Letters to the Editor: I live in Venice. Put more homeless housing in my neighborhood
3 months, 2 weeks ago

Letters to the Editor: I live in Venice. Put more homeless housing in my neighborhood

LA Times  

Protesters in Venice on July 13 call on L.A. city leaders to help homeless people who they say are being banished from the Westside. To the editor: One of the main reasons I voted for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was that she seemed totally committed to ending the homelessness crisis in our city. I find it odd and disappointing that she has not publicly endorsed the 117-unit Venice Dell Community, which both the California Coastal Commission staff and L.A. City Council have found to be worthy of support. The long-delayed Venice Dell project could help achieve the goal of providing more housing and services to reduce homelessness.

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History of this topic

Venice residents weigh need for supportive housing against quality-of-life and safety concerns
5 days, 18 hours ago

Venice residents weigh need for supportive housing against quality-of-life and safety concerns

LA Times  

To the editor: I’m happy to see the L.A. Times editorial board continuing to light a fire under the city to build the Venice Dell affordable housing project. As a Venice homeowner located a several-minute walk from the site and a UCLA urban planning professor, I’ve been excited to see the housing get all the necessary approvals and beat back …

Stop finding ways to kill the Venice Dell homeless housing project
Trending News
6 days, 18 hours ago

Stop finding ways to kill the Venice Dell homeless housing project

LA Times  

There are lots of reasons it’s difficult to build housing for homeless people in Los Angeles. One of them shouldn’t be city officials standing in the way of a project — especially one already approved twice by the City Council. The latest hurdle was a review by the Board of Transportation Commissioners, which the city attorney argued is a necessary …

Venice homeless housing development continues in limbo as councilmember declares the project dead
3 months, 2 weeks ago

Venice homeless housing development continues in limbo as councilmember declares the project dead

LA Times  

A homeless man sleeps on a sidewalk in June in front of a parking lot where the Venice Dell project has been planned at Venice Boulevard and Main Street in Venice. A former staffer for Mayor Karen Bass responsible for expediting affordable housing developments told The Times that his superiors directed him to stop advancing Venice Dell through city bureaucracy …

Editorial: It’s past time for city officials to let Venice Dell homeless housing move ahead
3 months, 2 weeks ago

Editorial: It’s past time for city officials to let Venice Dell homeless housing move ahead

LA Times  

In Los Angeles, a city desperate for homeless housing, one project that will fill some of that need has been unconscionably delayed for years. On Wednesday, the California Coastal Commission will take up the Venice Dell Community project, which will provide 117 units, including 68 for homeless supportive housing and the remainder for low-income affordable housing, on a city-owned 2.65-acre …

L.A. County supervisors reaffirm policy against jailing homeless people after anticamping high court ruling
7 months, 4 weeks ago

L.A. County supervisors reaffirm policy against jailing homeless people after anticamping high court ruling

LA Times  

Tents along Grand Canal Street in Venice a block from where the Venice Dell Project is to be built as housing for homeless people on July 10. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to support a motion affirming that its jails won’t be used to hold homeless people arrested in the enforcement of anticamping ordinances. …

L.A. officials continue to stall homeless housing project in Venice, new lawsuit claims
8 months, 2 weeks ago

L.A. officials continue to stall homeless housing project in Venice, new lawsuit claims

LA Times  

Advocates for low-income housing sued the city of Los Angeles this week, accusing City Councilmember Traci Park, City Atty. The project, known as the Venice Dell, includes 140 units of housing for low-income and formerly homeless residents on what’s now a city-owned parking lot along the neighborhood’s famed canals. “Councilmember Traci Park and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, acting on …

Editorial: Mayor Bass has no more excuses for delaying Venice Dell homeless housing
9 months, 3 weeks ago

Editorial: Mayor Bass has no more excuses for delaying Venice Dell homeless housing

LA Times  

Now that some of the most vocal opponents to the much-needed Venice Dell homeless and low-income housing development in Venice have lost their lawsuit to block the project, will this be the last hurdle it has to face in a long and unnecessary obstacle course set by Los Angeles city officials? For more than a year, the project was slowed …

Photos: 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is underway
1 year, 2 months ago

Photos: 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is underway

LA Times  

The annual three-night Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is underway with volunteers fanning out to tally the number of unsheltered individuals, tents, vehicles and makeshift shelters they see in their assigned census tract. The 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count revealed a 9% year-over-year increase in homelessness in Los Angeles County and a 10% rise in Los Angeles. While participating …

Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles' Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art
1 year, 4 months ago

Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles' Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

The Independent  

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Branfman's initial notion to just shoot a few photos …

Editorial: When will L.A leaders stop getting in the way of a Venice homeless housing project?
1 year, 6 months ago

Editorial: When will L.A leaders stop getting in the way of a Venice homeless housing project?

LA Times  

There is yet another delay in the desperately needed Venice Dell homeless and low-income housing project in Venice. Now, just before the state Coastal Commission was expected to decide whether to approve the project, which sits in the Coastal Zone, Los Angeles city officials told the commission staff they wouldn’t take responsibility for operating the replacement parking garage as it’s …

Editorial: Are L.A. leaders trying to sabotage homeless housing in Venice?
1 year, 7 months ago

Editorial: Are L.A. leaders trying to sabotage homeless housing in Venice?

LA Times  

Rebecca Dannenbaum, 48, and her dog Pop-Tart live in a pedestrian tunnel, to the left, where she and other homeless people have been living. So why is she silent as the city attorney slow-walks, or possibly sabotages, a project for homeless and affordable housing on a city-owned parking lot in Venice? After competitively scoring the applicants, the City Council and …

Amid heavy rain, Bass takes on a huge, long-standing homeless encampment in Venice
2 years, 2 months ago

Amid heavy rain, Bass takes on a huge, long-standing homeless encampment in Venice

LA Times  

Savanna Moran took about an hour to weigh the offer made by homeless outreach workers: Move into a warm motel room about a dozen miles away — but in exchange, give up her tent on Hampton Drive. Encampment residents on Sunset Avenue and Hampton Drive were offered temporary housing as part of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative. Since then, …

Op-Ed: Listen to the neighbors of homeless encampments. We aren’t just grousing
3 years, 2 months ago

Op-Ed: Listen to the neighbors of homeless encampments. We aren’t just grousing

LA Times  

Tents and temporary structures along the Venice Beach boardwalk last May. After the pandemic hit and the city stopped enforcing anti-camping laws, Venice residents witnessed the rapid proliferation of over 200 tents on the Venice Beach boardwalk this past summer — along with the creation of a major open-air drug scene, along with a triple-digit increase in robberies and soaring …

L.A. wanted the Venice homeless shelter open at full capacity. Now it has a COVID outbreak
3 years, 7 months ago

L.A. wanted the Venice homeless shelter open at full capacity. Now it has a COVID outbreak

LA Times  

At a city-funded homeless shelter in Venice, 37 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent weeks — the largest current outbreak in a homeless facility in Los Angeles. “There was a strong recommendation from the city that we ‘recompress,’” said Jennifer Hark-Dietz, deputy chief executive officer and executive director of PATH, a statewide homeless housing and services agency, …

Editorial: Homeless people on Venice Beach got interim housing. Can’t this happen all over the city?
3 years, 7 months ago

Editorial: Homeless people on Venice Beach got interim housing. Can’t this happen all over the city?

LA Times  

Over the course of six weeks, service providers aided by local officials moved 211 homeless people who had camped along the Venice boardwalk for more than a year. But according to city officials and the service providers at the nonprofit St. Joseph Center, which carried out the plan to move the beach dwellers into temporary housing, the police supported their …

LA's Venice Beach a flashpoint in city's homeless crisis
3 years, 8 months ago

LA's Venice Beach a flashpoint in city's homeless crisis

The Independent  

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “Thank God it’s getting cleared up," de Russy said, …

Voices from the homeless community along Venice Boulevard
3 years, 8 months ago

Voices from the homeless community along Venice Boulevard

LA Times  

When we talk about the homeless population, we tend to focus on people who are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It never got physical; if it looked like it was going to get that way, I’d leave, drive around town. She lives with me, in the tent.. And we just got a little dog — …

Op-Ed: L.A. officials let homelessness overwhelm Venice
3 years, 8 months ago

Op-Ed: L.A. officials let homelessness overwhelm Venice

LA Times  

There is a disaster unfolding in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. Instead, the Los Angeles City Council set aside $5 million this month to pay for interim housing for up to 200 people camping along Venice’s Ocean Front Walk. Having faulted city officials for months for their inaction, the sheriff of Los Angeles County, Alex Villanueva, sent deputies to …

Op-Ed: Villanueva’s bogus Venice ‘outreach’ is just a cover for criminalizing homelessness
3 years, 9 months ago

Op-Ed: Villanueva’s bogus Venice ‘outreach’ is just a cover for criminalizing homelessness

LA Times  

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva on the Venice boardwalk on June 7. Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s deployment of armed deputies to the Venice boardwalk is at best a desperate political stunt and at worst a continuation of the long history of punitive abuse of poor people in Los Angeles. He poses as a tough guy who will rapidly remove people …

‘Gimme Shelter’: What you need to know about homelessness in Los Angeles
3 years, 9 months ago

‘Gimme Shelter’: What you need to know about homelessness in Los Angeles

LA Times  

Los Angeles is the epicenter of the homelessness crisis in California. On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” we discuss the history of homelessness in Los Angeles and delve into what might happen in Venice as public officials gear up for a mass effort to provide shelter for those living on the boardwalk. We also talk …

Column: Their Venice home feels unsafe. They blame public officials, not homeless Angelenos
3 years, 9 months ago

Column: Their Venice home feels unsafe. They blame public officials, not homeless Angelenos

LA Times  

Arthur Kraus strolls along the boardwalk in front of his Venice home. “I’d say it really exploded about three years ago,” said Arthur. “They just want people taken care of, and they want the neighborhood to be nice for everybody.” In the late ’90s, I lived several blocks inland and often rode my bike past the Krauses’ property. “I could …

Column: Beach apartments for homeless people? Venice residents are leery
3 years, 9 months ago

Column: Beach apartments for homeless people? Venice residents are leery

LA Times  

Maybe it was the house fire near a homeless encampment off Main Street in Venice that killed a beloved family dog. But that’s not what happened last week when the Los Angeles Planning Commission held a contentious public hearing on a new housing project one block from the beach. A collaboration between the Venice Community Housing Corp. and the Hollywood …

Garcetti’s signature homeless program shelters thousands, but most return to the streets
4 years, 4 months ago

Garcetti’s signature homeless program shelters thousands, but most return to the streets

LA Times  

In the spring of 2018, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti put his personal stamp on the city’s response to homelessness by announcing a departure from its primary focus of building permanent housing. She said she can’t take her mother for a walk and sleeps with a baseball bat: “I’m scared.” An umbrella shades Richard Thompson as he camps out with …

Column: Housing the homeless hits NIMBY wall in ‘progressive’ Venice
5 years, 9 months ago

Column: Housing the homeless hits NIMBY wall in ‘progressive’ Venice

LA Times  

The blue couch appeared one evening at the dumpster across the alley behind my house. The group is spearheading a proposal to turn the parking lot into a complex called the Reese Davidson Community that would include 140 units of low-income and transitional housing, artist lofts and retail ground space. One vocal group, Fight Back Venice, has dubbed the project …

Venice homeless shelter faces a legal challenge claiming insufficient review
6 years, 2 months ago

Venice homeless shelter faces a legal challenge claiming insufficient review

LA Times  

Dorm-style beds were installed in a homeless shelter in the downtown El Pueblo district, the first of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s A Bridge Home temporary housing projects. A proposed homeless shelter in Venice faced a legal challenge Monday from a homeowner and business group that claims the controversial project was “jammed through” with insufficient review of the environmental effects on nearby …

L.A. City Council votes to build homeless shelter in the heart of Venice
6 years, 3 months ago

L.A. City Council votes to build homeless shelter in the heart of Venice

LA Times  

Supporters and opponents of the proposed Venice homeless shelter hold up signs during the Los Angeles City Council meeting Tuesday. The Los Angeles City Council approved a plan Tuesday to open a homeless shelter in the heart of Venice, a project that has become a flashpoint for complaints about tents, filth and crime in the seaside neighborhood. Planned for an …

L.A. City Council committee members back five new homeless shelters
6 years, 3 months ago

L.A. City Council committee members back five new homeless shelters

LA Times  

Supporters of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Bridge Home plan, which would house homeless people in temporary shelters, hold signs at a Wednesday hearing on five proposed shelters in L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s plan to ease Los Angeles’ homeless crisis by putting up temporary shelters across the city moved forward Wednesday after City Council members supported shelters in Venice, Wilmington, San Pedro, …

Column: Yes, we’ll pay to house the homeless, but not here, or here, or here, or...
6 years, 5 months ago

Column: Yes, we’ll pay to house the homeless, but not here, or here, or here, or...

LA Times  

Angry residents and property owners spar with Mayor Eric Garretti, left, and Councilman Mike Bonin, second from left, during a town hall last week at Westminster Elementary School over plans for homeless housing in Venice. “It was the most negative meeting I’ve ever been to,” said Pasadena City Councilwoman Margaret McAustin. In a panel discussion after the screening, Claudia Perez, …

Opinion: Jeering Mayor Garcetti won’t fix homelessness in Venice
6 years, 5 months ago

Opinion: Jeering Mayor Garcetti won’t fix homelessness in Venice

LA Times  

Anthony Wells, right, voices his opposition to Mayor Eric Garcetti, Councilman Mike Bonin and LAPD Police Chief Michel Moore during a town hall at Westminster Elementary School in Venice, Calif. on Oct. 17. It was billed as a town hall for Venice residents to hear about the shelter for homeless people that city officials had proposed for an unused Metropolitan …

L.A. lawmakers face opposition over homeless shelter plans
6 years, 9 months ago

L.A. lawmakers face opposition over homeless shelter plans

LA Times  

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, left, fields questions from residents about a planned emergency shelter for homeless people at Westminster Elementary School last week in Venice. In the crowded auditorium where Bonin promoted the shelter plan, several people hoisted a yellow banner that declared “Venice Says No!” “Some of the burden needs to be taken off of the four …

A Venice couple is housing homeless people, one small building at a time
6 years, 9 months ago

A Venice couple is housing homeless people, one small building at a time

LA Times  

Patricia Williams, right, gets a hug from Heidi Roberts as she and other tenants move into their new home along Wall Street in South Los Angeles on Monday. “Ten years ago, John and I were jumping up and down saying, ‘Housing, housing, housing,’ and they just never seem to get housing done,” Roberts said. Here’s housing.’” Roberts, an advertising strategist, …

Don't let NIMBYs — or weak-kneed politicians — stand in the way of homeless housing
7 years, 1 month ago

Don't let NIMBYs — or weak-kneed politicians — stand in the way of homeless housing

LA Times  

“Homes end homelessness.” That was the simple and ultimately persuasive slogan of the Proposition HHH campaign in 2016. Of eight city-owned properties identified two years ago as sites for homeless housing, not one is near construction — and these were supposed to be the easy projects, the low-hanging fruit. The city has funded 416 homeless housing units that were already …

Column: In Venice, where money meets misery, hoping for an end to homeless camps
7 years, 10 months ago

Column: In Venice, where money meets misery, hoping for an end to homeless camps

LA Times  

Residents on a predawn walk use the street where the homeless’ tents block the sidewalk on 3rd Avenue in their Venice neighborhood. LAPD Officer Eddie Bermudez, center, talks to homeless people on Rose Avenue near 3rd Avenue in Venice. Making Venice a laboratory No two homeless, addicted or mentally ill people have precisely the same issues or needs, so it’s …

Venice residents fight over homeless housing project — and character of the neighborhood
8 years ago

Venice residents fight over homeless housing project — and character of the neighborhood

LA Times  

Chris Buck wheels his portable home, which has a bed inside, along the boardwalk in Venice Beach. A proposed homeless housing development in Venice — ground zero in Los Angeles’ debate over how to deal with its homelessness crisis — would provide apartments for artists and low-wage workers. “By serving multiple groups, we’re getting at the historic diversity of Venice …

Twin issues of homelessness and development dominate debate in District 11 council race
8 years ago

Twin issues of homelessness and development dominate debate in District 11 council race

LA Times  

For more than a decade, two highly intertwined issues have dominated the political debate in Venice: gentrification and homelessness. “He’s approving projects that are significantly reducing the quality of life.” Bonin addressed those concerns as he sat in his cramped but bustling campaign office on a recent Friday night. At a recent candidate forum, one person held up a sign, …

Editorial: What needs to happen next for homeless people in L.A. County
8 years, 2 months ago

Editorial: What needs to happen next for homeless people in L.A. County

LA Times  

A year ago, Los Angeles city and county officials put aside their traditional rivalries and proposed sweeping, coordinated plans to tackle homelessness, perhaps the most challenging problem they currently face. Now, those plans are officially in place and city voters have approved $1.2 billion in bonds to finance the construction of 10,000 units of supportive housing for the region’s most …

L.A. considers providing homeless in Venice with housing, bathrooms and storage
8 years, 11 months ago

L.A. considers providing homeless in Venice with housing, bathrooms and storage

LA Times  

Andrew Lee Merchant, left, and Howard Prattmen, discuss a police shooting in their Venice lean-to in January. Los Angeles is considering a new effort to deal with the burgeoning homeless population in Venice that includes 24-hour access to bathrooms, free storage facilities and development of supportive housing on city land. Bonin’s plan, announced Friday, comes amid a significant increase in …

Community weighs in on plans to address homelessness
9 years, 2 months ago

Community weighs in on plans to address homelessness

LA Times  

Community members got their first chance Wednesday to weigh in on new plans by the city and county of Los Angeles to address the region’s growing problem with homelessness. At the hearings, advocates for the homeless pointed to a lack of strategies in the city and county plans to address the needs of domestic violence survivors. “In fact, it completely …

Homelessness up 12% in L.A. city and county
9 years, 10 months ago

Homelessness up 12% in L.A. city and county

LA Times  

Protesters gather last month just beyond the boardwalk in Venice Beach to challenge the city’s midnight-to-5-a.m. curfew, which they contend focuses mostly on removing homeless people. The homeless population jumped 12% in the last two years in both the city and county of Los Angeles, driven by soaring rents, low wages and stubbornly high unemployment, according to a report released …

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