This column was published in the Argonaut April 4, 2024
County Supervisor Horvath should back off
By Mark Ryavec
County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath should immediately stop her campaign to force the City of Los Angeles to dump its anti-camping law, especially since it is based on a highly inaccurate report. She has neither the authority nor the facts to support her misguided effort.
Recently, Horvath, who represents much of the Westside on the County Board of Supervisors, has called for Los Angeles city officials to repeal Los Angeles Municipal Code 41.18, which allows the city council to impose “no camping” zones near schools, child care centers, libraries, homeless housing, and other sites with vulnerable populations.
She has stated that the ordinance has failed to solve homelessness, is a waste of resources and, she maintains, is a failed policy because most of the areas cleared by city workers are quickly repopulated, based on a now-disproven report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).
Our new supervisor, most recently a city councilmember with the relatively small city of West Hollywood, has apparently forgotten that she has no jurisdiction over the municipal affairs of the 88 cities that comprise the County of Los Angeles, in particular the City of Los Angeles, which holds about four million of the county’s 10 million residents. The city of Los Angeles, of course, has its own mayor and city council that govern its affairs, including matters of public safety.
The only place the county exercises municipal authority is in the handful of small unincorporated areas in the county; i.e., communities that have not become cities or been annexed to existing cities, including Marina del Rey and Ladera Heights.
It is important to note there is a degree of hypocrisy in Ms. Horvath’s attempt to publicly shame Los Angeles city into abandoning its limited camping ban. As anyone who has ever visited Marina del Rey has witnessed, there are literally no encampments within that district’s boundaries. This results from the Sheriff’s Department effectively enforcing a 24/7 anti-camping ban. So, Ms. Horvath is advocating for the city to give up small 500-foot camping free zones, while she apparently condones Sheriff’s deputies maintaining a no-camping ban across every square foot of Marina del Rey. (Incidentally, the county also bars all RVs and campers from Marina del Rey under a county ordinance, while the City of Los Angeles is pathetically incompetent at enforcing its own “No Oversize Vehicles 2-6 AM” ordinance. In Venice alone there are over 100 RVs and campers.)
LAHSA and Horvath’s claims that 41.18 is a failure due to re-population of cleared zones are simply false. As reported March 7th by a team of Los Angeles Times reporters that had recently visited all 25 spots identified in the LAHSA report as being “repopulated” by 20 or more people, “at most of the locations, there were no tents or makeshift shelters, or only one or two, within the 500-foot radius zones where camping is prohibited.”
My survey of four 41.18 zones in Venice supports the Times’ findings. The zone centered at Ozone and Ocean Front Walk has prevented a large encampment from returning to set up tents under the windows of the Adda & Paul Safran Senior Housing center, which was plagued for over 10 years with a loud
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Safran Senior Center before 41.18 Zone |
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Safran Center after 41.18 Zone Approved |
"Skid Rose"clear after 41.18 |
Windward Ave. clear after 41.18 |
Windward Avenue at Ocean Front Walk, just west of the historic Venice sign and the gateway to the Venice Boardwalk and beach, is finally free of tents and sleeping bags(above right).
And young children attending the Westminster Elementary pre-school are no longer exposed to homeless folks yelling sexual obscenities, shooting up drugs, or publicly urinating and defecating.
Finally, Ms. Horvath, probably from a lack of understanding of the legislative history of 41.18, has mischaracterized its purpose. It was never intended to help solve homelessness. The drafters of the ordinance wanted to give councilmembers - in the City of Los Angeles - the ability to remove noxious homeless encampments from near vulnerable populations, and to break up encampments that had proved to be constant incubators of crime, assaults, loud noise and drug sales and use. And it has been successful in this mission.
Calling 41.18 a failure because it doesn’t nudge more people off the street and into housing is akin to calling a violin a failed musical instrument because it doesn’t make the sound of a trumpet.
Ms. Horvath was wrong to accept the clearly incorrect findings of LAHSA staff and off-base to try to bully city officials on a public safety matter for which she has no jurisdiction. She should back off.
Mark Ryavec is the founder and president of Venice Stakeholders Association, a non-profit organization. He holds a BA in psychology from UCLA and an MA in Urban Studies from a joint program of Occidental College and CORO Fellows Program in Public Affairs. He formerly served as a legislative analyst in the city’s Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst, the city agency currently examining the suspect LAHSA report mentioned above.