It's difficult to make sense of what I saw last Thursday, February 20th, in downtown Los Angeles’ skid-row area. A sweeping was announced at Towne Avenue between 4th and 5th Street, where many homeless citizen put up their tents. I decided to go there to witness and document the affair. I got there early morning at 5:00 AM. It was still dark, but there was a lot of turmoil, more than usual. I saw women and men running around trying to get shopping carts to pack their -belongings. The ones who were lucky to secure a cart packed them as high as they could push them. Many of them seemed disoriented, unsure of which direction to run with their belongings. Lacking alternatives, many of these citizen had made Towne Avenue their temporary home. As the daylight started to set in, most of them had dispersed, leaving behind their dwellings, brand new tents, mattresses, blankets and personal belongings. The scene reminded me of a battlefield. Everything was in a big disorder, clear traces of confusion, as the abandoned items were rummaged through many times over. Around 7:30 AM, the street was raided by a proportionally oversized police force. The street sweepers began to collect while a few homeless people were still going through the abandoned waste. A women was pulling two shopping carts through a group of police officers, who were in her way to get out, they starred and watched her struggle. It was a scene of utter desperation and humiliation, and a clear reflection that our society regards poverty as shameful. Many of the abandoned belongings were donated things, discarded objects and remnants of a wasteful society. Some tents were in brand new conditions, probably saved up by a homeless couple. Some tents were neatly furnished with blankets, mirrors and make-up, stuffed animals a radio, bicycles and personal items. These somewhat cozy dwellings were first pushed down by the sweepers and then consumed by a bulldozer. The city sweepers basically threw away homes that were as permanent as they can get living on a street. WHO benefits from taking away a tent and a blanket from a homeless? What alternatives do they have? Besides the display of most inhumane actions against poverty, it was clearly just a sweep under the carpet, because those citizen chased away by police and bulldozers are still on the streets, but now without tents and blankets and without shelter and warmth.

error

error

error

error

sighting it out.

picking it up.

these jackbooted government thugs who are
destroying the homes of homeless people
should be shot.

is anybody protesting this?

shit. this is crazy.

is this because of Bratton?

http://www.domevillage.org

Is Ted Hayes.

The Homeless problem has no easier answer, but if there were more jobs available maybe there would be few of them to provide the special services they need. STOP Illegal Immigration Now!

"Give me your tired,
your poor,
your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.

The wretched refuse
on your teeming shores,
send these…the Homeless,
the tempest tossed, to me.

I lift my lamp
beside the golden door".

Ted Hayes is pro-war. besides.. movements of protest shouldn't be about celebrity wannabes. i wish there was something more left-oriented.

Homeless people need help and defense of their rights everywhere - in SF too. People who are less fortunate need our solidarity, not our ridicule - - a basic life lesson that people like "Bush Admirer" and "realitycheck" seem never to have learned. were you always so unattractive? even as children? almost everyday on the bus, i see little children on the bus who seem to have more dignity and decency then you two. occasionally i do see some kids who seem not to have been cared for properly - they act rude and seem somehow damaged inside. i guess that's what you may have been like.

What difference does it make which side of the aisle he's on?

At least Mr. Hayes is trying to do something.

What have the Anarchists done for the homeless lately?

MadMaxim, every time there is a big demonstration the Anarchists hide behind there bandanna and trash businesses. This puts people out of work, do you think these idiots care, I'll answer that for you. NO, they couldn't care less!

anarchists have been feeding around three hundred or so homeless people every damn weekend for years. in fact some of those photos here look like San Julian street. that's one of the places they serve their tastey vegitarian food. LA food not bombs, specifically.

check it out www.lafoodnotbombs.org

Sometimes it's nice to be wrong.

If people can be compassionate and forgiving to the Enron thieves then why can't we show compassion to those in despicable living conditions. :(

how can they do this

where tom morello when u need him

Just as there's no single reason for homelessness and vagrancy, there's no single way to resolve the issue. There are numerous ways to alleviate it, though, and American's basically don't do a lot of them. Simple as that. Perhaps we need more shelters, more SROs, more motel vouchers, and more public housing. Perhaps we need to increase funding for addiction and mental health services. Perhaps we just need to give them $5000 a year in cash. And, maybe we might even create spaces where people can live in tents.

The idea of people living on the streets in the richest nation on Earth is, to use popular military jargon, "unacceptable".

Put the homeless in camps to get rehabed and place them in jobs when they are ready. Those that don't want to take part in the program either go live in the woods or we convert them to Dog Chow.

I can't believe your calouse. People are not just flesh and bone to be pulverised and processed, pressure cooked into dog food or whatever 'you" would have them be. You forgot our right to liberty and freedom or choice. As I see it, most of the homeless suffer from illness such as alcoholism, addiction, mental health problems and lack basic life skills we take for granted everyday. When I lived in Downtown Los Angeles homeless people were found dead in the ally behind me and tenement dwellers often asked to visit with me just for company. There may not be one easy answer but I do know that we all have souls and responsibilties for our own actions. I ask, can I sleep tonight knowing I did something possitive today?

I can't believe your calouse. People are not just flesh and bone to be pulverised and processed, pressure cooked into dog food or whatever "you" would have them be. You forgot our right to liberty and freedom of choice. As I see it, most of the homeless suffer from illness such as alcoholism, addiction, mental health problems and lack basic life skills we take for granted everyday. When I lived in Downtown Los Angeles homeless people were found dead in the alley behind me and tenement dwellers often asked to visit with me just for company. There may not be one easy answer but I do know that we all have souls and responsibilties for our own actions. I ask, can I sleep tonight knowing I did something possitive today?

You are assuming much. To a real human it is impossible to not want to
help end the pain and hopelessness we see in the world. There are
those that have abandoned humanity.
Love to humanity in a fellowship of brotherhood is all we ever wanted.
.Here's to a sane and human world.
Peace.

** Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall
deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever
he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow
him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his
power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If
to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to
prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say
to him,--"I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say
to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't." **

From The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, volume II.
http://kinkade.ws/cwt_alt/resources/e-texts/lincoln/02.htm.
I saw saw there was a BUsh Admirer on the Dixie Chicks Thread.. wait a minute, it must be the same person. Wow !
Nearly had me fooled there.
Honest Abe.

I work in trying to help these homeless people help themselfs and get off the streets, and the reality is that they don't want to. For the simple fact that it has become a way of life for them, they are comfortable. So, with that comes the consequences of living on the streets. We can only do so much. So please! And go BUSH! I'll be leaving to serve my Country soon. So long.

I find it hard to believe that the homeless in the
streets prefer living that way.
Maybe in coparison with dying that way.
A signifigant portion of these souls are veterens; and
you could be joining them after your party.

I guess you could send them all to an idylic island where they can all be self sufficient with fishing and stuff without the man keeping them down with taxes or anything.
just across from the prision island where you can put all the prisioners you dont like but dont want to have to kill.

No need to send them all to an idyllic island.

Simply load them on busses and send them to San Francisco. That's homeless paradise. SF liberals pay salaries to the homeless out of taxpayer revenues.

we could save a few steps and just give the homeless more help right here in L.A.

i agree with what john k wrote earlier in the thread:

"Just as there's no single reason for homelessness and vagrancy, there's no single way to resolve the issue. There are numerous ways to alleviate it, though, and American's basically don't do a lot of them. Simple as that. Perhaps we need more shelters, more SROs, more motel vouchers, and more public housing. Perhaps we need to increase funding for addiction and mental health services. Perhaps we just need to give them $5000 a year in cash. And, maybe we might even create spaces where people can live in tents."

did you know that there are whole countries where there is hardly any homelessness?

This is a more sophisticated issue than people acknowledge. While these people (the homeless) would be thrown in jail or otherwise abused and decimated in another country, the US creates and harbors the homeless in seeming abundance. And since we have the bill of rights to talk about, let's talk about the 'Right to Exist'.

This past summer when I was 'pretending' to be homeless on my vacation, I learned a few things. In Santa Monica, 'camping' is illegal. In LA, it is illegal to lay, sit, etc on a highway, road, or sidewalk. The 'locals' (Venice Beach bums) called the citation "a ticket for existing." So think about it: the only place a person--two arms, two legs, two eyes two ears, a mouth (more or less)--can carry their person is WHERE??? On the side of a highway in the desert somewhere? Because if you so much as sit down other than on a bench in Los Angeles, you are technically illegal. WHAT GIVES. Santa Monica (formerly "the People's Republic of Santa Monica") is the leftist, way-out-there 'haven' of the homeless--so you can sit or lay down, you just can't camp. So you can exist there, but NO CARDBOARD BOX!!! Weird, huh? I tell you, I heard a judge in court tell a dude that when I was there for an infraction (jumping off the pier).

So ask yourself this: if a person chooses not to earn, not to feed the system, not to buy a car and house and have a security blanket that way, but instead lives day-by-day in the streets, eating what they can procure and getting by the way the Lord intended and the way St. Francis lived, they are ILLEGAL.

By the way, the problem with being cast out of cities is that a homeless population is less welcome in teh suburbs, and the far reaches of coutry and desert are devoid of the dumpsters and cheap meals one can get in the city. People live within commuting distance to their food supply. To most people, that's their job and grocery store, combined. To someone on foot, that radius is reduced. {Come to think of it, the suburbs must be the promised land, what with all the wastefulness, the dumpsters must read like a buffet.}

So when anyone talks of where the homeless, I take it as a judgment made on my own right to exist. You should too.

Just my opinion.

do you think for pluralities sake that its safe to assume there's no God.

For the Idiot that stated to stop immigration, get real. Why don't you educate yourself on the contributions that immigrants have done and continue to do to our economy. Immigrants are not lazy, unlike other people. Next time you get on or off a freeway pay attention to who is BEGGING for money and who is selling roses. It might surprise you to see US citizens holding up signs and immigrants working. And I surely don't think your lazy ass is going to go pick strawberries for over 8 hours under the hot sun. IGNORANCE BLINDS

The time has come to pray for the mountains to fall upon us. The time has come to stop reproduction. The time has come to realize that the design is flawed. The homeless now have nothing but the manipulations of the evil elite who are not even human.

America, set me free from your S-whores.

In 1997, there were 1,100 homeless in downtown L.A. alone. On November 5th, 1997, there were only 1,099 homeless in downtown L.A. How do I know, because a kind, Christian group of people helped me to go home.
Now, 6 years later I look at it all as a spiritual journey, and currently I am in college looking towards my A.S. degree. Nothing is impossible with God; we must all join hands, quit judging each other and to become ourselves the change we wish to see inthe world...

Its about time downtown is cleaned up of this unhealthy filthy garbage. Los angles is a world class city but you would never know it if you go downtown. You see human feces on the sidewalk, rats running wild in the garbage ridden streets and the stench of urine on the sidewalks..


What Ignorant Idiot want sto protest this????? Take them home and put them in your back yard. That will solve the problem and the homeless can live happily ever after.

the us is talking about getting universial healthcare for the "women and children" of iraq what about the united states, canada has universial health care and we dont if you saw the pictures of the bombings iraq looked better than most cities in the united states before AND after the bombings what the hell i mean look its imbalanced i know this best i live in detroit and potholes are everywhere ill post pictures of the slum of detroit later on

I am sickened by the way this country treats it's poor
and homeless population. I wish we could go back to
the days where the Europeans didn't bring huge mega
cities and their social ills over to America. I doubt that
there were many if any homeless Native Americans,
simply because the land wasn't built up, and the
technology didn't exist to watch over huge swatchs of
land, and be able to pin point "illegal"(sic) dwellings,
and give goons information to go in and kick the person off. No adays, there's no where to hide. If they
go out and try to build in an isolated regieon, chanses
are they will be spotted by a survey plane, and kicked
out of there too.

This shit has got to stop. The homeless may have no
choise, but to turn around, and fight, just to get these
people off of their backs. And then things will really get
ugly.

I agree. There are too many evil, "powerful" people
who are waging war on the homeless. The rich,
"powerful" monsters must be eliminated both
politcaly and physicaly, before more people suffer because of them.

I was driving over the expressway overpass on Vermont when I spotted a man I thought was dead. He was laying on the hot cement in the brutal mid day sun. His skin looked beet red and he was face up. Something in my head said get water. I stopped at rite aid and returned to find he had not moved. I parked my car with the emergency flashers on and got out. My attempts to arrouse him were at first ignored. But I persisted and resulted in pouring some of the water in his outstreached hand. This arroused him from his distant conscious mind. I made him sit up and comanded that he drink the water and all of it. He sat up and took the bottle, I told him to get up and get himself into the shade I gave him a bottle of sun block and told him that he could die in the sun that way. He seemed now alright so I left to get back into my car, and as I drove away he threw me a kiss of thanks. These people are human beings. I suggest more people take a little of their waisted time and help someone once and a while, one day you may find yourself in the same situation viva natural disaster, and accident, or an emotional trama. Don't put it past the possiablity that it could happen to you. Spread a little love..... DrewBird

To formerdoglady, It is wonderful that you were able to get off the streets with the help of a Christian group. But I remind the forum that not every homeless person wants to be helped in that way -- he or she may not want to trade the right to think freely, without the fetters of religion, for a Bible and a meal (or a Koran, the Talmud, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or any scripture). As a tolerant, pluralistic society, we owe it to these downtrodden human beings to offer a choice: if you want to be helped by missionary types and have a religio-spiritual conversion, that's okay; if you don't want to change your religion just to have food and a roof, you should not have to. That is one important reason why there ought to be more non-sectarian help organizations. For example, check out Chrysalis Employment Program at http://www.lahsa.org/contracts/jobdevelop/2002CDBG11.htm

In America, there are less than one million homeless in a country of 275 million (not couting shitbird illegals). Hardly a serious problem.

But in this case, the illegals prove the point: if they can sneak over here knowing little English and get a job, why not the American homeless? Answer: barring the percentage that are mentally ill, the homeless don't want to work. Frankly, I don't blame them. Work sucks.

The welfare state can't cure a damned thing and the war on poverty is a fucking failure. All these liberal programs have done is create a permanent underclass of poor who will die without continuing handouts. Fuck this baloney about 'we don't help the poor.' We've wasted TRILLIONS on these fuckers, with nothing to show for it but MORE poverty.

I mock the faux outrage shown here since unless you're actually taking homeless people into your homes, you're neither helping (nor harming) the problem at all.

You can't help people who don't want to he helped, who won't meet you halfway. Those who DO want out of the gutter and are willing to work, DO make it out.

Before I get harangued with the usual shit about 'bein evil,' let me say I admire the drive to help the less fortunate, but there are ways that work better than others, and all of them require work on the part of the 'victims.'

There is no free lunch.

Waiter: "unless you're actually taking homeless people into your homes, you're neither helping (nor harming) the problem at all. "

This is a perfect comment to illustrate how stupid Texans are in general, and the Waiter in particular.

There is a pastor at a nearby church who volunteers to help feed, clothe, as well as find housing and jobs for homeless families. He does not "take" them into his home, but he helps hundreds nonetheless.

...but in the waiter's eyes, he might as well have done nothing...

Of course, those of us who talk the talk but don't walk the walk should learn to lead by example, and a perfect way to do that would be to take the homeless into my dwelling. But then again, I make a lot of demands on others I wouldn't dream of doing myself. I'm a hypocrite.

....the sight of republican clinging desperately to a failed argument is always good for a laugh....

Of course, I don't even pretend to HAVE an argument worth consideration. Actually, I do *pretend* to have arguments, but that's all they are, pretend.

This is horrible. Why aren't the police HELPING these people to move?? What's wrong with them? Have they no empathy at all? Who knows why/how any of these folk became homeless and what obstacles are keeping them down? It's shear arrogance to think that it couldn't happen to anyone.. I mean anyone! Even the 1% ers.... life has strange twists and turns.