Ballona Creek camp fires – why isn’t the city doing anything?

Fire crews put out a blazing transient camp at Ballona/Overland overpass July 26, 2022.

At least six fires have erupted in camps along Ballona creek in Culver City this year – two in the last month.  A camp persists at the footbridge, less than 250 feet from Farragut Elementary.  Residents complain to the city about the obvious public safety issued, especially for children walking to school.  And yet the city does nothing.  We’re asking “why?” as Culver City readies to elect two new councilmembers in November.  We’ve sent a questionnaire to candidates and councilmembers for their opinions on this issue.

Residents will have a distinct choice between candidates who want to maintain this “hands off” policy, versus those who think they present a public safety issue that must be immediately addressed.

Hands On:

Dan O’Brien: “I believe the vast majority of our residents want our leaders to enact an ordinance similar to Los Angeles MC 41.18, while tirelessly seeking safe and secure housing for those in need. This is not an either/or equation. We can show compassion to both the unhoused AND those who own and rent in Culver City.”

Denice Renteria: “Doing nothing and letting individuals remain on the street is inhumane and unfair… I would also be in support of the city conducting regular routine checks in more vulnerable areas of the city and public open spaces. We need to uphold the safety of all individuals in the city, unhoused or not.”

Hands Off:

Councilman/candidate Alex Fisch: “the evidence is overwhelming that homelessness is a housing problem… I am open to hearing other cost-effective, humane, and just opportunities to say “yes, this is where you can be” instead of … “no, you can’t be here, not there either.”

Freddy Puza: “Studies consistently show that homelessness is overwhelmingly caused by lack of affordable housing… Criminalizing poverty is not only inhumane, it is much more expensive than providing housing and support.”

Unsure:

Khin Khin Gyi: “We could pass an ordinance similar to that voted on by the City of LA whereby the encampments must be a certain distance away from schools, nursing homes, places of worship or businesses, etc.”

What the Councilmembers Say

We also sent our questionnaire to the councilmembers, for clarification on hands on/hands off and what they mean by sweeps. Councilmembers Eriksson and Vera weighed in (Lee and McMorrin did not respond):

Vice-Mayor Albert Vera: “[Sweeps] should consist of advance posting by the city so that the unhoused are aware of what is happening and have the opportunity to move any of their possessions. The city would then come in with a team to clean up any dangerous items – syringes, urine, fecal matter, etc. – and pressure wash the sidewalks. Once that process is complete, the unhoused would be free to move back into the area.”

Councilman Goran Eriksson: “Culver City belongs to a very, very small group of cities in LA County that have adopted a “hands off approach” when it comes to some form of enforcement to assist our housing/mental outreach… When we talk about “encampment sweeps”, they are very often necessary.”

Martin v Boise, LAMC 41.18, and why the encampments issue is so complicated

Culver City is not alone with encampment problems – we see them all over LA.  This is due to the Martin vs. Boise decision, which established a simple rule – we can’t “punish” someone for a “state of being.”  Meaning if someone is homeless and they have “nowhere to go”, we can’t fine or imprison them for sitting somewhere.  But this ruling gives a lot of latitude in interpretation.  For example –

if a city can offer shelter, and they don’t want to go, can we compel them to leave?

Once a city has shelter or housing to offer a transient, this ruling is rendered void because the person now has a choice.  Yet professional activists have been pushing the idea we cannot, unless the transient willingly accepts.  They’ve pressured councils and candidates to adopt such a “hands off” policy with camps.  This started in Culver City in 2019, when an LA Times article on the Venice/405 camp prompted the Sahli-Wells led council to end police interactions with the camp.  Council further codified this “hands off” policy at their April 26, 2021 meeting.  It got the predicted “yes” votes from Lee, Fisch, and McMorrin and Lee, while Eriksson and Vera voted “no”.

The Culver City Democratic Club has also taken on the activist perspective on transient camps.  They issued an endorsement questionnaire which inluded two key questions about camps: LAMC41.18 limiting camps near schools, and opinion of encampment sweeps.  Dan O’Brien is not included because he wasn’t registered Democrat at the time.

Two key questions from the CCDC questionnaire regarding camp cleanups, and how Democrat-registered candidates responded.

LAMC 41.18- what is it?

Cities have worked around Martin v. Boise with a simple policy – offer shelter, and pass no camping ordinances.  Santa Monica has successfully enforced a no camping ordinance for many years, while our current Council has refused to discuss it.  Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles is pushing a more lenient rule – no camping within 500 feet of schools and other sensitive locations.  While this makes sense to average residents, activists rioted at city hall over this.  Meanwhile the Culver City Democratic Club based their endorsement on opposing 41.18.  Both Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza opposed such an ordinance.  Dan O’Brien has expressly supported such an ordinance.

Sweeps, what are they?

Washington Blvd underpass “sweep” – camp was given a one week notice. Nobody was visibly living at the camp. Appeared to simply be bike storage.

Encampment Sweeps are another seemingly benign rule.  The city wants to do basic sanitation over a section of sidewalk occupied by a camp – literally “sweep” the sidewalk.  They post notice letting transients know to pack their belongings and vacate the space while they clean, then they come in and clean up, and once they’re done people are welcome to bring their camp back.

Activists have managed to portray it as some horrific atrocity – Stormtroopers raid an unsuspecting camp at 4am and sweep the homeless away to concentration camps!  They’ve been successful enough at this to fool most people and many candidates on this issue.  Again, in the CCDC questionnaire, Fisch and Puza opposed sweeps, while Renteria and Gyi were undecided.  O’Brien also said he was undecided, saying it’s “not a simple answer”.

The problem with opposing sweeps is this means the city will not touch transient camps, ever.  Electing people to Council who oppose sweeps means the city will keep this “hands-off” approach, which will allow these camps to fester and grow.

“Services not Sweeps”  – a defining issue in 2022

The proliferation of transient camps is a prime issue for Angelenos this election year.  Despite voting for services and funding to the homeless, these camps seem to keep spreading with no end in sight.  Why isn’t the city doing anything about them?  What can we do about them? 

We’ve heard several causes – lack of affordable housing, Martin vs Boise, mental health issues, drugs, etc.  But the heart of the issue can be distilled to a very simple policy soundbite: “Services not Sweeps.”  The very term is a euphemism and misnomer.  Angelenos overwhelmingly agree that the city should have services ready for anyone who needs them.  We passed Props H and HHH, which provides billions to this enterprise.  The services are there.

But behind that is the basic legal question:

If we have somewhere to send a transient, but they don’t want to move, can we compel them?  Or are we stuck with them, wherever they decide to homestead, until they voluntarily leave?

That’s the key part of the phrase – “not sweeps.”  The idea is cleaning up transient camps – “sweeps” – cause trauma by uprooting transients and keeping them on the move.  Therefore, we should not compel them to move.  Needless to say, this policy means allowing transient camps to permanently fester and metastasize.  People know what this means.  Festering drug dens, disease, crime, as camps continue to rot with no sanitation. 

Yet a surprising number of officials and candidates subscribe to this policy.  In fact “services not sweeps” is the default progressive position, as with professional activist group Democratic Socialists of America. 

Fortunately, many candidates for 2022 have stepped forward arguing against this.  This gives us an opportunity to defeat candidates who would force us to live with permanent transient camps in 2023 and on.

Professional activists have been fighting with residents on this issue for the past few years.  An example is “how many times can someone refuse services before we can finally compel them?”  Their answer is never. 

Another trick they use is claiming that the city has fewer beds than counted homeless.  Therefore, since we don’t have enough beds to house every homeless person in the city, we cannot enforce any cleanups.  But if the vast majority of beds lays empty, and the vast majority of transients don’t want to go into a shelter, then building more beds doesn’t fix the problem. 

Culver City will see Alex Fisch and Daniel Lee’s seats go up for re-election this year. At the recent Culver City Democratic Club forum, both Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza have come out against encampment sweeps. Denice Renteria was the only candidate at that forum not to oppose them flat-out. Dan O’Brien also supports a no-camping ordinance throughout the city, once the city purchases the hotels as shelters.

This issue is intentionally loaded, with legal ramifications for supporting sweeps . We will get clarification from all candidates on where they stand and the implications of their position – namely with regards to the persistent camp at the Senior Center.

We’re also seeing several races at the city, county and state level that will decide this issue.  Here’s our analysis on them and whether the candidates are for or against “services not sweeps.”  Again, being for “services not sweeps” means they don’t think we can compel transients to move.  Being against it means they think we can and should.

LA city Mayor: Karen Bass for, Rick Caruso against

LA city council 11:  Erin Darling for, Traci Park against

LA city council 13: Hugo Soto-Martinez for, Mitch O’Farrell against (this is Echo Park Lake, which O’Farrell cleaned up to the vocal opposition of activists)

LA County Sheriff: Alex Villanueva (incumbent) against, Robert Luna for.  Villanueva has been instrumental in keeping Venice Boardwalk clear of camps.

Assembly District 55: Isaac Bryan for, Keith Cascio against

Senate District 28: Lola Smallwood-Cuevas for, Cheryl Turner against (ACLU put out a legally dubious mailer in support of Cuevas on this precise issue, claiming sweeps “result in the disproportionate policing of transgender women of color”)

Congressional District 37: Sydney Kamlager for, Jan Perry against

Practically all these races are highly competitive.  We also expect the primary results to be skewed to the left, as the Democrat Socialists of America spent an aggressive effort to get out the vote for their candidates.  The primary had very low turnout overall, so these kinds of efforts can have a disproportionate effect.

ACTION ALERT – Council to close Washington Blvd/405 sidewalks to pedestrians

Council meeting Monday, March 28th 7pm
Council to shut down sidewalk on Washington Blvd/405 Fwy
Forcing pedestrians to walk in parking lane

AGENDA HERE   REGISTER HERE

Due to the transients persistently blocking the sidewalk under the 405 at Washington Blvd, our Council majority has come up with their latest scheme.  Consent Item C-7 in Monday’s council meeting will approve shutting down the sidewalk, leaving it as the domain of a pemanent tranient camp.  Instead they will shut down the parking lane, put up dividers, and force pedestrians to walk in the parking lane instead.  This plan will cost the city $100,000.
We won’t even begin to discuss the issues with this unprecedented, likely illegal concept. 
We just want you to know about this and MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.
The underpasses need to be kept clear and open to pedestrians.  This is a no brainer.  Council wants a walkable city – this does just the opposite. 

Council meetings are still online only. 
We know a lot of you have issues getting in.  Try one of these alternatives:

E-mail the five councilmembers and the city attorney.  Ask about the legality of this – this isn’t just extending parklets to existing businesses.  This creates a whole new class of homesteaders and is explicitly against city code:

Alex Fisch alex.fisch@culvercity.org
Daniel Lee daniel.lee@culvercity.org
Goran Eriksson goran.eriksson@culvercity.org
Albert Vera albert.vera@culvercity.org
Yasmine Imani-McMorrin yasmine-imani.mcmorrin@culvercity.org
Heather Baker heather.baker@culvercity.org
City Clerk city.clerk@culvercity.org

You can also call the city clerk and submit your comments by phone: 310-253-5851

Meeting “Homeless Czar” Helen Chin

On Thursday, August 27, a couple of us got on a phone call with Helen Chin, assistant to the city manager on homelessness.  A lot of people wonder why we need this “homeless czar” but the answer is relatively simple.  Recent court decisions have made it very difficult to enforce vagrancy and camping laws, and activists have made sure cities abide by those laws.  This issue came to our city last July, when we changed our own city policy to match Los Angeles policy under the 405. 

What was once a very simple affair is now a nearly impossible task.  If someone sleeps on our streets, and they don’t want to move, we can’t make them. 

There are guidelines our city can meet, and things we can do to nudge people off the streets and get them into shelters or programs.  It is now a complicated process involving coordination among several departments – police, code enforcement, mental health, and a couple others.  Ms. Chin’s job is to act as central point for all these departments in dealing with transients on our streets. 

A recent federal court ruling has given us a ray of hope – a judge ordered that freeway underpasses in LA County be cleared from transient camps.  The ruling itself is actually far more complicated than it sounds, but we found it worth discussing with Ms. Chin.  We had some good takeaways from the discussion.

First, we expressed our frustration that we repeatedly talk about the crime aspect of this – it’s the crime and the public safety aspect of this that we’re concerned with.  When we bring this up, we are accused of “criminalizing homelessness.”  We told Helen about our own policy that those sleeping on our streets need to follow the same rules they would at a shelter.  If they don’t follow those rules – if they commit any crimes – we call the police.

We came to a mutual understanding on that.

We then discussed the issue of beds.  Part of the lawsuit in question was an agreement to reduce the number of beds needed before a city could enforce its camping/vagrancy laws.  Where it was previously held to an odd standard of one bed per every homeless counted in a city (nevermind how many are in use), this judge lowered the standard to 60%.  He also said that cities didn’t have to house homeless within city limits. Other cities are pooling resources to build shelters away from their residents.

Chin then talked about Culver City’s discussions with the county on homelessness.  We also shared the understanding that this “beds vs homeless” calculus was a strange unsolvable metric.  If we build more beds, more will come in.  That sounds obvious, but our brain trust at the homelessness committee have proposed taking $7 million out of the police budget and giving every one of our 300 homeless a two bedroom apartment.  As if once we do this, the problem would be solved. It’s good to know our city staff isn’t agreeing with that.

Chin even mentioned that a lot of our native homeless population – a more benign elderly type – have been chased out by a younger more aggressive crowd.  This supports our observation that we really have a criminal vagrancy issue, and not just locals driven out by rising housing costs.  This experience has been corroborated in other cities. But again, not a position taken over by our homelessness committee or Culver City’s Housing Administrator.

The big takeaway from this meeting is that homelessness is a county issue.  The county is in the business of mental health and homelessness.  Our city, ultimately, is not.  We don’t have to build shelters in the middle of our city, we don’t have to divert half our budget to shelters at Veteran’s Park if we are to keep our streets and parks clean.

Finally, we discussed the underpasses themselves.  We shared stories about the people who’ve taken residence under there.  The city does do sweeps of the south side of Venice/405 every Wednesday.  The city invited a couple of us to join them, and we’ve enthusiastically accepted their invitation. 

We want to know who’s under there and what’s going on.  We ask that anyone who goes on the sweeps to take notes and bring us a report.

May 12 Neighborhood Watch meeting recap

The 405 project continues.  On Tuesday, May 12th, we held a Webex meeting to further discuss a Neighborhood Watch around the Venice/405 and other 405 underpasses in Culver City.  Former mayor Richard Marcus (1999-2000) was our featured speaker.  He discussed his experience building a Neighborhood Watch around Sunkist Park back in the 90s.  We then looked compared his experiences with our challenges, and what we could learn from him.  We were surprised at how little things change.

Richard talked about the issues in the 90s.  Gangs, drug dealing, dogs defecating in a park where children play.  The breaking point came when people’s cars were being stolen or vandalized in their own driveways, and burglars who tied a homeowner to a chair while they helped themselves to her belongings and food.  Richard realized if he didn’t do something, he’d be next.

Richard started complaining to the police, then realized they don’t know who he is or whether he’s on their side.  They explained the concept of a Neighborhood Watch, and that if he could get eight people together, they’d come and talk to him and his neighbors.  The idea of talking to his neighbors was a foreign concept, but Richard went ahead anyway.  That first meeting, he was hoping for his eight people.  65 people wound up showing up.  That’s how bad things were.

He mentioned three pillars a proper Neighborhood Watch relies on – which definitely chimes with our own experience:

  1. Taking responsibility for our own safety and security.  There’s only so much the police can help us without our support.  We need to take control of our own neighborhood and realize we are the final public safety program.
  2. Active awareness.  We can’t take responsibility for our neighborhood if we’re not aware of it.  A few of us have already started “walking a beat.”  In our current situation, we want to expand this concept and have a full knowledge of everything happening at our underpasses.  The Venice/405 underpass has gotten bad enough where it will be risky, but we have ideas on how to go about it.
  3. Effective communication with police – this was the most important and tough concept to swallow, especially in difficult times like these.  It’s easy for people to get frustrated, and either say police are part of the problem, or worse: take matters into their own hands. 
    Richard really made a strong point here.  Until we have a real relationship with CCPD, they don’t know if we’re part of the problem or the solution.  We need to show we’re on their side.  We need to build a relationship, so that when we call, they know we’re not just some crank, and will take the call seriously.  The more they got to know us, the more likely they are to investigate. 
    A big concept here is “Probable Cause.”  If police go into an area alone, they really don’t have much authority to question people.  Especially in this climate were police are not allowed to “harass” people or “criminalize homelessness.”  But if someone calls in suspicious activity, especially if they’re tied to a reliable Neighborhood Watch, this is their golden ticket to investigate.

A big point he made was to address the crime, not the people.  We’ve already noticed this in our own calls.  If you call in someone sleeping on the sidewalk, the first thing CCPD will ask is “do they look high?  Do they have any weapons?”  They’re looking for signs of criminal activity.  Again, much as some people would like, the police have no authority to stop and question someone for living on the street and “experiencing homelessness.” 

Richard had the same issue with gangs in Sunkist Park in the 90s.  You can’t arrest someone for being in a gang, or hanging around in a park.  Even if you know they’re up to no good, that’s not enough for police to come and do something.  But you can let them know they’re on notice, and the locals are watching and reporting. 

The police do want to help. They just need the authority to act first.  “Yes, the police are on a leash, but they’re still dogs” Richard said to audible laughter.  Again, if we call in suspicious criminal activity, the police will come, and they will have authority to act on it.  Even under the current legal revolving door, when open drug use and other criminal activity gets you in and out of jail in a couple hours.  You still ruined someone’s high for the day. If they know they can’t get high or cause mischief around your block, they’ll go find another spot. 

That makes deterrence the primary goal of a Neighborhood Watch.  Richard mentioned the “Oh Crap” signs they posted around their neighborhood: “If I don’t call you, my neighbor will.”  Someone up to no good sees the sign, and is officially on notice.  Especially once the word gets out that these signs are backed up by residents.

Building the Neighborhood Watch took work, but was not too complicated and is relatively easy to replicate: make flyers about the next meeting, and hand them out around the neighborhood.  Eventually they got to the point where people came up to Richard, upset that they never got a flyer.  Those people “self-identify themselves as volunteers.”  They would get 30 flyers of their own and instructions to hand them around their block.  This is how the watch grew.  For money, they fundraised by selling their “Oh Crap” signs to neighbors.

We learned last night that while we’re in a new situation with the Venice/405 camp, the basic principles haven’t changed.  If we’re vigilant, we can keep control of our neighborhood.  But we need to be disciplined and productive.  We need to go from frustrated individuals to an organization that the police can trust. That’s when we can get our way.

Ultimately, Richard’s Neighborhood Watch was a victim of its own success.  As Sunkist Park got safer, residents got complacent and dropped out.  Meanwhile, people with political agendas found a captive audience to push their politics. 

But there’s no reason we can’t do what Richard and his neighbors did 20 years ago. 

Introducing the 405 project

It started with a contentious LA Times article about Los Angeles officials accusing Culver City of dumping their homeless into Los Angeles. Now the 405 underpasses in Culver City are filling up with vagrants setting up permanent residence.

Council claims that there is no change in policy, but the unwritten policy is obvious – our streets and parks are open for anyone who would call them home. The effects are immediate and obvious. Local residents and businesses are furious and desperate. Add recent laws like Prop 47, and many crimes now also go unresolved. It seems we have no meaningful way to stop this.

We have decided to step in and figure out what we can do. We held a meeting with city officials at CCPD HQ. We also went to the homelessness committee meeting last month. We learned that if someone decides to set up residence on our streets and in our parks, the city will do nothing to stop them. But if they break any of our ordinances, we have every right to call it in.

That’s what we’re doing. This page will serve as a repository for all our experience with those who would treat our streets as a permanent residence, and how they terrorize local residents and businesses. We will follow up with our police and with our council. Our ultimate aim is to make our streets safe and parks safe again. Our ultimate sympathy is with besieged residents, who feel helpless to stop this.

This project will focus on the 405 underpasses and surrounding areas, like Tellefson Park and Veteran’s Park. Because that’s the canary in the coal mine. If we let these areas be overrun with transients, it’s only a matter of time before our entire community is overrun.

Homelessness committee meeting recap

On Tuesday, February 18th, 2020, a number of us went to the homelessness committee meeting at city hall. It was eye opening on a number of levels.

First, our members showed up – all from different perspectives. A couple came from Globe Ave., concerned about the vagrancy crisis at Venice/405. Another couple came from behind the AmVets building, concerned about turning it into a homeless shelter. And a couple multifamily landlords showed up.

We all got to see how our issues are tied by this new housing policy and the insanity of it. Tevis Barnes, Culver City’s housing administrator, was committed to the idea that the vagrants spilling into our city are actually local residents driven out by rising rents. She insisted this was the case even at the Venice/405 camp.

This assertion is our biggest bone of contention, and doesn’t match personal or professional experience. When we challenged her assertion, Tevis said this was according to LAHSA statistics. Which are disputable at best. Even our own law enforcement have said most people are on our streets, not because they can’t afford our rent, but because they can’t afford any rent.

We have to fight them at this root level, if any of us are to have any solution to the vagrancy issue in Culver City.

Mark Lipman argued for a “housing for everyone” approach – we have close to 300 homeless in Culver City by last count. A 2br apartment for each at the HUD rate of $1944/month comes out to $7 million/year. Other committee members dismissed Mr. Lipman, and have put forward a “feasible” plan of a homeless shelter for 20 people.

The problem is, they also say that unless we have a place to send them, we can’t touch them. And that place has to be within city limits. So a shelter of that size would not even put a dent in the problem. This ironically makes Lipman’s proposal, frightening as it sounds, the most consistent.

Of course we countered with our own argument – namely, that if he do have somewhere to send someone, but they don’t want to leave that piece of sidewalk they’re living on, do we have any compulsory power over them? Both Tevis and the attending police officer said no, we don’t want to be in the business of wrestling with someone into a police car and shuttling them off to a shelter.

This is the second part of the problem, which we need to address. Even if we were to have housing for everyone on our streets, we have no power to get them off our sidewalks. Most people understand this is not a tenable policy. It leads to a patchwork of unannounced rules where only the politically well connected get to have vagrant-free streets.

So we need a clear policy of compulsion, one that applies equally to both Lafayette Pl. and Globe Ave. It needs to be clearly delineated by council, and consistently applied by both the city manager and the police department. Otherwise we could build all the free housing in the world, it won’t stop our streets and parks from turning into tent cities.

We need to come to terms with the fact that we are a city of limited size and resources. We will do what we can to help those who want help. We will actively monitor anyone who has actually been driven out by rising rents. We can even abide by the basic Boise decision that someone has a right to sleep on the street at night. But at some point we need to say no, you don’t get to build a permanent residence on public land. We need the legal authority to compel them to leave.

Most of all, we need a council that’s ready to assert that legal authority in the face of any legal challengers.

Hammering out the vagrancy crisis

Thursday, Jan 9th 2020, we with Mayor Meghan, city manager John Nachbar, and police chief Bixby to discuss the Globe Ave. vagrant camp situation. We had the expected results – mostly an impasse, with some promise of progress. As you can imagine, these three city officials had very different responsibilities, and therefore different slants on we can do about these camps.

First we confronted the case that started the whole crisis – the Martin v. Boise ruling. This upheld the 2006 case declaring it “cruel and unusual punishment” to cite someone for sleeping on the sidewalk, if they have nowhere else to go. A number of us asserted that Boise case only allowed people to sleep anywhere – it didn’t allow them to set up permanent residences. But city government stuck to the principle that if we force vagrants to do anything, we’ll get sued.

Nachbar made the challenging assertion that, though the 2006 ruling doesn’t technically apply to daylight hours, an activist plaintiff will claim that they need to sleep during the day, because they’re afraid of sleeping at night. And they would most likely win that case. He may very well be right. But even if he’s wrong, we would need a very assertive council to be ready to defend our laws against a lawsuit.

So while we had an impasse on that, this issue should definitely be on Culver City residents’ radar for the 2020 election. If we want to keep our streets and parks clean, we need a council that’s ready to assert our right to do so.

We also went back and forth on whether the mayor is disciplining police for “harassing the homeless.” Meghan has denied any such policy change, but we’ve definitely heard from officers saying they got reprimanded from her for “harassing the homeless” – meaning checking for warrants and suspicious activity. We will follow up on this and get to the bottom of the issue.

Our final question, after much heated back and forth on “long term solutions” and their efficacy, was “what can we do about this now? Today?”

With that, we stuck to the crime element. While CCPD can’t single-handedly patrol the area 24/7 for us, we can be proactive. That means setting up a Neighborhood Watch for the block, which alerts CCPD on any suspect or known activity. Based on our reliable testimony, they can have reasonable suspicion to talk to suspected dealers, pimps, people defecating on the streets, or any criminal activity.

Our policy will be simple – whatever rules exist in a shelter, exist on our streets. If you want to live on our streets, you follow our laws, or you find another street. Nobody will be able to deal drugs or women, or harass local residents, without our watchful eye catching it.

Hopefully, if we stay vigilant, at least the worst elements will be discouraged to ply their trade elsewhere. We will be contacting CCPD’s liaison officer Yabko to set this up as soon as possible.