To the editor: Your article, “The Little-Understood Purpose It Was Tougher to Clear Homeless Encampments in California than Most States,” is written as if the human struggling on the streets of Los Angeles might be radically remodeled if not for a choice by the US ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
No determination by the courts, not even one by the US Supreme Court docket, will change the truth that Los Angeles housing prices are out of attain for most individuals. Many people are one missed paycheck, sickness, or mistake from ending up in a tent on the sidewalk, and an anti-camping ordinance is not going to cease folks from doing what they need to do to outlive.
We’re all pissed off with avenue situations, however as an alternative of brutal celebrations shuffling folks like trash from one nook to the subsequent, our leaders ought to deal with reasonably priced housing and defending tenants from eviction.
Rae Huang, Los Angeles
The author is a senior organizer within the Housing Now group.
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To the editor: These of us who grew up within the Fifties by no means noticed the sidewalks or parks of our cities flooded with tents pitched by the homeless.
Sure, we had seen homeless camps elsewhere. They had been usually positioned on the outskirts of cities, alongside railroad tracks and on streams.
Again then, curfew legal guidelines barred folks from tenting inside metropolis limits. Moreover, the variety of unhoused folks was stored low by two elements: there have been many roles, and the state psychological hospitals housed hundreds of people that would in any other case have lived on the streets.
Inside a number of a long time, important modifications steadily accelerated homelessness. Courts struck down vagrant legal guidelines. Psychiatric hospitals had been emptied. Automation, computerization and job outsourcing overseas lowered employment alternatives.
Clearly, the predictable downsides of those modifications escaped the eye of our leaders—that, or there was no political upside to addressing these downsides. It is time to pay for homelessness.
Betty Turner, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: Sadly, homeless camps in the end turn out to be a public well being hazard. How will we stability the rights of displaced people towards the rights of the communities affected by camps?
Regardless of all the nice intentions and assets which were directed at assuaging the issue, nothing appears to have a long-term impact.
There are deeper systemic points at play right here that need to do with the earnings inequalities that exist in our society and that must be addressed on the federal stage. Till that occurs (and I am not holding my breath), native efforts will proceed to have restricted impression.
John Beckman, Chino Hills
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To the editor: Cities can’t take away encampments until there’s a place for homeless residents to go.
A couple of months in the past, The Instances reported on a research that discovered there have been greater than 100 vacant state-owned parcels in LA that might be used for housing. These properties may present bathrooms, water, electrical energy and even a bodily deal with the place you may get mail.
Then we’d be in compliance with courtroom rulings.
Jerry Bluestein, Mar Vista
