Homeless Street Bicycle Collector Tommy From Venice

@VideoMattPresents drives by the homeless man (Tommy) very often in Venice , but today VMP decided to stop to see what was all this stuff on the sidewalk that Tommy had with him. In the recent year VMP has uploaded numerous videos of zombies throughout his adventures driving in Los Angeles however this is not one of those videos. Tommy is a homeless man that suffers from some type of mental illness but the lights are still on inside of that mind of his. This video is not to judge Tommy or people who are in his shoes it's to just shed more light on the growing homeless and mental health crisis plaguing this country since these are man made problems that can be resolved.

When a sweeping anti-camping ordinance to ban homeless people from bedding down in a variety of outdoor locations was passed last summer by the Los Angeles City Council, the goal, council members insisted, was to house people — and to clear the streets. They had been inundated with complaints from constituents about homeless people taking over sidewalks and parks and creating a profusion of trash.

The same day the council members took the first of two votes on the anti-camping ordinance, they also vowed to create a street engagement strategy that would ensure homeless people would get outreach and offers of housing before any sidewalk was cleared.

The originally proposed strategy would have restricted council members to enforcing an anti-camping ban at one site per district to start, and required them to carry out up to four months of methodical outreach to homeless people to get them into housing. But that plan, championed by now-suspended Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, was eventually jettisoned by council members who thought it would slow down their plans to clear streets of homeless people.

In its place council members put a series of steps with a much shorter timeline. Now, when council members introduce a location to be targeted for a camping ban, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has about a month before full council approval to do an initial assessment of the people living in the location and, along with service providers, offer whatever housing is available. Council staff and service providers report in once a week to the city homelessness coordinator. Then 14 days later signs go up declaring the location off-limits to camping. Six weeks is a breakneck speed for housing homeless people.

Editorial: Will an L.A. street engagement strategy really get homeless people housed?
Don’t count on it. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-18/editorial-will-an-l-a-city-street-engagement-strategy-really-get-homeless-people-housed-dont-count-on-it

#Videomattpresents #anticampingordinance #homeless