LA City Council Bans Sleeping in Vehicles Overnight amid Homeless Crisis
Sleeping inside a vehicle overnight in a Los Angeles residential area is now banned after the city council recently reinstated the ordinance.
“The law also forbids living in a vehicle within a block of a park, school or day care. Tickets for violating the rules start at $25 for a first offense, $50 the second time and $75 after that,” according to a report by NPR.
The report also states that residents have complained that vehicle encampments cause parking shortages and sanitation issues in their neighborhoods.
However, Mel Tillekeratne, executive director of a nonprofit group for homelessness named The Shower of Hope, called the law “stupid.”
“This law … is going to directly contribute to these people being on the street,” the director said.
On June 4, Breitbart News reported that the number of homeless grew 12 percent over the last year, with numbers reaching almost 59,000 of those living on the street in Los Angeles.
Data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority “revealed that nearly three-fourths of the homeless population, which includes 58,936 people, are sleeping in cars, tents, and other make-do shelters,” the report said.
On June 27, California’s Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom, signed a state budget that “inludes an historic $1 billion investment” to remedy the “homelessness epidemic across the state.”
However, on July 2, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the homeless crisis in his city was “decades in the making,” adding that “I welcome federal involvement in helping us solve homelessness.”
On July 19, Dr. Drew Pinsky said Los Angeles is in danger of an outbreak of bubonic plague due to the surge in homelessness and problems with rodent infestations, Breitbart News reported.
“And if you look at the pictures of Los Angeles, you will see that the homeless encampments are surrounded by dumps. People defecate there, they throw their trash there, and the rats just proliferate there,” he said, adding, “I have a government that is ignoring the basic needs of human civilization.”