L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin discusses “Operation Street Lift” during a July 31 press conference near Washington Boulevard and Strongs Drive
Calling Ocean Front Walk an ‘apocalyptic scene,’ he vows to ‘marshal every city resource to turn it around’
By Gary Walker and Joe Piasecki
Not even 36 hours after holding a press conference in Venice to tout a local beautification initiative, L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin was headed to the boardwalk in the middle of the night to cart away the charred remnants of a mattress that had been set on fire south of Windward Avenue.
“I’ve had it with this bullshit. I’m getting a pickup and coming to remove it myself,” Bonin posted to Twitter at 11:41 p.m. Friday in response to a tweet about the incident by local crime blogger Alex Thomson of Venice 311.
“Sick of OFW [Ocean Front Walk] apocalyptic scene,” he tweeted after arriving around midnight with a city truck, a council office staffer and his husband.
“I’m livid about the incident and the environment that led to it, and there was no way in hell I was letting that mattress stay there overnight and tomorrow morning so it could mock residents, visitors and business owners who deserve a helluva lot better,” Bonin wrote on Facebook a short time later.
The post, on two different Facebook accounts, received nearly 300 likes and more than 20 positive comments.
In a political climate where some have come to associate neighborhood improvement efforts with sweeping gentrification that’s altering the socio-economic landscape of the once laissez-faire counterculture bastion, many are also losing patience with the frequent acts of criminal mischief and occasional outbursts of violence that plague the boardwalk — the beating of a homeless man with a folding chair in December, bottles thrown at police during curfew enforcement at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in March, a double stabbing near Windward in April.
“Venice Beach is supposed to be one of the jewels of our community. In many ways it is the face of our community. And we are going to marshal every city resource to turn it around. I’m making it my mission to turn it around for residents, visitors, tourists and local business owners,” Bonin, clarifying his remarks on social media, said Monday.
Also on Monday, Bonin said he would follow through with a number of boardwalk security measures — including the installation of LAPD-monitored security cameras — that were discussed last year after a driver plowed through boardwalk crowds, killing a honeymooning tourist and injuring 16 others.
“In September, additional security cameras will be installed along the west side of Ocean Front Walk and brighter lighting will also be installed. I will also be looking to increase police foot and bicycle patrols,” Bonin told The Argonaut.
Plans for better lighting and increased patrols got a thumbs-up from the Venice Neighborhood Council in December, but the cameras were a contentious issue that divided the board.
Calls for reducing the beach’s omnipresent homeless population by enforcing city parkland rules that prohibit overnight camping have also raised objections.
A.C. Kane, a film lighting technician in Venice, commented on Bonin’s Facebook post that the burning mattress that riled the councilman should prompt questions about the city’s management of the beach, not demonization of the homeless.
“Why is it a homeless [person’s fault about the] mattress? I know people who have had their tent/mattress lit on fire by those who hate the homeless. I wish people could get as riled up over so many people spending every night on the street as they are over one misguided act of defiance,” Kane wrote.
“Grandstanding isn’t the answer,” responded Venice activist Nick Antonicello. “A reliable sense that someone is in charge of Venice Beach is the answer. The bigger question is why can’t those responsible for doing their jobs be held accountable?”
Bonin said he is sympathetic to the plight of the homeless but cannot accept the status quo.
“We should do everything that we can to get people into permanent housing,” Bonin said, but that “doesn’t mean that [the boardwalk] should become a campground for the un-housed. We have to reprogram Ocean Front Walk. It’s a park, not a campground.”
Bonin supports the formation of a boardwalk business improvement district (BID) to leverage private resources for quality of life improvements.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” said Tom Elliott, co-owner of the beachfront Venice Ale House and Banc of Venice Public House.
“One of the reasons that some people are afraid of a BID is they think that it will gentrify the boardwalk and bring in a lot of chain stores. But there’s is an independent spirit here that can accommodate almost any business. It’s really what you make of it,” said Elliott, a member of the Venice Neighborhood Council’s Ocean Front Walk Committee.
He points to the results of Hollywood’s BID as an example for Venice.
“Ten years ago, Hollywood Boulevard was a pretty rough place to be, especially if you were a runaway teenager. We’re getting a similar sort of scenario here, a lot of transient kids that wind up here … and unfortunately they wind up in some pretty bad situations,” Elliott said. “A BID here would have to have the component of helping to move those who need help into a position where they can get help. No one wants to just move people off the boardwalk and not get them the help they need.”
Bonin’s push to clean up Venice Beach also comes at a time when Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is focused on revitalizing urban streetscapes through pedestrian-friendly landscape enhancements. His nascent “Great Streets” initiative pinpoints 15 stretches of roadway, including Venice Boulevard between Beethoven Street and Inglewood Boulevard in Mar Vista.
Bonin’s press conference in Venice last Thursday discussed improvements to the mile-long stretch of Washington Boulevard from Oxford Avenue to Ocean Front Walk under another city program dubbed “Operation Street Lift.”
Upgrades include roadway repaving, tree plantings and repairing curbs and gutters.
The Washington Boulevard project is the city’s second “Operation Street Lift” location, following similar work on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks last year.
“We are targeting walkable retail corridors with ‘Operation Street Lift,’” said Ron Olive, the city’s assistant general manager of street services. “This one was particularly attractive because of the connection with the bike path as well as the pedestrian traffic.”
So far, city employees have repaired 11 sections of broken sidewalk, trimmed trees, fixed catch basins, worked with businesses to remove signage that violated city codes and widened the crosswalk at the intersection of Washington and Pacific Avenue. Dubbed “continental crosswalks,” the wider pedestrian walkways are more visible to motorists and have been shown to reduce vehicle-pedestrian collisions.
“Getting the new crosswalk was something our council had wanted for a long time. It’s great that someone is actually paying attention to the condition of our roads and streets,” said Marina Peninsula Community Council President Sandy West.
Such improvements “give more life to a neighborhood” and “bring a sense of well-being to a community,” Bonin said.
“Los Angeles has a long way to go to have neighborhoods that are as good and as clean as the people of Los Angeles deserve. Block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, we’re going to try and make this into the world-class city that we all deserve,” Bonin said. “This is one chunk of a down payment on that.”
Did someone actually imply that a homeless hater lit the mattress on fire? And why is it the homeless persons fault?
Thank goodness Mike Bonin has the good sense to take a very sensible stand on this issue. He seems smart enough to know that Venice Beach is a jewel in this community that deserves much more than it has ever received in terms of City resources. Apparently many never had parents that told them to clean their room.
Thank you for covering the unacceptable state of Venice Beach and our ongoing work to give the people who live, work and enjoy the area the clean, safe and characteristically funky neighborhood they expect and deserve.
Venice Beach and the surrounding neighborhood is a tourist attraction, but it also a residential neighborhood and a business district — and it too often is held hostage by rowdy punks and criminals who manipulate vending rules and laws meant to protect the homeless to create their own sketchy environment and campground. It is not acceptable.
We must and will be expanding programs and coordinating services to help the needy and those who are left with no choice but to sleep on our streets. But those are not the people causing problems in the neighborhood. To combat that problem, we are installing brighter lights at Venice Beach, and we will be installing 24-hour security cameras. We are increasing neighborhood clean-ups, and the LAPD is instituting new patrols and policies. We are also going to tighten up vending regulations that create a scofflaw underground economy that is forcing out the entertainers and performers.
There are no simple answers to the complex intersection of social justice and public safety issues at play here. Government and the community need to work hard to respond with dignity, compassion, and assistance for those who want and need help — and to provide hard and strong law enforcement for those who violate the law and think our neighborhoods are a cool place to party, cause trouble and live off the grid.
The issue here is that the people who are homeless on the beach often times have nowhere else to go — and no one is providing them options.
Strict “law-enforcement” leads to police harrassment of the homeless while they are trying to “clean up your jewl.” A big part of the reason that the homeless in Venice are so restless be because they literally get no rest. The LAPD repetedly wakes people up during the wee hours of the morning, and harrass anyone who choses to sleep anywhere but Rose and 3rd (which is often dirty and completely packed with people).
The only “housing options” available to Venice’s homeless is jail or prison. I honestly believe that by relaxing or eliminating laws that seek out homeless people, such as loitering laws (which are only enforced in Venice upon the homeless), and sleeping in public laws (which are only enforced when the homeless is sleeping somewhere the LAPD decided they shouldnt), and camping laws (because really, doesnt it make more sense for a homeless person to sleep on the beach at night than to force them to sleep on the sidewalk in residential areas?), the general unrest and turbulance that the homeless community feels will be reduced, therefore making everyones experience in Venice more enjoyable.
Additionally, implying that a homeless person set their own mattress on fire is ignorant. Would you burn your bed, especially if you had been sleeping on the concrete for goodness knows how long before you got it, and will be again now that its garbarge?
I understand the frustration that comes from living in an enviornment that is also shared by hundreds of homeless people. However, in reality, they were there first. You can’t come into a comunity and gentrify it and expect it to go smoothly, espcially if you try to do it by criminializing people and trying to force them out.
What Venice needs to do is adapt a Housing First Program and open spaces for these people to go. Otherwise this is going to continue to be a battlle, and the LAPD will face more lawsuits and harassment charges, and homeless advoates will become increasingly unsettled with these ongoings.
oh, and one more thing, before the “klieg lights” and big brother security cams go up on the boardwalk, i’ll be looking for an EIS/EIR that insures that the brighter lighting is shielded and of a wattage that does not interfere with beachfront residents or coastal wildlife life processes http://ca-sgep.ucsd.edu/focus-areas/healthy-coastal-marine-ecosystems/explore-beach-ecosystems/artificial-lighting.
Well said, councilman!
Wow, no real solutions but more persecution? You agree with this? Totally disappointed, Odysseus, thought you might be better than this…..
Your lights have destroyed the night sky, one of the few dark zones in Los Angeles. I cannot see white caps illuminated by the moon, I cannot see the stars, moon and planets. I cannot see ships sitting in the bay. I cannot see the Malibu coastline. I cannot see twilight. The glare is horrible. The white wash glare on the pavement and sand is horrible. The worst is when the fog rolls in and amplifies the glare. In short your lights have stolen the dark. We still have crime, the transients are as bad as ever and your park is still a haven for crime. Oh, there’s a pole. Let’s put a light on it and fuck the residents in a different way. Thanks, Mike. Knee jerk solutions are not what we expect or deserve.
Did they recently replace the boardwalk lighting with brighter lights? Was there any public environmental review process?
Where are people who are homeless supposed to go? Los Angeles is the homeless capital of the United States with over 50,000 people unhoused. We have approximately half the shelter space for the number of people who are homeless. That means those who have termed out of shelters (for many that is a three month stay) or cannot get into a shelter are left to parks, beaches and sidewalks. (And, lets face it, some of these shelters (not all) create inhumane conditions for their residents). Furthermore, there is almost no new housing being created (and certainly no net gain) for those who are homeless, much less for those at 30% area median income and below. There are people in Los Angeles who have been on the Section 8 waiting list for 8 years, hoping to get housing. Shelters and public agencies who have vouchers specifically for homeless individuals and families will only give them to people who bring in $800 or more a month. That means someone on General Relief, who brings in $221/ month from the County, cannot get into this housing either.
And if you don’t have an address where the Housing Authority can send you an interview letter for a Section 8 voucher, you get taken off the list. This means that if you are homeless without support from friends or family or someone who can take you in, you have nowhere to go. We want to pretend that there are services, shelters and housing for people to tap in to because it makes us feel safer, and allows us to scapegoat the person who is unhoused, but, as someone who works with the homeless population, I can tell you that shelters and many programs are full and merely cycling people out to bring in others in a perpetual revolving door. We are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Demand from your elected officials that they create housing for people who are homeless. When a politician talks about “Affordable Housing” creation, make sure they are talking about those who are at 30% of the area median income and below. The L.A. model of relying on private developers to create what has amounted to phony affordable housing has been nothing short of disaster. And many of these developments heavily subsidized by the City of L.A. require a previous landlord, further shutting out homeless individuals. Project based section 8, public housing and section 8 vouchers are the most stable forms of housing for homeless individuals. Nothing will change until the City of L.A. makes that a priority.
This is a bandaid solution, designed to put more homeless people in prison instead of in proper housing. I work on Venice Beach and watch law enforcement harass homeless people on a daily basis- homeless people who are doing nothing but sitting on the side of the boardwalk selling necklaces or flying a clever sign- creating part of the unique tourist attraction that is Venice Beach. Venice is made lively not just by the shops that line the boardwalk, but by the largely homeless population that set up their stalls every morning and close up at sunset to find a warm place to sleep. They are a part of Venice, part of what makes us a mecca for creative travelers from across the world. We are a highway for connecting people from all walks of life. Why can’t we just give them a place to sleep?
These criminals belong in jail period.
yes, what makes more sense is that a homeless-hater set a homeless person’s mattress on fire, like the recent hate crime in venice, where someone set an occupied campertruck on fire! why not re-direct this police effort in finding the REAL perpetrators of hate and violence in venice? p.s. hmmm, I wonder why that arson/attempted murder story wasn’t covered by the media?
Finally! I think this is a great start in addressing the impossible to ignore issues on OFW. No doubt it is a complex and nuanced issue. But as the proposal suggests, there are a number of programs proposed to reduce crime and vandalism. Those who live, work and play in the area deserve a clean and safe environment. I don’t see this as an attack on the homeless at all (as some of the other commenters suggest). I appreciate their passion of homeless advocacy….however, the status quo is unacceptable, and incredibly dangerous for the peaceful individuals who sleep on the beach. This strip of coastline deserves better, and so do the residents.
they are putting the cart before the horse. bonin states: ‘we need to get homeless people into permanent housing’ BUT there IS NONE, yet he is kicking people out, and kicking them when they’re down. they have nowhere to go. his talk of compassion is just that- talk. if he is ‘so sick of OFW’s apocalyptic scene’ then do something real about it. he isnt fixing anything at all. he’s just kicking the can down the road. so mike, put your money where your heart is & 1) get the housing 2) then go on your apolalyptic rampage
Bonin refuses to expand the Venice Free Storage Program (which has been way over capacity since December and has a 100 person waiting list) and refuses to take simple, low cost solutions like putting more trashcans on heavily used streets and bathrooms that stay open 24 hours a day there, but instead is increasingly inciting hatred and fear of unhoused people and spending city money unwisely. These sweeps cost a minimum of $7500 each and will cost the taxpayers at least $180,000 this year alone–even without these middle of the night crazy ones.
With that money we could do a lot to get more people closer to jobs and housing with bathrooms, showers and storage containers so they can be free to pursue jobs, education, housing, AA meetings, counseling, medical and other assistance rather than have to worry about these basic human needs that otherwise take up most of their time. Mostly the people you see “laying around” are really guarding all the stuff they have in the world. That is what is usually in that “pile” they are sitting next to! Their important paper work, heart medication. blankets, dog food, clean underwear, a wheelchair, tools for fixing small items to make a couple of bucks, a birthday card from their kid and a couple of her baby teeth…everything that is important to them in the world!
Bonin, stop punishing homeless people and stop “stepping up” expensive punitive measures–which do nothing to solve anything–obviously–and please, please, please try real, low cost solutions that are a win/win for everyone in Venice!
As much as we all really want to, no one can house all the unhoused people immediately. Pretty obvious. So at least treat the ones still left on the street–for now–with dignity and give them bathrooms, showers and a place to put their stuff. Those simple–very affordable–things help immensely! A win/win for the whole community!
Watch this for actual, low cost solutions:
Then email Bonin that you want this program expanded immediately
If you want these issues actually resolved….
If you are into solutions rather than punishment…
It’s the LEAST we can do!
Very well said. It is the people who don’t care to understand the problem who are trying to “fix it.”
Bonin is doing a great job at ridding the boardwalk of these vermin. He certainly knows what side his bread is buttered on, and it’s not buttered by you and your low cost failure programs.
I’m all for making the VB Boardwalk safe again Mike, and I appreciate your efforts in doing so. I moved to Venice Beach in 2000. I moved away because of all of the things mentioned here. Anything I can do to help, just call on me. 🙂 JH