop Carol Sobel from suing the city for cleaning up encampments? Seems to me that the storage center will fill up with junk and then the homeless will collect/hoard more junk and put it where the stuff they moved into storage used to be, and we’ll be in the same place.
More “Bonin Bully Tactics.” More of the same. We have already been down this road – storage on the beach for years. NOTHING CHANGED on the streets. The entire plan is idiotic. There are Homeless Service Providers out there who right now are capable of getting people off the streets without storage. Unfortunately, St. Joe’s isn’t one of them.
Of course not. As soon as it is full (which it will be on Day 2), the City will cry big horse tears and tell us, “Gee whiz everyone, there’s no more room in the storage facility – no place for the rest of the folk to store there stuff, so I guess we can’t make them move. We’re real sorry.” We all know that is exactly what will happen – the storage facility will fill up and then it will be business as usual on the streets. ACLU threatening to sue the City if they make anyone move. City retreating behind the castle walls. Cops told to leave everyone alone. More of the same. This is a ridiculous unworkable idea. Quit trying to sustain people on the streets. HOUSE THEM.
More of the same works for me. The more people like you hate on the homeless the more convinced I become that flooding the streets of Venice with homeless people is a good thing. After all it’s the greed of the landlords, developers and land speculators that’s causing much of this homelessness so forcing the gentry to have to step over homeless people to get around the city they’ve invaded is , I think, a pretty just sentence.