Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, February 29, 2016

Los Angeles Is Seizing And Destroying Tiny Houses Donated To Homeless People

Less than a year after an online funding campaign began donating tiny houses to homeless encampments in and around Los Angeles, the city is confiscating and destroying the donated miniature dwellings.

The crowdfunded effort has built and donated at least 37 of the portable units around the L.A. area since last spring. The people behind “Tiny House, Huge Purpose” deliver the homes to existing informal campsites, often near freeway underpasses, in hopes of providing a bit of privacy and comfort at those sites.

The portable shelters are big enough to lay down in, but not much larger. The idea to build micro-housing for people sleeping on sidewalks and in tents took off on a crowdfunding website last year, after a formerly homeless man named Elvis Summers shot a video about building such a unit for a a 60-year-old woman named Smokie.

But city officials decided last year to give themselves greater power to dismantle and break up such homeless encampments. Lawmakers amended a law requiring 72 hours notice before clearing an encampment, and the city can now move in with just 24 hours of lead-time for camp denizens. The reforms also allow the city to confiscate and destroy items deemed bulky — including tents — without any notice at all.

Now officials are using those powers to go after the tiny houses. Three of the units are in a city impound lot, and Summers told the Los Angeles Times he’s started taking the others down to prevent them from being seized.

Cities around the country frequently take this sort of aggressive approach to encampments. It’s a mistake, according to the premier group of experts on how to combat homelessness. The federal government officially discourages cities from forcibly breaking up camps and dispersing occupants. Agencies that provide key homelessness funding have begun warning that cities may see less federal money if they treat homelessness as criminal.

Los Angeles is the nation’s homelessness capital, with tens of thousands sleeping on the streets each night. Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) declared a state of emergency last fall, and the city has approved a rough 10-year plan for ending chronic homelessness. It is projected to cost $1.85 billion, however, and the city has no plan yet for finding that money.

In the context of Los Angeles’ particular homelessness crisis, sending workers out to confiscate houses is particularly jarring. Failing to build anywhere near enough affordable housing for the city’s low-income residents has caused the homeless population to boom, according to an analysis of the city’s 10-year plan.

The housing policy failures underlying the Los Angeles situation were driven partly by the state’s decision to close down housing redevelopment agencies. Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) move saved California about $2 billion per year, but erased the best and most consistent source of money for affordable housing investments around the state. Nothing has yet replaced the roughly $1.2 billion per year in redevelopment money that Brown canceled, though state lawmakers have weighed ideas to recoup a large portion of those lost housing dollars.

It’s all too familiar for the homeless and those on the brink of homelessness to lose out in complicated budget-balancing work. But investing in permanent supportive housing for the homeless would save society a great deal of money compared to the status quo. Choosing not to house the homeless means paying police, hospitals, and jails to handle the people who communities decide to leave outdoors — and it’s about three times cheaper to just give people free homes, tiny or otherwise.

Original Article
Source: thinkprogress.org/
Author: Alan Pyke

2 comments:

  1. I'll get hell for this comment but t this point in my life -I Don't Care! Just imagine for a moment how many homeless US citizens could be helped if the $8.3 billion given to Israel each year was used for a legitimate crisis in this country instead! I Am Not Anti-Jew. I am however anti-Zionist Jew/Christian Zionist with every fiber of my being. To the ACMS (anti-Semitic cyber monitoring system) as well as many other organizations and people, this comment labels me as an anti-Semite. So be it....

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    Replies
    1. How can you say you are anti-Zionist if you have no clue what Zionism is?

      Zionism is defined as "a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann."

      So let me ask: are you oppose to Zionism because its choice of the current territory in which it resides? If that's the case, unless you do not think distinct cultural, religious, and political group have the right to political and territorial self-definition, what other territory would be fitting? If your declared anti-Zionism is not a result of opposition to the territorial choice of the Jews, what is it based on?

      Either way, being anti-Zionist to day is believing in the legitimacy of the claim that the state of Israel has no right to exist and should be dismantled. The fact on the ground being that Israel is a Jewish state, being anti-Zionist inevitably means being against the right of the Jews, distinct from any other ethnicity, religion, or other social groupings, to political self-definition based on no other fact than the fact that they are Jews.

      This sentiment has a name: Anti-semitism!!!

      So tell me: is that what you are? If not, than I suggest you stop misrepresenting your intentions.

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