Raising rent prices and low wages have resulted in thousands of people across the city of Los Angeles becoming homeless, many of them now living in cars and RVs if they were able to keep it together that well.
According to the most recent counts by the KPCC, there are at least 7,000 people live in their cars in Los Angeles.
Many of these people still maintain jobs and try to live the most fulfilled lives that they can, but they are constantly facing problems from authorities.
It is such a common issue that many churches have opened up their parking lots to people living out of their cars. For example, the New Beginnings Counseling Center opened up their parking lot for a “Safe Parking program,” which was intended to provide a safe and welcome parking place for people living out of their cars. Unfortunately, under new legislation passed in Los Angeles, programs like this will be illegal, because sleeping in cars and RVs have been entirely outlawed.
Under the new laws, it is illegal to sleep in a car or RV that is parked in a residentially zoned area from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Areas within one block of a park, daycare, or school are entirely off limits. Fines will range anywhere from $25 to $75 which is impossible to pay for most people in these situations.
In 2014, LA lawmakers attempted to pass a similar bill but it was shot down in a federal appeals court. The judge in the case ruled that the legislation was “broad enough to cover any driver in Los Angeles who eats food or transports personal belongings in his or her vehicle. Yet it appears to be applied only to the homeless.”
The policy is up for debate and reconsideration in July, where homeless advocates are expected to strongly protest for an appeal.
Policies like this can have disastrous consequences, in Canada where laws like this have been implemented for some time, one man racked up over $110,000 worth of fines for essentially being homeless.
Last year, The Mind Unleashed reported that the city of Seattle was planning to set up razor-wire fencing to keep homeless populations from camping. Then, earlier this year we reported that San Francisco was using Robots scare homeless people away from encampments and report them to police.
Not soon after that, the city of San Francisco spent $8,700 installing large boulders under overpasses to prevent homeless people from setting up camps. There were numerous homeless encampments in the area until they were recently forced out of the area, and now the City’s government is doing everything they can to keep the camps out of the area.
(sources for article are hyperlinked at the site below)
http://themindunleashed.com/2018/02/la-has-criminalized-poverty-by-making-it-illegal-to-sleep-in-cars-and-rvs.html
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Been telling people here in the midwest about this shit for a while..being a socal native it hits hard, been there. People here take for granted the low cost of living (literally $500-600 for a 2 bdrm apartment depending on the area), i paid $1,285 for a 2 bedroom in cal, included no utilities whatsoever. Mind boggling, just to have shelter and a place to call home..some bullshit brother.
this makes me angry. i spent some time living in an RV over the summer and had plans to do it longer, but didn’t. always had to check where we were able to park, especially overnight. in some places it wasn’t even legal to park on the street with an RV let alone sleep in it. we also experienced trouble parking in a friend’s driveway and sleeping there.
This is a serious topic, thanks for bringing it to awareness @johnvibes!
States just want to get rid of the 'bums', only keep the wealthy. What a concept, all over 1st world!
btw. in western Europe it has been illegal to sleep in cars since they introduced this law in the 1940s...
I live in a bus half year round, and for this I always have to relocate to the former communist countries; as a socialist leftover the land belongs to everyone in those countries.
This is truly horrible.
"Let's not help them, just move them to another jurisdiction. Let them worry about it."
What would you do about the massive, sprawling, disease ridden and unsafe homeless camps that are in California? I saw a video of one and it is pretty shocking to see in America.
seeing the video must have hurt, but not touched.
I felt really bad for all the people who are paying to live in those apartment complexes with a squatters camp on the other side of the fence. Could you imagine that?
I was thinking in terms of the people who work hard and pay rent and have to step over human shit and needles to avoid hepatitis and listen to tweakers screaming all night, then to come out to their cars vandalized or God knows what, that has to suck right?
and where does the hepatitis rank?
I can't help but put myself in the shoes of the folks living in those apartment complexes adjacent to the squatters camp, that has to suck for them right?
Have you ever had to deal with squatters where you live?
I am taking that as a "no, I personally have never had to deal with squatters".
I have, it's terrible. If squatters moves into the building where you live I would feel bad for you, in the abstract you think you would feel bad for them but in real life if that happened to you then you would feel bad for you, and rightly so.
The city should come through there with firehouses and garbage trucks once a week. That would solve the problem.
we'll see if you sing the same tune when some squatters move into your building. I've spent a night on the street in California, the problem is that it is not so bad, what do you need a house for if it does not get that cold and almost never rains and you feel comfortable shitting in the street?
Meth is a terrible thing, once people are on it, which is something they choose to do, they are responsible for the plight they find themselves in, it's sad but meth addicts seldom recover even with treatment. Don't do drugs. Meth makes people do evil shit so I can't excuse it and I don't feel bad for them.
Trump is right that we need to reopen our mental hospitals because a lot of homeless people are mentally ill and so they should probably be in mental hospitals getting treatment.
What the city did do there is put all those people in motels, how long until the garbage piles and fires in the motels force them to be condemned?
I have been living in my car for over a year, and I live in what is supposedly one of the richest countries in the world. Atleast they allow me to live in my car instead of freezing to death on the curb.
My sympathies to all homeless people out there.
Aaah the world is so profoundly fucked up.
Have you been to Modesto? the cost of living is very affordable.
Haha probably should have mentioned I live in another richest country in the world. Norway.
In that case you might want to definitely check out Modesto, it's warm year round and the local produce is fantastic. ;)
Some days ago, two young girls died from suffocation after being locked in in a car in a town not too far from where i live in Nigeria.
Safety of those who unsafely sleep in parked or abandoned cars might have been one of the reasons for this law.
But one needs to study and understand the circumstance behind the law before one can form an informed position on it.
But if this law was directed at the homeless, then, it is unfair.
I want to encourage residents of the region to keep up the activism to force an amendment. We must also commit more to helping as many homeless persons as we can.
These laws are ridiculous, Babylon bullshit. Leave people live and enjoy life the best they can
I know a guy here in Florida who spent two years living in his car. He actually rented my basement for a while when I lived in NY, but refused to move and rent my basement when I had to move to NH for a job (though, I offered). He went back to Florida, annoyed everyone he knew, and ended up in his car for two years. When I moved back to Florida, I helped him get a cheap mobile home. It's a piece of crap, but better than living in a car. He said it was pretty harrowing, sometimes, and he spent most of his time in Wal-Mart parking lots.
The cities that are doing this have a bunch of unfeeling bastards on their city councils, and the same for voters who vote for this kind of thing. Where do they expect people without homes to sleep? And, for the amount of money some towns spend on ridiculous, useless projects (like, in my current town--an unneeded dog park right next to a human park, and an armored tank for the police department, when there is little violent crime here), they could build enough affordable housing for almost everyone who needs it.
My bet is that this is actually more of a drug problem than a homeless problem.
If I approach it from the other end: where is a homeless person in California permitted to sleep/live? I mean, it's not like throwing them out of everywhere is going to magically get them a place to stay. I'm just confused by the approach the authorities are taking. 😕
Thanks for bringing this up. It's not that bad in Europe yet, but there's no doubt we are headed down the same path. Sometimes it's a blessing to be a couple of years/decades behind...
I'm from the uk,there are tens of thousands of homeless people living here.The big problem is there is no affordable housing anywhere.The single mothers and immigrants get priority so they get free houses and free money.Thats why the vast majority of homeless people are men.The problem will only get worse as the house prices go up.governments are no there to help us,they are there to govern,(control)us.