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WAKE UP LA - Say it with me: We do NOT Live Under a Dome. SCREAM it at the Los Angeles Politicians and the LA Times. We do NOT Live UNDER a DOME.
There was a CBS television show “Under the Dome” based on a Stephen King novel. I never watched it. Just do a google image search or watch a trailer for it on YouTube. The idea is that an impenetrable glass-like dome barrier forms over a town...and people can't enter or leave.
We do NOT live under a Dome. There is a reason that homeless people are sometimes referred to as transients. They MOVE AROUND and there is NO HUGE Dome stopping them from moving into Los Angeles like there is for that small town on that TV show. Homeless people can move freely around the Country, you know, the good ol' US of A, the United States, of which there are FIFTY. If they're in California, they can easily move from one of the FIFTY-EIGHT Counties to another County. If they're within LA County, they can easily move between the EIGHTY-EIGHT Cities of the County. And they do! Homeless people move around! I know, shocking concept, right? Well it seemingly is for Our Local Politicians and the LA Times.
Here are some examples of homeless people moving around...off the top of my head, because there are SO MANY !! Near the end of June, a homeless guy stabbed an LA Metro BUS DRIVER in the back, unprovoked, in Venice, you know the neighborhood that former Council Member Mike Bonin destroyed in the City of Los Angeles. Mark Charbonneaux was arrested. Now, I wish that when these crimes are committed by homeless people, we would be told WHICH STATE or WHICH (CA) COUNTY they're from...Notice that I did NOT say CountRy. Mexicans come here to work, not to be homeless alcoholic druggy bums. So, since the perp has such a unique name, I type it into Google.
And guess what pops out? SAME GUY was booked into ORANGE COUNTY jail for hurting a Fullerton police officer way back in 2012...it made the OC Register...because he hurt a cop (picture of cop being placed into ambulance). Now, would the LA Times report this guy's long history elsewhere? Heck No! LA Times has an AGENDA. You mean he didn't become homeless for the first time by recently getting priced out of his apartment in the City of LA?? Because that's the spin that the Times has peddled FOR YEARS about LA homelessness...most of these folks are not (what I refer to as) “lifetime homeless” with addiction and/or mental health problems...they're our longtime neighbors who are just like us and became homeless by being priced out of their apartments...so Los Angeles should be EVEN MORE pro-developer!
Another example of homeless people moving around. Joe Buscaino was running for Mayor in the middle of 2021 and did an appearance in Venice...I know, Venice...again. At least they have a New Council Member working very quickly to undo Bonin's damage. Now, this time, because it was such a high profile incident with TV News cameras around, we got detailed info on the homeless perp, a 19 year old woman from Washington State with a knife. The Times has a picture of LAPD wrestling the knife out of her hand. But, see, here's the problem. Homeless person can come here from ONE OF THE OTHER 49 STATES, especially the Cold Weather States, plop their butt on the Venice Beach sand, and SUDDENLY they have all these rights, we're gonna give them a free newly built fully loaded apartment in a nice neighborhood or their own luxury hotel room, we're gonna feed them, we're gonna take care of them for the rest of their lives. Is that fair to us? What about their Home State? What about the Feds? What about the State? What about LA COUNTY, which is SUPPOSED to be the Social Safety Net dealing with addiction and mental illness. Why does the City of LA, that has had trouble providing basic services to its taxpayers/residents for decades and has been ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY in the past, take this on...are we stupid? Are we suckers? We are the laughingstock of this whole Country! We're the idiots!
I'll save the next great “off the top of my head” example of homeless people moving around the country and the state for my next column because...
TODAY's LA Times (I'm typing this out on Sunday) has an article entitled “From a One-Way Flight to Sleeping in a Parking Lot...” about a 37 year old VIRGINIA man who has been in California for ONLY 32 days and is looking to get on the Government Welfare Train in San Pedro, which, for those who don't know, just happens to be part of the City of Los Angeles...I'm SHOCKED! I'm also shocked that the LA Times would even print this article, but the damage they did to this town over the years is done, it'll take us DECADES to climb out of it, and it looks like the Billionaire Owner has run his hyper progressive young daughter out of the newsroom (hopefully the Editorial Board room too) and is prepping the paper for sale...the sooner, the better!
Oh, regarding that Virginia homeless guy: he has serious mental health problems, he JUST got off supervised probation TWO DAYS before he left the East Coast, and “before that, he had been in prison for the latest in a string of felony convictions.” Well, wow, what a catch for us in LA! Let's set him up in a fully furnished new apartment or a luxury hotel room pronto, with food and health care, etc, on our dime FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE! But...Don't worry; he's only got his eye on a spot in a “tiny house community”...you know, where they take a City parking lot used by residents and businesses or some other useful valuable government-owned lot in a good hood and build fairly expensive individual small houses for the homeless...and, of course, there's laundry facilities, food, recreation, you can bring your pets or lovers, etc. And he wants disability benefits, “a housing voucher, food stamps, health coverage via Medi-Cal.” Don't you think VIRGINIA, with the help of the Feds, should foot the bill for this guy. OK, let's be generous...the State of CA and the COUNTY of LA should foot the bill for this guy. But the CITY of LA should not spend ONE penny. Of course, we all know that's not how it's gonna turn out....quite the opposite! Surprisingly, the LA Times allowed this buried gem through (so contrary to the bs that they've been peddling for years): “Like so many before him, Truelove has come to LA on a one-way flight in the hopes that his fortunes will turn around.” Couldn't have said it better myself.
Try googling a BRILLIANT article at The Guardian dot com that came out at the end of 2017 entitled “Bussed Out: How America Moves its Homeless”. Of course, our MSM couldn't produce something like this... I recommend reading it on a desktop or laptop because there are really cool graphics that appear, change, and move as you scroll through this article. The sub-headline is “Each Year, US Cities Give THOUSANDS of Homeless People ONE-Way Bus Tickets Out of Town. An EIGHTEEN MONTH [that's One and a Half Years] Nationwide Investigation...” [emphasis added] The biggest busing program discussed is ironically by ultra-liberal SAN FRANCISCO (where our Governor Newsom hails from) ! New York City has a busing program that is discussed. Also discussed are One-Way FLIGHTS that a few US places utilize. I consider this practice similar to “patient dumping.” Keep in mind, that there is A LOT more than this going on, with homeless people being moved from one area to another in one way or another.
You cannot solve a problem if you are being dishonest about the basic facts. During the Garcetti Years, our LA City politicians and the LA Times have misled us about the extent to which the LA City homeless population is composed of people from THE OTHER 49 STATES and OTHER PARTS OF California, as well as other parts of LA County, of course. Meanwhile, our LA County politicians are all too happy to let the City shoulder the MASSIVE responsibility and cost and negative public safety implications of LA's homeless, which is really ALSO California's homeless and the nation's homeless.
(“An Angry Angeleno” is the nom de plume of Yuval Kremer, a former ballot candidate for both LA County Supervisor and LA Mayor)
