“Local children are refusing to come to the beach because they’re frightened by what they’ve witnessed.
The letter also connected the growing encampment to increases in crime. The increasing number of tents along the Venice boardwalk have generated calls for city officials to clear the area for residents and tourists, as well as to provide shelter and services for the unhoused people who take refuge by the beach.Īnd with local COVID-19 restrictions easing and more visitors expected at the tourist destination, hundreds of residents signed an open letter this month demanding that local leaders take immediate action, adding that locals counted more than 200 tents along the boardwalk. “It’s the worst I’ve seen in 20 years,” Venice resident John Betz told KTLA. The numbers were already increasing before the pandemic: 2020 data showed a 57% increase in the number of homeless people in Venice over the previous year - far greater than the increase in the city as a whole, which was 16.1%. (This year’s count was skipped due to the pandemic, but experts expect those L.A. The number of tents on the beach has grown since 2020, when the pandemic hit, leaving millions jobless and creating more housing insecurity in a city already dealing with a homelessness crisis.Īt last count, there were nearly 2,000 homeless people in Venice, according to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority count done in January 2020 that found more than 41,000 unhoused people citywide. On Sunday, KTLA counted about 115 tents in the boardwalk area.
Solomon is one of the people living in the tents lining the boardwalk. “I want to be in housing so I can be stable.” I need to be off this boardwalk,” said Michael Solomon, who lives in a tent on Venice Beach. With a homeless encampment stretching across much of the Venice Beach boardwalk and a spate of recent crimes alarming residents, the calls for city officials to take action have grown to a cacophony. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
0 kommentar(er)
