YouTuber and local superhero German in Venice offers an update on the beachside homeless encampment.
I live very close to where most of this was filmed. Every week the beach gets visibly more crowded with tents. The density of folks has sent crime soaring. In the video, G-i-V reads the latest statistics from LAPD. 150%-200% increases in violent crime across the board in one year in a community already suffering.
Having grown up here and experienced all the ups and downs Venice has had over the last half-century, I am finally willing to say "I have never seen it this bad." There is more suffering than ever. People are dying. There are deaths to violence, deaths to drug overdose, starvation, lack of medical care, and it is a miracle that no humans have died in a fire.
A dog, however, was burnt alive in a house fire that is attributed, by the most proximate neighbors, too bad actors from an atypically aggressive adjacent encampment. LA is a dog-centric town, and this is helping to keep fear and anger at a running boil. Of course, there was a candle-lit vigil.
Local discussion, between housed and unhoused folk, seems to revolve around a theme that many of the unhoused do not want and will not accept City or State provided housing. Many shelters have restrictions, or a restriction, that essentially devalues the rest of the support the shelter could give. Limits on drugs, alcohol, pets, and the number of possessions one can keep all come into play. Self-determination and feeling like you have control over your own life disappear in these shelters, while safety and help may or may not really appear, leaving most finding more stability on the very dangerous beach.
Stories about the folks relocated from Echo Park don't help.
St. Josephs is a good local resource for Venice area folks looking for assistance. No one group serves the entire community of unhoused people or can answer all their needs, but St. Josephs is well regarded.
Hey, Arnold, go hang out with Mike.
