Thread by @KtownforAll

Thread.
What’s 41.18(d)? It’s a City of LA ordinance that makes it illegal to sit, sleep, and lie down on the sidewalk in LA.

Q: Isn’t 41.18 unconstitutional?
A: Yes! Martin v Boise decided that a total ban on sitting, sleeping, and lying down is unconstitutional

...because it violates the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment). BUT cities can still impose restrictions in other ways, like restricting people from sleeping under freeway overpasses, for example. Since 41.18 is unconstitutional, LA does not enforce it.

To make 41.18 constitutional, City Council has to tweak it. That’s what @BobBlumenfield is attempting to do by repealing the current version of 41.18 and replacing it with what he believes is constitutional, making it illegal to sleep around freeways and homeless services.

Mike Feuer got too excited about criminalizing homelessness that he went beyond Bob’s motion and drafted an ordinance making it illegal to sleep anywhere in public space as long as you’re “offered shelter.” When his draft was presented to City Council, even Bob balked.

Bob proposed striking down Mike’s idea to keep it limited to what he originally proposed, which is still very bad. Thanks to #ServicesNotSweeps, allied orgs, and Angelenos who organized against this, City Council failed to get enough votes to pass it. servicesnotsweeps.com/41-18-letter/

.@CD6Nury was furious that it failed to pass and agendized it again for Nov 24. Typically, ordinances take forever to make it through committee and report backs, but in this instance, City Council tried to pass it in one week from the day it got introduced to the day of the vote

This is remarkably undemocratic and reveals that actually, City Council can move quickly if they really want to - the only reason they couldn’t is because so many people spoke up against it.

What’s next?
City Council will vote on this on Nov 24. We don’t know what will happen.

We do know that we have a good track record of winning when we do fight. We need everyone’s help to defeat this criminalization motion. Go to ServicesNotSweeps.com and submit written comment and bombard your council member with emails and phone calls.

Tomorrow night, the Venice Neighborhood Council will vote on supporting the 41.18 motion and will hear from Councilman Joe Buscaino on his motion to resume sweeps throughout LA. Call into the Zoom meeting at 7pm to oppose criminalization:

https://twitter.com/AntiNimbyAction/status/1327831659308228608