VENICE, Calif. – Yolanda Gonzalez noticed a tent pop up in front of the neighborhood library across the street from her house just a few blocks from the Venice Beach boardwalk.
Then another. And another.
“It started with one tent, and then, eventually, in less than three weeks, all of a sudden, all these tents went up,” said Yolanda Gonzalez, who lives across the street from the library.
The encampment particularly seemed to grow not long after a tent city in a park near the Los Angeles airport was cleared. All told, about 40 tents litter the area in front of the library.
“How many tourists come through here, and right now with the game’s coming, people walk up our streets,” Gonzalez continued. “What have we got to show for? This is embarrassing.”
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VENICE BEACH RESIDENTS BLAST LOS ANGELES OFFICIALS OVER CRIME, HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT SAFETY CONCERNS
Last summer, more than 200 homeless campers were cleared from Venice Beach in a major operation. Residents said they have seen some clean-ups around the city, but encampments continue to emerge – founder of HAAVEN Shared Housing founder Heidi Roberts calls “waterbed syndrome.”
“Like, you press here and it bumps up over here, press here, it bumps up over here,” Roberts said. “So, it seems like they’re spending millions and millions of dollars just to shift people around to different neighborhoods when if they were smart about this, I mean, they could actually solve the problem.”
Heidi Roberts, founder of HAAVEN Shared Housing, speaks to Fox News.
The city wants to hide the crisis from the national spotlight of the Super Bowl, Soledad Ursua, a member of the Venice Neighborhood Council, told Fox News.
“The city has always done this,” said Ursua, a six-year Venice Beach resident. “They moved homeless encampments last April for the Oscars, and so that’s really their approach. They just want to hide it. They don’t want tourists to see this coming in.”
LA City Councilman Mike Bonin, who…
Source : foxnews
