Buscaino’s Anti-camping ordinance passed 13-2

Los Angeles City councilmembers Joe Buscaino and John Lee took action to force a vote by the full city council on a draft anti-camping law that has been stalled in committee since November 2020. The city’s current anti-camping ordinance, which has not been enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, prohibits tents during daytime hours, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. On June 9, Buscaino requested that the council amend the mayor’s Declaration of Local Emergency and resume enforcement of the current anti-camping ordinance.

The rarely-used procedure under Council Rule 54 requires the council at the next regular meeting to vote on pulling the draft law from committee for immediate consideration by the full city council.

“With over half of all fires related to homelessness, completely blocked sidewalks, and a sharp increase in crime associated with street encampments, it is unconscionable for this city council to adjourn for a month-long recess without considering this important ordinance that will restore rules and order to our shared public spaces,” said Councilmember Buscaino. “Public Safety is the core responsibility of local government and we are failing to protect both the unhoused and the housed. Allowing unmitigated encampments on our streets and sidewalks is not compassionate, it’s reckless.”

The draft ordinance, which was referred to the Homelessness & Poverty Committee on Nov. 30, 2020, would restrict sitting, lying, sleeping, and the placement of tents or personal property on streets and sidewalks:

Random Lengths News asked all the declared Council District 15 candidates for their response to this action. These are a few of the responses.

Bryant Odega, Harbor Gateway

Wage Stagnation Needs to Be Addressed

The proposed legislation would make it illegal to be unhoused and to refuse an offer of shelter in Los Angeles. This legislation criminalizes homelessness, a strategy that wastes millions of city dollars that we, the taxpayers, pay.

Proposals like this promote the myth that people are homeless by choice, not the result of the city’s failure to expand available housing for those experiencing homelessness. Public officials have stated that there are not enough available beds to support Los Angeles’ unhoused populations. The L.A. City Council needs to prioritize building housing projects for all of the unhoused instead of criminalizing homelessness. The criminalization of homelessness, rather than solving this humanitarian crisis along with its root causes (ex: skyrocketing rent, insufficient public housing units) is one of the reasons I’m running for Los Angeles City Council District 15 in 2022. We need evidence-backed, community-centered solutions that prioritize care — not criminalization.

These ordinances constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate basic human rights. Judges have ruled that enforcing the bans on sitting and sleeping in public violate the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause. Despite these rulings, Los Angeles continues to criminalize the homelessness crisis. This is counterproductive toward reducing homelessness.

• Unhoused deaths represent 11% of all deaths in LA, despite representing only 1% of the overall L.A. population.
• Unhoused deaths are twice as likely to be male and Black.
• Unhoused people were over two times more likely to have died from accidental and preventable causes compared to housed populations.

Clearing encampments causes people to disperse throughout the community breaking connections with service providers. This increases infectious disease spread. So increased enforcement will lead to more unhoused deaths. Los Angeles is set to become the City with the highest homeless mortality rate.

For the above reasons, I strongly oppose the passage of Council file: 20-1376 and urge others to do the same.

Citation: https://tinyurl.com/unhoused-deaths-la-county

Christian Louis Guzman

First and foremost, the housing and homelessness crisis is overwhelmingly caused by the difference in wage growth and housing cost growth over the past several decades. People simply cannot afford to sustainably and comfortably live in this city while working an entry level or even some mid level jobs. Look into the gap in wage increases and housing increases. My website has some references at www.clgforthepeople.com/.

This wage stagnation needs to be addressed by the city, county, state and federal level in the form of a jobs guarantee with a living wage.

Until that is a reality, passing this law would be a severe disservice to our city, because it would cover up and mask this real failure in our economic system.

In addition, until wages actually allow for people to afford housing, we also need a housing guarantee for all and this must also be coordinated between city, county, state and national governments.

Housing and jobs guarantees must also be coupled with services to bring people back into society with dignity.

Once every single person in our diverse and talented city is offered a living wage job, housing and social services, then I would support the council motion. I do believe the public has a right to utilize our streets, sidewalks and other public rights of way in a safe and sanitary condition. I am an avid walker and biker and sometimes it is hard to get around without colliding into unsanitary refuse.

Our families and we should not be afraid of our own streets. But to enact such a rule as proposed by Buscaino and Lee, before a jobs and housing guarantee would not address the root cause of homelessness. It would shift the blame onto our houseless neighbors as if it is their choice and personal fault to be on the streets. This is not the case for 40,000 of our people who are houseless. Urban camping might be a choice for a small and even visually obvious minority. But most want a chance to live in a home and contribute meaningfully to their communities. I have met these people and broken bread with them at the Garden Church in San Pedro and near the municipal building in Wilmington. Our houseless neighbors have goals, joys and problems as our housed-neighbors do.

We must work on these issues before passing any kind of camping restrictions like the one so proposed by Buscaino and Lee. It will be a difficult discussion and even more difficult action, but to not have it or do it, is to push the problem down the road and lead to more tension.

Addition/clarification:

Although the ultimate goal is to house every one in stable housing with supportive services, I do see the utilization of appropriate government/public owned land and buildings as a very short term solution to house people. This would also need to be in place before an urban camping ban such as the one proposed is enacted.

I will say that it is the economical and ethical thing to house people instead of leaving them out on the streets. The costs to emergency healthcare, sanitation and law enforcement will all decrease once we house people; city taxpayers will save money.

Tim McOsker

I support the intent of the motion, because of the great urgency of the homeless crisis. We need to stop just talking about solutions, now is the time to act. The Council needs to adopt an ordinance that is fair to the unhoused and housed alike.

First, we must never make it a crime to be poor or unhoused. We have to lead with compassion and haste to build both shelter and permanent housing. It is not compassionate to leave people on the street.

Nor is it fair to any Angeleno — housed or unhoused — to allow encampments to prevent passage on sidewalks, block entrances to properties, prevent access to parks or beaches, or to surround the very shelters that currently serve the unhoused who, we all hope, are in transition to permanent housing.

Editorial Note: All of the CD15 candidates who have filed at this point were offered the space to comment on Buscaino’s anti-homeless ordinance; no responses were received from Shannon Ross, Danielle Sandoval or Lamar Lyons.