Thread by @CarlGetInside

We cannot afford to elect more public officials that fundamentally misunderstand the issue of homelessness in LA. If we do, blight will continue to proliferate and the already staggering death toll will escalate. 🧵 1/12

Extremists like Kenneth Mejia, Mike Bonin, Erin Darling, Eunisses Hernandez and Faisal Gil have have made the fundamental error of mistaking mental illness and addiction for poverty. In doing so they have popularized language that lends destructive power to this basic error. 2/12

https://twitter.com/kennethmejiala/status/1550176878899499008

The above thread is misleading about the intent of the amendment, which is not to “make homelessness illegal” (that’s already covered by the Boise decision) but to protect children from open drug scenes that, according to the LAUSD Superintendent, endanger children. 3/12

Ironically, the city won’t invest in shelters *because* of the power of these very groups that decry shelters as inhumane and claim that even incentivizing treatment for addicts and the mentally ill is a violation of civil liberties. 4/12

Our own CD11 council member turned down beds offered by a successful shared housing organization because residents are asked not to use drugs on the premises and often share a room which is deemed undignified. Haaven CEO describes this and more here: 5/12

audible.com/pd?asin=B09749…

Further, Mike Bonin, along with powerful organizations like the Los Angeles Community Action Network, are fighting the legal settlement that requires Los Angeles to build 16,000 new shelter beds over the next 5 years. 6/12

lamag.com/citythinkblog/…

LA’s adherence to “Housing First” for the last 10 years has amounted to very little despite historic investments. Meanwhile people’s *progressive* diseases of mental illness and addiction worsen and the city’s streets serve as a deadly waiting room for 60,000 human beings. 7/12

So we have encampments in large part *because* extremists fight solutions to them while simultaneously fighting basic mitigations for the negative impacts they have on their surrounding communities. And on top of this the same groups are working to normalize hard drug use. 8/12

LA is the only city that won’t support ANY housing solution that doesn’t permit drug use on premises, citing civil liberties. Where is our priority to human life? They also ignore successful models from other countries like Portugal, described here: 9/12

One reason is that the current approach enriches the homeless industrial complex, something from which many of these candidates and those in their social circles benefit. Most LA politicians are funded by service providers and developers that are awarded no bid contracts. 10/12

This is why 5 a day die on the streets. It’s why I call it a willful denial of shelter and treatment. It’s why I call it the woke genocide of our mentally ill and addicted brothers and sisters. A vote for these candidates is a vote to condemn thousands more to death. 11/12

Please help by standing up against this new breed of righteous indifference. Reject their worldview that sees homelessness as a tool to enrich themselves and push unrelated agendas. Vote for positive human outcomes and demand nothing less. 12/12