When you hear that an unhoused person “refused services” that includes...
- refused to give up their pet to get a short-term hotel room
- the shelter they were offered a space in isn’t safe for their gender/sexuality
- couldn’t consolidate all their belongings into two bags
People will literally be classified as “offered housing but declined” if they have tools for a job they do when they can and didn’t want to leave all their tools in a public park to be stolen just to get a hotel room worth less than the cost of re-buying all those tools
There are some private organizations like @selahnhc (I heard this information from one of their volunteers on his podcast) that help with storage but with all the money taxpayers voted for housing services LA still doesn’t own a storage facility for people’s belongings
Imagine that you have been living in a 4-person sized tent + using some outdoor space for storage.
You have with you everything that’s left from the apartment you lost four months ago.
You can get a hotel for a month but you can only bring two garbage bags worth of your stuff.
I guarantee for the majority of people currently in tents, temporary housing that will likely not lead to permanent housing (only about 15% of those leaving shelters leave for permanent housing) is not worth more than losing all their winter clothes, sleeping bags, bicycles...
People like to claim the main reason folks say no to shelters or other temporary housing is “no drugs or alcohol” but
1) there’s absolutely drugs and alcohol in the shelter (and that’s why some recovering people stay away)
2) it’s way more likely to be “can’t keep my stuff”
My first Labor Day in LA I skated with a recovering addict who had just left jail w/ no housing plan and they wouldn’t even keep him in jail one extra day AT HIS REQUEST so he could get out on a workday instead of a holiday so he could call his social worker about making a plan
That is the level of giving a shit about individuals’ individual needs we are dealing with in city government right now.
Action alert for folks reading this thread and understanding why people may stay in parks for really understandable reasons!!!
If you’re in L.A. and can safely show up, do. If not, share & and tell @MitchOFarrell SERVICES NOT SWEEPS! mailto:councilmember.ofarrell@lacity.org
If you can pick up the phone too, here’s the number and a script for what to say. (Please listen to the organizations leading this and stay on their talking points, our LA council members are assholes and these organizations are experienced at handling them.)
Full toolkit on how to help including a tweet storm today, let’s make the whole world aware that @MitchOFarrell is exactly what this thread is about—someone who thinks an unsafe shelter bed and two garbage bags of clothes is all a human being in need deserves.
Here's exactly what I'm talking about happening in real time.
This man is being forced to leave Echo Park, but he cannot transport his personal items in one trip. Police will not let him re-enter after he leaves to retrieve the rest.
I sent a text to friends this morning & some asked me to share more widely, so here it is 🧵:
I woke up just feeling like he doesn’t get to take anything more from me than he’s going to take no matter what I do. If he kills us all, then I die. But he doesn’t get my mind too.
He doesn’t get to make my life less enjoyable.
I control what I control, not him, and I control whether or not I spend the one life I have freaking out about him.
Dr. Edith Eger survived Auschwitz & wrote about realizing that when Nazis were screaming at her they still had no control of her mind.
And the fact that they didn’t understand that made them prisoners in a greater sense than her physical imprisonment.
It's September in Southern California, which means it's time for the annual Spider Simp Thread!
No photos, don't worry, just information on why you're seeing more, bigger spiders this month and what to do to avoid a face full of spiderweb without harming lovely mosquito eaters.
First, Giant Face Hug Spiderwebs: elaborate webs stretching across sidewalks or even whole streets will become more common this month through October/November.
These are the work of orb weavers! They've always been around, they're just at their largest in the fall.
Our local orb weavers in the Los Angeles area are:
- harmless (the only medically significant spider here is the black widow)
- extremely afraid of you - startle one at the wrong moment and it may run away then later EAT ITS ENTIRE WEB to avoid encountering you again
Hi! Heat wave picketers, would you like some tips on increasing your heat tolerance?
I'm an endurance rider, which means I do a sport that requires me to sometimes exercise in up to 120-degree temperatures for hours at a time.
Heat tolerance is not fixed—you can build it.
First rule of heat training is: NEVER PUSH IT.
I'm serious. Do NOT get heatstroke. It will take away all your hard work building heat tolerance and make it easier to get heatstroke again in the future.
If you feel overheated, even if you've been outside for 30 seconds, cool off
Related to "never push it," don't be distracted from your bodily sensations in heat.
For my neurodivergent folks especially: NO HYPERFOCUSING IN HEAT! You will not notice that you're too hot!
If you have to do hyperfocusy things, SET A TIMER for cooling breaks every 20 minutes.
Once upon a time, a friend got a job working for someone who makes an amount of money my mind can’t fathom, doing a job in the entertainment industry that many aspire to.
She passed his desk one day to find he’d left the screenplay he was working on open on his desktop.
Now, this guy seemed like a pretty decent fellow, and he was actually TRYING to find his own creativity. No hate!
But the point is, everyone wants to experience creative self-expression, even if every other desire they have ever had has been fulfilled.
wild how the percentage of workers belonging to a union peaked in 1954 at 35%
and 1954 is the "golden age of the vibrant, thriving middle class" that everyone yearns for
but nobody yearning for the golden age of the vibrant, thriving middle class is proposing more unions
NOSTALGIC POLITICIAN: we need to go back to 1954 to save the middle class
MILLENNIALS: neat! by getting 35% of American workers into strong labor unions, right?
POLITICIAN: not that part
MILLENNIALS: so what part then?
POLITICIAN: I was thinking racism and housewives
look I know correlation is not causation and some proximate cause could have led to both the golden age of unions AND the golden age of the middle class
but like... it doesn't seem like giving management 100% of the power & profits is working? look at the egg prices?
God, he's just such a basic fucking model of "dad whose kids don't like him."
No features. No bells and whistles. Not even power windows. Just an absolute, off the lot, take it or leave it, as-is crappy dad.
Men will literally buy Twitter, unban convicted terrorists, ban journalists, ban competitors, play footsie with white supremacists, and sell the office espresso machine at auction before apologizing to their kids.
And honestly? I think they have no idea how corny and absolutely the opposite of masculine that energy looks on them.
"I'm so TOUGH I am NOT going to be MANIPULATED into saying SORRY to my KID"
so ur gonna die alone to own your babies? that's the move?