LA Business Owners Use Dumpsters, Concrete Blocks to Deter Homeless Encampments
“We got tired of begging the city to enforce no parking or camping ordinances.”
Rampant homelessness and the issues that come with it are everyday problems for people in California, with so-called leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and others frequently vowing to eradicate the problem but doing precious little about it when the cameras aren’t rolling.
It’s gotten so bad in the Sun Valley neighborhood in Los Angeles that the community’s business owners have banded together to get creative in light of the city’s failure to take consistent action on the homeless street encampments that continue to crop up, which brings along drug use, prostitution, public urination and defecation, and other serious problems.
What have they done? Brought in huge trash dumpsters and concrete blocks to line the streets, as Fox 11 reported:
One business owner even uploaded a video on YouTube, describing the enormity of the situation, showing entire sidewalks blocked by trash and encampments. Business owners and employees were terrified to go to work.
“We got tired of begging the city to enforce no parking or camping ordinances,” said property owner John Fallon, who has seen tenant after tenant pack up and leave.
In the past, LA city officials have forbidden businesses from blocking sidewalk access, as was the case in front of a Hollywood merchant who put up planters as a deterrent, only to see the city take them away.
As of this writing, though, the dumpsters and concrete blocks are still there.
Watch:
In an interview, new L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he sided with what the business owners were doing until the city could come up with “a permanent solution”:
A group of San Fernando Valley residents installed concrete blocks to stop a persistent homeless encampment from returning in their neighborhood.
Newly sworn-in L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson says he supports the move.
“Until we have a permanent solution…… pic.twitter.com/zravecxPML
— MarlaTellez (@MarlaTellez) September 26, 2024
Here’s what things typically look like on Randall Street. The man narrating the video mentions, among other things, how the city will put trash bins in front of the businesses for the homeless to put their trash – only to not come back for pick up until the sidewalks and streets are overflowing with trash to the point city workers have to put on Hazmat suits to clean it up.
He also notes that the county has a recycling center nearby where they’ve blocked off their entrances with concrete barriers and are now talking about “putting up a fence around their section only”:
News of the Randall Street business owners taking action follows another report that found a staggering 70 percent of rooms in LA County that were designated for the homeless under a Newsom-touted COVID-era plan are empty:
Project Homekey, California’s COVID era emergency housing program, was supposed to change all of that. Governor Gavin Newsom directed $3.5 billion in emergency federal COVID relief funds to help cities and counties purchase motels, hotels, and apartment buildings rapidly and make them available for homeless housing. The state distributed three rounds of Homekey funds in 2021, 2022, and 2023-24. L.A. County received a total of $550 million and used the funds to help purchase 32 buildings. Earlier this year, Newsom lauded the program as “a national model for rapidly creating affordable housing for Californians in need.”
However, according to an exclusive, months-long investigation by the Westside Current, as an estimated 139,151 homeless people, both locals and newcomers, occupy streets, sidewalks, beaches, parks, playgrounds, and other public spaces throughout the County, at least 1,538 the total 2,157 Homekey rooms are vacant. This number accounts for more than 71% of all Homekey rooms. These revelations come on the heels of our previous reporting that discovered more than 1,200 vacant Homekey units owned by the City of Los Angeles.
If you’re wondering where the oversight and accountability are on this, you’re not the only one. Westside Current reporter Jamie Paige told Fox 11 that “the county and the state are still trying to figure some of that out.”
Watch:
Exclusive reporting from @WestsideCurrent finds after spending $550 million, more than 70% of L.A. County’s Project Homekey rooms designated for the homeless are vacant.
Reporter Jamie Paige spent 40 hours visiting nearly all of the 32 sites and, by and large, found unattended,… pic.twitter.com/7YxA6WUqkn
— MarlaTellez (@MarlaTellez) September 26, 2024
But hey, Gavin Newsom is frustrated “as a taxpayer” with the lack of progress on an issue he’s been promising to solve for well over 20 years, so maybe something will finally get done about it – or not:
Gavin Newsom says he is upset “as a taxpayer” by the lack of progress on homeless in California.
Anyone want to tell @GavinNewsom that he has been the governor for years and could have done something about it before now?
— Cryptid Politics (pro-DeSantis) 🇺🇸🐊 (@CryptidPolitics) August 8, 2024
In August, while participating in yet another photo op clean-up of a homeless encampment in Mission Hills, Newsom said “People are done. If we don’t deal with this, we don’t deserve to be in office.”
You first, Guv.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
I give it two days before the merchants receive fines for blocking the sidewalk.
….wait…..wait….wait for it….. RAYCISS!
The “homeless” don’t take advantage of subsidized housing because it always comes with the requirements of staying sober, not killing each other, and behaving at least moderately civilized. They’re not going to give up the very reasons they’re “homeless”.
Yup.
The people who are “homeless” long term are that way because they want to be that way. Because staying sober, holding down a job and providing for your own well being is hard and they just don’t want to do it. Or are incapable of doing it because of mental illness.
I’m actually disappointed at the neighborhood people for trying to crack down on the vagrancy. I hope the city forces them to remove the blockade.
Why? Because every bum, vagrant and druggie that wanders to California or Oregon or Washington, is one more that I don’t have to worry about occupying the places where I actually want to be. Saves those of us who don’t live in insane places time and effort when we don’t have to expend resources rousting the bums out of our neighborhoods.
California can keep them. We don’t want them here. Heck, I’d love to see the city and state use some of our tax money to buy the bums one way tickets to California instead of throwing them in jail or wasting time levying fines on them that they’ll never be able to pay. Just ship them to the places that want them. Win-win.
They will force the businesses to remove them, eventually. Can’t have a solution without the mandated seal of approval by the Government.
I remember the first time I went to Mexico and saw the local method of dealing with this sort of thing – concrete walls topped with tons of broken glass baked into the concrete. I had never seen anything like it before.
Indeed, it is true.
Although I seem to remember seeing that in New Orleans as well.
Not for nothing but when civil order breaks down eventually ‘alternative’ organizations often step into the breech to fill the void left by the ‘authorities’ who can not or will not act on behalf of ordinary people. Much better to have honest, efficient services from duly elected gov’t but at some point folks will take what they can get so long as it works to solve their immediate problems…or they pack their crap and move to someplace where basic services in return for taxes is still the rule. aka civilization
socialism>>>communism>>>censorship
problems solved
It sounds like they’re not much enjoying getting what they voted for. I wonder why?
I suspect many of the small business owners didn’t cast a ballot for the members of the current ruling regime in LA or CA.
It is entirely fair to point out that by opting to remain in such conditions instead of moving to someplace that entrepreneurs are welcomed and appreciated for creating jobs and paying taxes they are making another choice….ultimately one which supports the uncaring rulers of their City and their State with their taxes and political power via census/apportionment of CD.
Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that practically all of them voted for democrats. It is California after all
There are no “homeless” in CA. The leftie media style guidelines have banned use of that word. They are “unhoused” or “urban campers”. So there is no homeless problem any more.
Traditionally they just play classical music over the speaker system.
Mayor Adams says he’s a tawgit.
“Use Dumpsters, Concrete Blocks to Deter”
Or, more or less the same deterrents Joe Biden sued Arizona for using on the border.
“the community’s business owners have banded together to get creative”
Committees of Vigilance will not be long in following.
These homeless people are prey smart. They have taught their victims how o suppport and coddle them, maintaining their preferred lifestyle at no cos to themseves.
I remeber the small town on the southern coast of Oregon, years back (think hippie days). Anyone observed walking through that town with a backpack, particularly if bearded and/or barefoot, was arrested and detained, and fined. They soon enough learned that they had to get a ride TROUGH town or get out before the city limits, then try and get another ride through town and beyond.
In this case the city trained the vagrants. It worked.
Rambo: First Blood
We call this ” Survival Instinct “