In our class last Wednesday we spent the last five minutes going over articles from LA Times that completely contradict each other. One article states that LA is moving forward with their housing first program and other program to alleviate homelessness, while the other exposes the brutality that police and city officials are enabling by taking away the belongings of the homeless people in LA and completely destroying their personal items.
In an editorial from the LA Times in between these articles lies the fight back against the taking of homeless peoples possessions. Over the last year this editorial states that LAPD has removed up to 1,355 tons of material owned by homeless people. This caused an uproar in social activist groups and social service organizations so much so that another lawsuit was filed March 14th stating that taking away the valuables of homeless people violates human rights and the only reason the city should be taking away any items of homeless people is if it causes a threat to the city. We also discussed during class that they have been able to store homeless peoples items once confiscated to specific storage spaces and the person has 90 days to retrieve their items. Once again the lawsuit states that this has not been put into effect considering they destroy homeless peoples items and then arrest them for stolen items when no proof is given to do so. Incarcerating the homeless does not do the city or the person any good and is a step in the wrong direction.
The city originally was mandated to provide storage and if it could not do so, the homeless person would be allowed to keep their possessions. Clearly we know that this does not stand true and now the city is claiming that all homeless persons must not carry anything more than a backpacks worth of their belongings or a cart if they cannot find storage. This editorial stands as an expose of the LAPD as well as city officials disobeying the laws and mandated rules that they claim to have created for the benefit of homeless people.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-0317-homeless-sweeps-20160316-story.html