For three years, the LAPD, City Council, City Attorney, and Mayor Villaraigosa have waged a $115 million war against poor and predominantly Black people in downtown Los Angeles. After 27,000 arrests , SCI has cost downtown residents our basic human rights. Casting aside empirical evidence that clearly illustrated the depth of damage to people’s lives; the waste of precious and shrinking resources that could be better utilized to create housing opportunities which cost a fraction of what is being spent; and the creation of a perpetual class of homeless people are all costs that the Mayor continues to willingly pay in his quest for a gentrified downtown Los Angeles. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Without Rights’ Category
Stand up for human rights on 9/28 & 9/29: demand the end of Safer Cities Initiative
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
Opportunity for whom?
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
At some point in history, people will look back on this country’s responses to homelessness during the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, and most assuredly will wonder, “What the hell were these people thinking?”
The notion that local governments can protect downtown business interests from having to witness the realities of poverty by simply criminalizing the presence of poor people harkens back to the days of Jim Crow, Anti-Okie laws, and almshouses.
But from Portland’s Sit-Lie law to Berkeley’s Public Commons for Everyone to LA’s Safer City Initiative to San Francisco’s, business-directed, but voter-opposed, homeless court, we are seeing a resurgence of the premise that public space is the purview of the business community, and that the only people that have any right to that space are those seen as potential customers or condo tenants. (more…)
Stop punishing people with the sit-lie ordinance
Monday, August 10th, 2009
Outlawing homelessness won’t make it go away; we need more affordable housing
With shelters full and an adequate number of affordable housing units not yet built, we need to stop punishing people dealing with homelessness for human survival activities like sleeping, sitting or lying down outside.
For years now, local efforts across the country to deal with growing homeless populations often start with innocuous-sounding language about the “quality of life” of the housed and business sectors of the community. Or perhaps they are billed as an effort to ensure that communities don’t become a “magnet for the homeless” or, as in Portland, that there is “street access for everyone.” (more…)
L.A. criticized as “meanest city” in America
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Los Angeles is famous as the nation’s capital of movie stars and rich and envied people. But its lesser-known distinction as the nation’s homeless capital has earned it a new title: the “Meanest City” in America.
In a report released Tuesday, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless named Los Angeles the No. 1 “Meanest City” out of 273 nationwide.
The report says a primary reason for the dubious honor was a new Los Angeles police crackdown called the Safer Cities Initiative that it claims has trapped tens of thousands of poor, homeless and disabled residents in the criminal justice system. (more…)
Urban Panning: The 10 Meanest Cities In America?
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
To some people, the Land of the Free doesn’t always seem so free. And America the Beautiful doesn’t look so pretty.
That’s the viewpoint of two Washington-based groups — the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and the National Coalition for the Homeless — that have targeted the country’s mingiest municipalities. (more…)