Venice aka LA homelessness
More than one-quarter of the nation’s homeless population lives in California. In February last year, Newsom devoted his entire State of the State address to the homelessness crisis. “It’s a disgrace that the richest state in the richest nation — succeeding across so many sectors — is falling so far behind to properly house, heal and humanely treat so many of its own people,” he said. And that was before the pandemic pushed the figures even higher. In May of this year, Newsom announced that $12 billion, the biggest investment by any state, would be spent to fight homelessness. Housing advocates say that’s not nearly enough. For example, Matt Schwartz, the head of the California Housing Partnership, says that over the next decade the state needs to create 1.2 million more homes for low-income residents and those experiencing homelessness — which would cost roughly $17.9 billion annually. Newsom’s proposal doesn’t include a long-term plan or permanent sources of funding.
[Venice] has emerged as a flash point in the fight over how Los Angeles as a whole confronts its homeless crisis. Some housed residents want to relocate the homeless encampments to the south of Los Angeles Airport, seven miles away; others insist that the solutions should be found in Venice. But King, for all his careful political positioning, is worried. He has seen the Venice encampments expand during the pandemic, and he knows the homeless population he treats could become significantly larger still. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in two or three years,” King said. “It takes a couple years for people to burn through their resources, right?”