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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

i lived in Venice, CA, from 2013-2017 and can attest that everything said here about it is true, and maybe the truth is even worse. It really is like living in a zombie movie: at any time of day, on any street or area, some deranged Charles Manson lookalike might appear and start threatening you. (And, like a zombie movie, they even sometimes climb through your window.)

I don't know if you could call it a hack or a loophole or an Achilles' Heel, but California's admirably tolerant live-and-let-live ethos has been exploited and turned against its citizens.

I remember when 3rd Street in Venice was the main localized bum camp (excepting the Boardwalk), and it was just accepted as normal or almost an act of nature to turn over a whole city block to tents filled with drug addicts and the mentally ill.

Gradually tent by tent the whole area (much like the whole state) was colonized, and I think there are 2 main causes, both cultural: 1) there is just very little tradition or continuity here (unlike back East) and newcomers or vacationers or people who move in and out in a few years are more likely to keep their head down and not get involved, as they don't have much invested; and 2) anytime citizens did complain and a politician was forced to act, immediately an entire army of ACLU lawyers and other leftist organizers would file lawsuits and insist that any attempt to clean up the streets was a civil rights violation, that only some heartless monster would contradict a homeless person instead of centering their needs and giving them free food, free housing and free drugs. And I think these people have the tacit support of the population, because of the taboo most people here have against appearing judgmental or heartless, or even worse, conservative or Republican.

I don't know how you put this genie back in the bottle. Many neighborhoods are already unsafe, and many thousands of people live on the street, and to fix it we would need more than a Giuliani we might need a Mussolini. But any kind of real comprehensive crackdown would be deeply un-Californian, so I don't see it happening.

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SCA's avatar

I didn't even like Mad Max the movie. That this has become normal life in CA is--does "baffling" encompass all of it?

I live in a very small municipality in a largely rural state with harsh winters (spring ain't really sprung yet here) and a considerable drug and addiction problem, and one of our City Council members is a very progressive woman who also heads an organization providing tents and hygiene kits to the homeless living under bridges and on encampments on public land. She's got a degree from an elite college; I've got just a HS diploma, but somehow I think I can recognize idiocy pretty well when I see it.

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