Stop Sheriff from displacing unhoused people on Westside
The Issue
We ask that you stop LA County Sheriff Villanueva and others unfamiliar with Venice and its unhoused residents from further displacing and criminalizing unhoused residents in order to “clean up” the Boardwalk. Unhoused residents are being intimidated and displaced to sidewalks and parks further inland where there are even fewer resources to address this humanitarian crisis.
The sheriff and their deputies are not social workers. They have already dumped a wheelchair bound man at the VA who ended up sleeping outside the ER, then came back to Venice and found out that the sheriffs threw away his belongings. Displacing people already experiencing trauma is inhumane.
This approach has proven to fail in Los Angeles, cause harm to people already dealing with crisis, trauma, and the extreme lack of affordable housing across our region and especially on the Westside. The sheriffs must stop wasting our tax dollars. If they have budget to spend, they should allocate it to the service providers that are working to house people.
This is a housing and humanitarian crisis in our neighborhood and in our region. While exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, it is the result of decades of disinvestment in affordable housing and other critical resources, systemic racism in land use policies, housing, employment and mass incarceration policies, growing income and wealth inequality. Not one politician, one law enforcement official, one non-profit, one neighborhood group is going to suddenly have the ability to solve this crisis because it’s summer and people think that tourists, visitors and local housed and unhoused people are unable to share the beautiful and inclusive space of the Boardwalk and Venice Beach.
We actually can share the space, be kind to unhoused neighbors, continue the local outreach and street medicine efforts that support people until they are housed, and put more resources into permanent housing solutions for folks on our streets.
This petition is endorsed by:
Indivisible CA-43
Venice Community Housing
Ground Game LA
Indivisible CA-33
Indivisible Media City Burbank
Indivisible South Bay LA
Mutual Aid Network LA
Northridge Indivisible
The Issue
We ask that you stop LA County Sheriff Villanueva and others unfamiliar with Venice and its unhoused residents from further displacing and criminalizing unhoused residents in order to “clean up” the Boardwalk. Unhoused residents are being intimidated and displaced to sidewalks and parks further inland where there are even fewer resources to address this humanitarian crisis.
The sheriff and their deputies are not social workers. They have already dumped a wheelchair bound man at the VA who ended up sleeping outside the ER, then came back to Venice and found out that the sheriffs threw away his belongings. Displacing people already experiencing trauma is inhumane.
This approach has proven to fail in Los Angeles, cause harm to people already dealing with crisis, trauma, and the extreme lack of affordable housing across our region and especially on the Westside. The sheriffs must stop wasting our tax dollars. If they have budget to spend, they should allocate it to the service providers that are working to house people.
This is a housing and humanitarian crisis in our neighborhood and in our region. While exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, it is the result of decades of disinvestment in affordable housing and other critical resources, systemic racism in land use policies, housing, employment and mass incarceration policies, growing income and wealth inequality. Not one politician, one law enforcement official, one non-profit, one neighborhood group is going to suddenly have the ability to solve this crisis because it’s summer and people think that tourists, visitors and local housed and unhoused people are unable to share the beautiful and inclusive space of the Boardwalk and Venice Beach.
We actually can share the space, be kind to unhoused neighbors, continue the local outreach and street medicine efforts that support people until they are housed, and put more resources into permanent housing solutions for folks on our streets.
This petition is endorsed by:
Indivisible CA-43
Venice Community Housing
Ground Game LA
Indivisible CA-33
Indivisible Media City Burbank
Indivisible South Bay LA
Mutual Aid Network LA
Northridge Indivisible
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on June 11, 2021