rickgarvey said:

I'm real sorry that you have so many problems with where you live, I happen to love where I live.  And yes, we both live in a big city which has it's share of crime.  I've been here since 96, and I have had bikes stolen off my back deck twice over the years. Why would I assume they were stolen by RV dwellers?  My bet is on punk kids, which turned out to be the case when we recovered one of them from a 17 year old on the boardwalk.

I too have had sh!t left in my front yard and along my alley, but I don't blame an RV dweller, I'm pretty sure it's from one of my "friendly" neighbors dogs.  On Monday mornings I have had garbage left along the curb where I usually park on Riviera, but I would bet that the trash was left not by an RV dweller but instead by one of our thoughtful visitors from another part of town.

I work with the homeless every day, and it's no picnic.  They are much more likely to be the victims of crime in this town as opposed to the perpetrators.  That is one reason Michael's comment upset me.  They have enough problems without having to worry about some vigilante with a bat. I thought the point of this program was to try to help them get to a secure permanent housing situation.  I would think that is a goal everyone would share, but then again perhaps I need to "shut my damn mouth."

Rick, I can't speak for Venice as a whole, just for what I see around me.

The problem I have with most of what you say is that you seem to be coming from a presumption that to my mind is no longer true, specifically that the RV-dwellers and the "punk kids" are different groups. That used to be the case, but from where I sit, it no longer is.

When I moved to my current place, there were 3-4 vans and RVs that were here pretty regularly. It wasn't my perfect idea of things, but I took it as part of the "deal" for moving in. I knew most of those guys by name: A couple of vets who, by their own admission, found it more convenient to live in a van here and have easy bus access to the VA than to take VA housing vouchers and live in some place much further away from the treatment they needed and deserved. One guy who was what a college buddy of mine terms "60s residue," who dropped out a few decades back and never dropped back in. And one total stoner who I had little sympathy for but who wasn't a problem either. I had no problems hiring any of these guys to help out with minor stuff like carrying things, and would usually pay one of the vets a few bucks just to watch my place and notify the neighbors if something seemed wrong when I was out of town.

That's no longer the case. I still run into one of those two vets. He finally took the voucher and got an apartment somewhere. I think he probably comes around here from time to time for some other services. When I asked him why he left, his answer was "It's not safe anymore. Crazy kids took over and they'll beat you up if you don't do what they want."

Today there are still RVs and vans around here, but it's not the same people. It's the crazy "travelers," "crusties," "punks" or whatever new name they've come up with for the anti-social meth-head misanthropes who've come here from far away to live on our streets and terrorize everybody else. In my little section of Venice they've largely displaced the people who would benefit from any housing program. The "good" homeless are being forced out. To my mind much less by police activity than by the actions of a new aggressive group whose reason for being here is negative for everybody.

Which brings me back to why I think this whole situation is just a powder-keg waiting for a spark. One of these days, one of those "punks" is going to do something to somebody's kid, or somebody's wife, or who knows what else. I can't say what the spark will be. But I do fear that absent any attempt to deal with the problem, the response is going to be universal and universally ugly. And it won't discriminate those who are specifically responsible from those who aren't. Any law that attempts to legitimize the presence of those individuals here is going to make it worse, much worse.

Which is why I said from the start that this was flawed. I'm glad the Councilmember now sees it that way, though I think he's still not addressing the key problem, which is that those housing spaces wherever they are should be reserved only for those who are receiving services from PATH or are likely to in the future. The city should not be giving any space to anybody who doesn't meet some minimum criteria beyond the stated requirement that they have been somewhere in CD11 since the summer, as that definition would include most of the punks on my block. Work schedule permitting, I plan to tell the councilman that at the hearing this week (or otherwise, by email).

Chessy,

I agree. Truth be told, one of the things that I like about the notion of a Vehicles to Homes (or whatever it's called now) program is that it will force some segment of that population to be more transparent. Somebody will know who are where they are. I suspect this won't help much with the "travelers," who won't enroll anyway, but it will bring that benefit.

I do want to make it impossible for any of the "travelers," "punks" or whatever you want to call them, to get a parking space in this program. PATH certainly is not interested in dealing with them, but it seems to me that some others would be happy to give them parking privileges while they're "waiting." Which is why I think the criteria for getting a parking space should be more or less the same criteria for public housing eligibility. Tends to weed out those who are boondocking, etc.