Tag: Homeless encampments

Converting Parking Lots to Homeless Encampments Brings Mixed Results

The Center Square

As municipalities across the United States consider acquiring and converting parking lots into homeless encampments with social services, some oppose the programs, citing high costs and poor safety, while others promote them as better than sidewalk encampments and a stopgap measure as more overall housing is built.

In California, whose homelessness programs serviced 315,487 different individuals in 2022, faces a 4.5 million home shortage and is adopting alternative housing options that states and local governments across the country are now considering and implementing on their own. One such program is the conversion of parking lots to homeless housing options, whether so-called “safe sleeping sites” where homeless can park their cars or set up tents and receive services, or more involved accommodations such as city-provided RVs. 

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Homeless Encampments Begin Forming Near Schools in Los Angeles

Admin

Homeless encampments have begun cropping up near schools throughout the city of Los Angeles, even despite a citywide ban on any such encampments near public areas, as reported by the Epoch Times.

The Los Angeles City Council had previously passed a new resolution, Ordinance 41.18, which was signed into law by Mayor Eric Garcetti (D-Calif.), forbidding any such homeless camps from being set up within 500 feet of “sensitive-use” areas, including schools, daycares, libraries, and parks. The ordinance also banned such camps from forming near freeway overpasses and underpasses, ramps, tunnels, and bridges.

But in order for the ordinance to be enforced, each individual district’s councilmember must introduce a motion to do so, which then must be approved by the council. As such, homeless encampments have begun sprouting up near schools in the Venice Beach neighborhood, which falls under District 11; that district is represented by Councilman Mike Bonin (D-Calif.), who has a history of refusing to enforce anti-homeless measures for other districts, and has not yet introduced any such measures to protect his own district.

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