LA for the past two years has undergone a total makeover on its homeless effecting policy, along with the rise of homeless activism and City Council intervention. In a historical precedent more people in the last few decades are supporting the social movement awareness around the issues effecting homeless people and encampments, which brings into perspective the ugly truth of the city government and enterprises. More people today know the city’s sanitation performs cruel encampment sweeps and threatens people on the street, the Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) mobile security torments unhoused folks, and the poor treatment and coercive supervision of people living in shelters and transitional facilities experience. Despite all these exposed truths coming to the surface, homelessness as a social crisis effecting thousands has not received the deserving action of the government to become resolved. This is an issue that demands only material, systemic intervention from the institutions because the phenomena itself is a crisis caused by the uptick in corporate holdings over living spaces, inflation, and the privatization campaigns consuming the public welfare system and replacing institutional action.
Instead, 41.18 was passed. In 2021, the city council passed a city ordinance, “a new version of LAMC 41.18 to criminalize sitting, lying, or sleeping upon any street, sidewalk, or other public way in specific locations approved separately by the council.” (KNOCK LA) There was major protest and civil litigation to push back the ordinance (which was previously passed a decade ago) from passing, but today the ordinance signs are up on every street corner designated as a restricted zone. Since it was first past the city council made a “drastic expansion of LAMC 41.18, expanding the prohibition on sitting, lying, or sleeping to over 20% of the city (500 feet of schools and daycare centers). The ordinance again provided no answer for where unhoused individuals can sleep.” (KNOCK LA) The extreme measures in the defense of “public health and safety” keep dispossessed people on the move and with little options except the ineffective tiny homes, bridge homes, safe sleep villages, and subsidized hotels. The justification for this ordinance rest on the same reactionary notions perceiving disenfranchised people a threat to the family unit, during the passing of the ordinance “several members of the council spoke about how 41.18 is meant to protect children.” (KNOCK LA)
Only the corporate interest motivated the hand of city council. This effort to further criminalize homelessness serves two functions if we understand the situation critically, first the ordinance opens up the space for enterprises lining the pocket of the city (particularly the BIDS) to secure their business territories, and two, to help cultivate the marketing delusion corporate landlords and developers are selling to nimbies and abroad investment. In addition to these reasons, the 2028 Olympics in LA is coming. The city in all its vanity will put on its best mask forward, while smothering its shame way from behind scenes.
As the covid hysteria comes to an “end” and people relive themselves from wearing face masks, the war against the poor and destitute continues, new campaigns to both evict immigrants from their apartments and demonize the unhoused begin. Many social movements in LA seek to resolve this issue, but without an encompassing campaign that can steer the direction our economy and culture is following, these issues will persist and worsen for decades. Unironically, a cyber punk dystopia is not far off to imagine if we remain passive as historical objects.