VENICE BEACH HOMELESS CRIME SURGE

This is John Fredericks with the Epoch Times and today we are discussing the current situation of Venice Beach, California in regard to homelessness and rising crime rates. According to locals, the neighborhood has always attracted an out-of-state homeless population. But they shared with me that the number of unhoused citizens, quote, exploded during the pandemic along with organized crime. What have you noticed along the streets going on here? Well, the biggest increase, which we're going to see right now, is really sort of RVs moving in. Prior to COVID, you had to move your RV at least once a week for street cleaning. And so with COVID happening, we stopped enforcing that. So a lot of these RVs have been here for about three years now, since March of 2020. And with that, we've seen RVs catching fire. According to Soledad, areas that were once a hot spot for major homeless encampments have now since dispersed but are now spread throughout the neighborhoods. Really, this is a mental health crisis. Drug addiction is very much involved. And our city officials, they continue to treat it as a housing crisis. So what we see is that there's encampments, they sprawl up, they're moved, they're placed into temporary shelter. But eventually people will come out of the shelter and they come right back onto the streets. They start using drugs again. Some residents have even taken matters into their own hands. And so over here we have some rocks. So this is what some would consider anti-homeless architecture. You can't put up tents there, obviously. These rocks are cemented into the ground. But along Venice Boulevard, RV encampments are still a common sight. Many campers even have welcome mats placed upon them on the Los Angeles public sidewalks at their entryways. One property owner said the uptick in crime throughout his neighborhood has had a negative impact on the community, leading to many people leaving. A lot of people are trying to hold on for the goodwill and for the amount of time that they've been here and to service their community that they love. The ones that aren't able to afford that, they've got problems, rampant problems of crime, shoplifting, daily problems of getting homeless people off their doorstep or keeping them away from their businesses. For his friend Yolanda Gonzalez, she and her neighbors have experienced an onslaught of crime due to the homeless crisis ranging from trespassings to arson. I went out one day because they were defecating behind my property. And I said, this is terrible. What did I do? I went to the dollar store over here, the 99-cent store. I went and bought them brooms, racks, and how to pick up the trash. I said, you guys, if you want to be here, I feel sorry for you. But clean up. So one day, Sean and I were sitting out there. We saw LOXA come in. They came in with Home Depot buckets. And what did they have in those buckets? Every drug paraphernalia you would want to use, whether you were housed or unhoused. Gonzalez and O'Brien say poor leadership and a lack of fiscal responsibility are worsening the problem. Up to $17,000 a month for one person. Most of these people are not from California. They're coming here to game the system. And it's we, the taxpayers, who are paying for it and are losing our city services. It's unfortunate, but Venice is a containment zone. Even during the interview conducted in a public storage facility, one homeless male trespassed into the building unannounced and disappeared into a restroom area for nearly 25 minutes. We've maintained a very close-knit community of people that we fight this right now. But it's more than anything else. It's fear. Upon leaving, we found a small pile of trash wadded up on top of the sink. There was also a weather glove, commonly used to help individuals prepare methamphetamine for drug use. Now one thing that changes quite a bit in Venice Beach is where one encampment moves, another pops up. According to residents, the word on their mind is fear. Fear to go to the grocery store, fear to walk to the car, and fear to leave anything in their vehicles. This is John Fredericks, Epoch Times, Venice Beach.