Brazen homeless camps show how LA's squatters are using WASHING MACHINES and stealing water

[zinn]

Images and video show homeless in Los Angeles syphoning water and power in
camps sprouting throughout the city's streets - with some of the brazen
encampments even boasting working washing machines.

Homelessness is a dominant issue in the state's upcoming mayoral election,
with a large field of candidates promising to do more on an issue that has
placed Los Angeles in an unwelcome national spotlight.

Sagging tents, rusting RVs, and makeshift structures have become
commonplace along Hollywood Boulevard to Venice Beach - and even in the
shadow of City Hall.

Over the past year, the camps have become increasingly bold, putting up
full-sized tents and cordoning off entire streets, much to the chagrin of
outraged locals.

Now, citizens have snapped evidence that the urban outposts are stealing
water and power from the city to maintain a surprisingly lavish lifestyle
while living out on the street, taking water from hydrants and electricity
from any outlet they come across.

One photo snapped by an awestruck bystander showed one such encampment in
Hollywood, where multiple people were seen washing what looked to be their
cars and motorcycles with syphoned water from a nearby hydrant.

Multiple cars were parked in the makeshift camp site - which also sported
multiple working washing machines and several tents.

The photos, shared to Twitter by @LeatherJoseph on Monday, seem to suggest
the camp's inhabitants are also stealing electricity from a nearby street
light, to power their appliances and vehicles.

Brazen homeless camps show how LA's squatters are using WASHING MACHINES
and stealing water

That same day in seedier South-Central, evidence of another, even more
shameless encampment surfaced on social media - one also with a working
washing machine and even a oversized that an onlooker noted was blocking
a local business.

'1 bedroom tent with garden & working washing machine blocking a business
driveway. Welcome to Los Angeles,' the user wrote, in a post that shared
video of the washing machine in the middle of a clothes cycle.

On the 'door' to the unseen inhabitant's evidently homey tent, a sign
urged onlookers: 'Don't be hatin!'

Such sightings have become increasingly common since the pandemic, when
the City of Angels, like many other liberal-run cities across the country,
descended into a den of debauchery and crime that it has yet to crawl out
of.

This comes as the city's wealthiest residents have been forced to fight a
proposed 'mansion tax' on properties over $5million, further enflaming
their dissatisfaction with city leadership.

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The city's current crime-ridden state has spurred countless locals and
even celebrities to flee the Golden State for a better life, with the most
recent being actor Mark Wahlberg, who is fleeing his longtime home in LA
in favor for a life in nearby Nevada.

The likes of Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Matt
Damon have also participated in the mass exodus - as well as hundreds of
thousands of ordinary citizens - citing a combination of over taxes,
crime, and the state's notorious ever-worsening homeless problem.

Moreover, the state recently experienced its first population decline in
decades last year, when roughly 250,000 residents were reported to have
left the city - many instead electing to buy property in less costly
locales such as Texas and Arizona.

Mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has made keeping Hollywood 'in Hollywood' a
huge point of his campaign - though he appears to be fighting a losing
battle to woke progressive Karen Bass.

Caruso is running against Democrat Karen Bass in the November election on
a platform of tackling crime, homelessness and bringing an end to a steady
stream of 'career politicians' such as DA George Gascon, whose 'soft-on-
crime' policies he says have ruined the city.

Caruso has also criticized the city's treatment of local businesses, who
instead of being rewarded for putting their money into the city, are now
faced with aggressive homelessness that likely scares away customers.

Caruso recently asserted how this is the case with Netflix, which moved
its headquarters to Hollywood during the pandemic, only to find homeless
encampments outside the office on a regular basis.

He cited how current Mayor Eric Garcetti's office has so far failed to
address that issue, as well as the hundreds of other camps currently
operating in plain sight across the city.

'Look at [Netflix CEO] Ted Sarandos. Here's a guy who said, "I'm going to
make a commitment and have my headquarters actually in Hollywood," and
made a big, incredibly wonderful commitment to the city. And what has the
city done?' Caruso asked.

'The city has allowed encampments all around that headquarters.'

He added that such encampments is deterring the city's professionals from
returning to work at the office, slowing the city's post-pandemic recovery
to a virtual standstill.

'People are coming to work, and I've talked to the executives in there,
coming to work carrying human waste on their shoes because there's so much
human waste on the sidewalk, because we've allowed people to live in the
most inhumane situation.

'It's incredible what all of our elected officials have allowed to happen.
We're allowing people to live and die in the streets in their own waste.
And then we allow that to happen in front of one of the great companies of
Hollywood.'

Caruso was a Republican for years before registering as a Democrat earlier
this year, ahead of the mayor's race.

He insisted in his interview - and has done throughout his campaign - that
party affiliation is irrelevant.

'None of these issues are Republican or Democrat issues. None of them are.
These are human issues. These are issues that are affecting all of our
lives every single day.

'When crime is spiking, when you've got homicides that are at a 15-year
high and it's only getting worse, when you have hate crimes that are up
160 percent, when you have homelessness now at 44,000 and people dying in
the streets, these are life and death issues that transcend any kind of
party.

'And, I don't look at this as party politics from that standpoint. We've
got just serious problems,' he said.

John Maceri, chief executive of the People Concern, one of LA's largest
nonprofits serving the homeless, agreed with the overall finding that the
city needs to build housing faster and cheaper.

The solution, he said, is innovative financing, slashing red tape that
slows projects and incentives for developers to aggregate funding to speed
up construction.

'Housing has not kept pace with the urgency of the unsheltered
homelessness crisis,' Maceri said.

Homeless encampments have spread into virtually every neighborhood of the
City of Angels, while the number of homeless has climbed to an estimated
70,000 people.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, facing re-election this year, has budgeted
record sums to combat homelessness that pervades all of the state's major
cities and many smaller communities as well.

The state is providing roughly $12 billion on homelessness programs over
two years.

Still, the government's inability to clear encampments from streets, parks
and sidewalks has left voters angry and frustrated.

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump threatened to intercede, though he
never acted on the threat.

San Francisco's progressive mayor, London Breed, earlier this year
declared a state of emergency in the city's Tenderloin district - one of
the most overrun neighborhoods - after concerns about homelessness and
open drug-peddling there.

Meanwhile, residents are calling on their local government to address the
issue after more than a year of promises to address the rise in
encampments, to little success.

Recently, a Venice Beach community organization warned Los Angeles
officials that they were liable for millions in payouts if the remaining
homeless encampments were not cleared out, months after the city removed
about 200 people from the boardwalk.

The Venice Stakeholders Association sent a letter to several city offices
explaining that LA could face a number of expensive lawsuits if they
failed to protect the safety of nearby residents.

Those who live in the area have complained about the garbage littering the
boardwalk and the unchecked fires started by people camping outside.

Last year, a fire at a homeless tent near the beach spread to a vacant
two-story building and completely destroyed it. It took 116 firefighters
two hours to put it out.

The city cleared out hundreds from the area over the summer, but the
president of the Venice Stakeholders Association said many still camp out
overnight.

Mark Ryavec, who leads the 11-year-old organization, told KABC: 'There's
almost no police presence or fire department presence down here overnight.

'We're putting the city on notice, that, if there's loss of life, if
there's a structure, they are clearly already negligent, and they already
will face a huge settlement.'

There were 1,901 homeless people in the Venice area in 2020, according to
the latest count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

What is Proposition HHH?
In October 2015, the LA City Administrative Office submitted a report to
the mayor and the City Council's Homelessness and Poverty Committee on the
number of people experiencing homelessness in the city.

In 2016, voters in Los Angeles passed Proposition HHH which enabled city
officials to spend $1.2 billion for the development of housing units for
those who were homeless.

The funding could also be used to build shelters.

In order to find a funding source for the housing units, city officials
worked with many public and private community stakeholders, including
County leadership, United Way, and the Corporation for Supportive Housing.

They set out plans tp build more than 10,00 units of supportive and
affordable housing by 2026.

'It's illegal to camp on Venice Beach and we want that message established
by enforcement of the rules that exist,' Ryavec added.

Ryavec's comments came as a poll conducted by The Los Angeles Times found
in 10 Los Angeles residents cited the city's homelessness problem as a
main cause for feeling unsafe in their communities, with one in five
people saying they would consider moving to escape the problem.

Meanwhile, the city is shelling out up to $837,000 on opulent apartments
for its homeless as part of a $1.2billion project to home the region's
sprawling homeless population known as Proposition HHH.

The undertaking is intended to build housing for the estimated 41,000
homeless people in the city, has seen about 1,200 units, most of which are
studio or one-bedroom apartments, completed since voters approved the
spending in 2016.

An audit recently found 14 per cent of the units built exceeded $700,000
each, and one project in pre-development is estimated to cost almost
$837,000 per unit.

It is not clear if Caruso, if elected, will pursue such a plan. Caruso
currently trails the much more progressive Bass by single digits in most
polls.

A tight mayoral race will not be the only thing getting attention on Los
Angeles ballots in November, though.

Measure ULA, dubbed 'the mansion tax,' will also be up for a vote, amid
opposition from Los Angeles’ real estate industry and abundance of
affluent residents.

If passed, the measure would add a new tax on L.A. property sales north of
$5 million to fund homelessness programs such as Proposition HHH.

If successful, the measure will see property sales in Los Angeles between
$5 and $10 million would be subject to a 4 percent tax rate, while those
worth $10 million or more would be taxed at an additional rate of 5.5
percent.

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las-squatters-are-using-washing-machines-and-stealing-water/ar-AA13mI9H

[gymRatRedneck]

Good. Beats washing shitty little lectric cars.

Ps. Hoping they steal every solar panel on every public utility and
'trash compactor' (that isn't a compactor) and put them to good use
charging their cellies so they can shit bomb this newsgroup and you, twit.