Ravi,

Start by asking the four who voted with us if they will stand for re-election:  Mariana Aguillar, Daffodil Tyminski, Scot Kramarich and Ira Koslow.  (Brendan Lindner also supported the Motion, but I don't know anything else about him.)  There are two other supporters of our cause who are leaning towards running, but have not chosen to announce their candidacy.  There may be others out there who I don't know about.

Mark

Really, who gives a crap what the VNC does or doesn't do? Neighborhood Councils are BS to start with. According to the city attorney, all of their actions are strictly advisory. City officials are free to ignore them at their will. The VNC is just a higher grade of BS.

I doubt there will ever be an adequate solution for the homeless issue in this country.  As a capitalist system, we encourage a survival of the fittest structure, which will always leave the weak (and by that I mean not only the unfortunate who life has dealt a bad hand to, but also the lazy and stupid) struggling at the bottom.  (And for the record, I don't support Communism but do support Socialism as practiced in countries like Canada, the UK, the Nordic countries and so forth.)

So, you can't outlaw being destitute; so what do you do?

The answer is relatively simple to conceive but difficult to implement.

What you simply need to do is to provide a safe and secure shelter that is accessible, and then combine that with aggressive enforcement of laws.  In essence, Rosendahl's mythical "velvet glove, iron fist" approach he advocated with RV's.  (The reason I say it's mythical is because I feel it was more a case of plenty of iron fist from the LAPD with only an illusion of an alternative program for safe parking.)

The reason it's difficult to implement is because of the "not in my backyard" syndrome.

I'm rewiring one of my guitars, and physics tells me that current (like water or anything else) will always follow the path of least resistance.  You have to make the alternative of camping in a doorway much less attractive than using the shelter.  In this role, LAPD enforcement of a zero-tolerance policy is an absolute must.  Unfortunately, if you don't provide the easier path, it won't do any good.

It's simply a matter of getting the correct balance between the carrot and the stick.

If you are strictly opposed to any kind of social services (shelter in particular), then you are not going to effectively change anything.  You have to give the homeless a viable alternative.  It would need to be near the beach (or somewhere here in Venice) since they frankly want to be here, whether we like it or not.  You locate the shelter in Compton, and you make it much more difficult.  The shelter has to be an easy path.  It needs to be easily accessible to those here in Venice.  It needs to be as safe as, if not more decent than, living on the street.  That means it needs adequate funding and community support.  It doesn't need to be a 4 star hotel, but it does need to be clean and secure.

(There are legitimate arguments about whether social service dollars are spent correctly – and I acknowledge that the current system seems to be slanted toward inefficiency and self-serving bureaucracy – but that's a side issue.)

You then need to have the full weight of the LAPD come down on a consistent and regular basis on anyone who chooses not to make use of the shelter.

This is how every society works.  You decide what you want the population to do, and you make the consequences of not playing by the rules sufficiently unappealing.

In Venice, we don't have the correct balance at this time.  We have a police force that is willing to enforce, but we don't have a viable alternative for those on the streets.  What we have is a shelter system that isn't the best, and that only operates for a small season during the year.  So all we accomplish is to push people around, and hope that if we push hard enough that they will get tired of being harassed and leave Venice for good.  The problem is that they don't have the means, ability or desire to go anywhere else, and they have nothing to loose.  Throw them in county jail for the 100th time, and what's the point.  The jail has just become a very expensive shelter. (Look at what it costs the taxpayer to keep 1 person incarcerated for 1 day – is that really the most cost effective form of shelter?)

There are some on here that believe in spending all their time fashioning sticks and no time growing carrots. There are the idiots at the VNC and social services who believe in spending all their time growing carrots rather than any time cutting wood to make sticks.  Both are doomed.

zappaman said
According to LL, the vote went the way it did because they don't want to "micromanage" the police since crime is down.

Follow that?

Since crime is down, the laws don't need to be enforced.

This is the mindset of the delusional president of our neighborhood council.

I had no idea that Linda Luck was an expert on law enforcement. Maybe she should take over as chief of police.

zappaman said
According to LL, the vote went the way it did because they don't want to "micromanage" the police since crime is down.

Follow that?

Since crime is down, the laws don't need to be enforced.

This is the mindset of the delusional president of our neighborhood council.

I'm not convinced crime is down at all in Venice.  I'm convinced "reported crime" is down.

Some of us have just given up hope, and now take our lumps without complaining (in terms of petty crime, such as the odd thing stolen from my front porch.)

Interestingly, I don't necessarily trust LAPD in terms of honest crime statistics.  A while back, someone broke into our car and damaged the glove box trying to pry it open.  Cost me about $150 to get it repaired.  Asked the Mrs. to report it to the LAPD.  She called Pacific Division to make the report.  The Officer she spoke with asked her if she was making a claim on her insurance.  When she said no (we have a $500 deductible) the Officer told her that since she wasn't filing a claim with her insurance, that she didn't need to make a police report and talked her out of reporting the crime.  Of course, a couple of weeks later LAPD was boasting about how theft from motor vehicles were down in Venice.

Just makes me wonder…

The last stats I saw indicated that property crime in Venice was actually higher than in Compton!!!