Deborah LaShevere, homeless advocate
Jen, Heather and whoever else relates,
Note: Update compliments Deborah for speaking up for the other side of an argument. That is the only way one learns. Who knows which side will be affected by this, if one is, but all will be the better for having heard another side.
If you are concerned with the urination and defecation in your neighborhood lobby Bonin to install more public restrooms! Do you realize that we have 16 million visitors a year and about 20 public restrooms–that all close in the early evening and open at 8 am? Not one public restroom anywhere in Venice except the Boardwalk–with the exception of Vera Davis Center and the Library during the day and NOT EVEN ONE at night anywhere! Where do you think all the tourists go? And on First Friday where do all the food truckies go? And after the bars close? Please do not blame the unhoused people for the mess. They are not responsible for the thousands of tourists who “do their business” all over Venice because we do not have enough public toilets! In one hour three weeks ago I saw 6 tourists pee in the parking lot by the handball courts because the lines for the bathrooms were 25 people deep. It was a Saturday but not even the Summer yet! Unhoused people need a place to go too. You act like they are being criminals because they have a basic human need! Can you ‘hold it” for 12 hours? Did you know that the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights–that the U. S. signed onto—states that access to hygiene is a basic human right? This is not a homeless problem but is being blamed on them. This is the city’s bad. Simple solution: more bathrooms! (There are many designs that take the fear of using them for prostitution and drug abuse away, by the way, so that well used excuse is null and void at this time.)
“Cleaning up” by taking all the belongings of unhoused people is inhumane as well. When the raid on 3rd Street occurred a couple of years ago the police threw away all the unhoused people’s I. D.s, birth certificates, irreplaceable photos of relatives, family Bible’s, essential medications like heart pills and blood thinners etc, pet equipment, blankets and sleeping bags, clothing and everything they owned. They do not have a place to store their stuff so that unsightly pile on the sidewalk is all they have in the world! Just because you wish you didn’t see it should they lose everything? Is this justice? If you really want the stuff off the sidewalks lobby Bonin for a bigger voluntary storage program like the one we have on the Ocean Front Walk by the paddle tennis courts. It has been working at twice the capacity since November. The volunteers are in danger of being injured because of all the lifting and hauling we must to do for lack of room. We could store many, many more people’s items but we do not have the space! We do not have to resort to criminalizing the poor with all the “clean ups” on OFW and other places in Venice! What a waste of the city’s time and money! There are inexpensive, easy, humane solutions!
It may surprise you to note that there is NOT ONE emergency bed in all of the Westside of Los Angeles and embarrassingly scant services of any kind in Venice. It is not true that unhoused people do not want help. They just do not want it in Skid Row or Lancaster. I hope you realize that Venice is their neighborhood too. This is their community. Many have been here much longer than you. The solution is to give some assistance to get them on their feet–not to bitch about how wrong they are for bring poor! I hope you never have to live on the street yourself, but if you do, I hope people are kinder and more compassionate to you than you are being now. It is not all about you in your million dollar place with your tender sensibilities–these people are trying desperately to merely survive! That sidewalk is hard and cold! Why don’t you help them? How would it actually hurt you if you did? How would it help all of us if you used your money, your contacts and political will to help?
Parking? Try diagonal lines on our widest streets. Almost twice the parking at hardly any cost! No passes needed.
There are simple solutions–with the will. The problem is that people want to go on with the upgrading of their seemingly important and busy lives, not wanting to be part of the solution–but just wanting the “problems,” as they define them from their narrow point of view, to magically go away by throwing police at them! Poverty is not a criminal activity and so cannot be solved by police intervention!
Please, please help with humane solutions! Don’t just talk and talk and talk about the problems! Ticketing, throwing homeless people in jail and taking all their stuff costs us all many, many thousands of dollars a year per person and does not fix anything–but hurts quite a lot! Buckminster Fuller said it best when he said, “To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” Please join us–or at least support us–in creating that new model. Lobby Bonin for humane solutions for unhoused people and to stop the criminalization of poverty.
Jay Berine of Marina
Regarding the “pot shops” on Washington, I have to say they were better neighbors and required less parking than the restaurants. By the way, they prefer to be referred to as Dispensaries.
Ilana Marosi
To VNC/REC Committee:
I am contacting you to file a grievance against LUPC Chair, Jake Kaufman, re: the recent last minute change in the posted LUPC meeting status from a regular meeting on April 2, 2013 (1st Wednesday of the month) that requires the agenda to be posted 72 hours in advance, to a “Special Meeting” on April 2, 2013 that only requires 24 hours advance notice for agenda posting.
Please explain:
a) The criteria for this sudden change from a “Regular” to “Special” meeting and what proper cause does Jake Kaufman have, or need to have, in order to make this change?
b) What recourse does the public have in holding Mr. Kaufman to account for the above actions?
My grievance is as follows:
1) The public is entitled to adequate advance notice of the agenda contents especially in light of the recent discrepancies and irregularities in LUPC procedure as reported at the VNC/REC Committee meeting on Tuesday, March 25, 2013 re: the invalid March 5, 2013 LUPC 320 Sunset Avenue motion.
2) The agenda currently posted on the LUPC calendar page for April 2, 2013 is the previous March 5, 2013 agenda, which is misleading to the public and indicative of either incompetence or deliberate obfuscation on the part of LUPC Chair, Jake Kaufman.
3) A special LUPC meeting only allows 24 hours advance notice of the agenda which does not give the public sufficient time to adequately examine the new agenda and prepare for the meeting.
Reply by Sue Kaplan:
Make a motion to the VNC AD Com.
Reta Moser
Good grief another crime at same place-theft, robbery, burglary from 900 block of Oxford. This time it was a burglary from an automobile. Happened 10:30 pm 29 March in 900 block of Oxford. Something is happening there to have repeat crimes.
543
Comments–2 April 2014
Deborah LaShevere, homeless advocate
Jen, Heather and whoever else relates,
Note: Update compliments Deborah for speaking up for the other side of an argument. That is the only way one learns. Who knows which side will be affected by this, if one is, but all will be the better for having heard another side.
If you are concerned with the urination and defecation in your neighborhood lobby Bonin to install more public restrooms! Do you realize that we have 16 million visitors a year and about 20 public restrooms–that all close in the early evening and open at 8 am? Not one public restroom anywhere in Venice except the Boardwalk–with the exception of Vera Davis Center and the Library during the day and NOT EVEN ONE at night anywhere! Where do you think all the tourists go? And on First Friday where do all the food truckies go? And after the bars close? Please do not blame the unhoused people for the mess. They are not responsible for the thousands of tourists who “do their business” all over Venice because we do not have enough public toilets! In one hour three weeks ago I saw 6 tourists pee in the parking lot by the handball courts because the lines for the bathrooms were 25 people deep. It was a Saturday but not even the Summer yet! Unhoused people need a place to go too. You act like they are being criminals because they have a basic human need! Can you ‘hold it” for 12 hours? Did you know that the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights–that the U. S. signed onto—states that access to hygiene is a basic human right? This is not a homeless problem but is being blamed on them. This is the city’s bad. Simple solution: more bathrooms! (There are many designs that take the fear of using them for prostitution and drug abuse away, by the way, so that well used excuse is null and void at this time.)
“Cleaning up” by taking all the belongings of unhoused people is inhumane as well. When the raid on 3rd Street occurred a couple of years ago the police threw away all the unhoused people’s I. D.s, birth certificates, irreplaceable photos of relatives, family Bible’s, essential medications like heart pills and blood thinners etc, pet equipment, blankets and sleeping bags, clothing and everything they owned. They do not have a place to store their stuff so that unsightly pile on the sidewalk is all they have in the world! Just because you wish you didn’t see it should they lose everything? Is this justice? If you really want the stuff off the sidewalks lobby Bonin for a bigger voluntary storage program like the one we have on the Ocean Front Walk by the paddle tennis courts. It has been working at twice the capacity since November. The volunteers are in danger of being injured because of all the lifting and hauling we must to do for lack of room. We could store many, many more people’s items but we do not have the space! We do not have to resort to criminalizing the poor with all the “clean ups” on OFW and other places in Venice! What a waste of the city’s time and money! There are inexpensive, easy, humane solutions!
It may surprise you to note that there is NOT ONE emergency bed in all of the Westside of Los Angeles and embarrassingly scant services of any kind in Venice. It is not true that unhoused people do not want help. They just do not want it in Skid Row or Lancaster. I hope you realize that Venice is their neighborhood too. This is their community. Many have been here much longer than you. The solution is to give some assistance to get them on their feet–not to bitch about how wrong they are for bring poor! I hope you never have to live on the street yourself, but if you do, I hope people are kinder and more compassionate to you than you are being now. It is not all about you in your million dollar place with your tender sensibilities–these people are trying desperately to merely survive! That sidewalk is hard and cold! Why don’t you help them? How would it actually hurt you if you did? How would it help all of us if you used your money, your contacts and political will to help?
Parking? Try diagonal lines on our widest streets. Almost twice the parking at hardly any cost! No passes needed.
There are simple solutions–with the will. The problem is that people want to go on with the upgrading of their seemingly important and busy lives, not wanting to be part of the solution–but just wanting the “problems,” as they define them from their narrow point of view, to magically go away by throwing police at them! Poverty is not a criminal activity and so cannot be solved by police intervention!
Please, please help with humane solutions! Don’t just talk and talk and talk about the problems! Ticketing, throwing homeless people in jail and taking all their stuff costs us all many, many thousands of dollars a year per person and does not fix anything–but hurts quite a lot! Buckminster Fuller said it best when he said, “To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” Please join us–or at least support us–in creating that new model. Lobby Bonin for humane solutions for unhoused people and to stop the criminalization of poverty.
Jay Berine of Marina
Regarding the “pot shops” on Washington, I have to say they were better neighbors and required less parking than the restaurants. By the way, they prefer to be referred to as Dispensaries.
Ilana Marosi
To VNC/REC Committee:
I am contacting you to file a grievance against LUPC Chair, Jake Kaufman, re: the recent last minute change in the posted LUPC meeting status from a regular meeting on April 2, 2013 (1st Wednesday of the month) that requires the agenda to be posted 72 hours in advance, to a “Special Meeting” on April 2, 2013 that only requires 24 hours advance notice for agenda posting.
Please explain:
a) The criteria for this sudden change from a “Regular” to “Special” meeting and what proper cause does Jake Kaufman have, or need to have, in order to make this change?
b) What recourse does the public have in holding Mr. Kaufman to account for the above actions?
My grievance is as follows:
1) The public is entitled to adequate advance notice of the agenda contents especially in light of the recent discrepancies and irregularities in LUPC procedure as reported at the VNC/REC Committee meeting on Tuesday, March 25, 2013 re: the invalid March 5, 2013 LUPC 320 Sunset Avenue motion.
2) The agenda currently posted on the LUPC calendar page for April 2, 2013 is the previous March 5, 2013 agenda, which is misleading to the public and indicative of either incompetence or deliberate obfuscation on the part of LUPC Chair, Jake Kaufman.
3) A special LUPC meeting only allows 24 hours advance notice of the agenda which does not give the public sufficient time to adequately examine the new agenda and prepare for the meeting.
Reply by Sue Kaplan:
Make a motion to the VNC AD Com.
Reta Moser
Good grief another crime at same place-theft, robbery, burglary from 900 block of Oxford. This time it was a burglary from an automobile. Happened 10:30 pm 29 March in 900 block of Oxford. Something is happening there to have repeat crimes.
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