Too Much. Too Many.

11 April 2017

A Reflection of Los Angeles

Los Angeles

I stepped off my airplane and headed for baggage claim all by my lonesome. My first thoughts are that it’s too dry, too hot, and there are way too many people. After I pick up my rental car and begin my drive to Sherman Oaks where I will be staying, I add that there are too many lanes on the highway, people are too aggressive while driving, and that Los Angeles is huge, sprawling, never ending. Everything about it is just too much.

On this trip I learned that clearly LA was not for me, but I also learned many other things. They weren’t all bad, but a cloak was lifted off the city during my visit. All the spectacular wonder that we are made to believe through our television screens, the movies, and the news, receded in my mind.

On my daily drives to my training seminar I took back roads. I steadfastly refused to take the 101 during rush hour unless it was absolutely necessary. Not after my first experience driving on it. I observed the surrounding areas, and noted that so much of it was run down and old. The citizens who walked the streets weren’t decked out in designer fashion, and they weren’t glamour shot ready as is so often seen on television. It made me like LA a bit more. It was more realistic than I’d thought. It wasn’t so fake.

What did bother me was that tucked back in one of these neighborhoods was the Van Nuys airport where celebrities take off and land their private jets and helicopters. It was the first time I noted the juxtaposition of the upper and lower class in LA.

Even if I hadn’t realized it then, I would in a few days. It was the last day of training, and afterwards I decided to go on a bit of an adventure. I took a winding road I couldn’t tell you the name of from Sherman Oaks to West Hollywood. It lead me through the mountains. It slithered while slanting up and down like a roller coaster. With the windows rolled down and music up I drove by homes I knew cost a fortune.

When the road came out on the other side it was like getting slapped in the face. Things were dilapidated. The roads, the street signs, the buildings, the homes, some of the people. The culture was wonderful, and it was great experiencing somewhere different, but I couldn’t shake the facts staring me in the face. Night time crept closer and closer as I visited The Museum of Death, and a couple of the bars and other attractions along Hollywood Boulevard. With every passing hour I became more aware of the homeless people occupying so much of that same Boulevard.

In 2016 the homeless count in Los Angeles stood at a staggering 47,000. They have the highest number of unsheltered homeless people, aka the people who live on sidewalks, in cars, or tents. This surpasses even New York City. Knowing this fact, the anti-homeless tactics I saw upset me even more than it upon me first encountering them.

There were rocks built into the sidewalk in some places, jutting out of the ground, to deter homeless from sleeping there. There was even metal prongs in window sills to stop people from sitting on them, and the local Mcdonalds employed a security guard to patrol the restaurant and kick out homeless people.

Attitudes about homeless differ greatly. Local companies complain that it hurts their business and they lose money. Some tourists are turned off from Hollywood Boulevard, while some say that it actually inspired them to help out more in their own community.

Businesses have even gone as far as to hire a former police officer, Courtney Kanagi, to help deal with the homeless camping out along the boulevard. She says, “people want to see the walk of stars. They don’t want to be stepping over people who are panhandling, asking for money, sleeping on the sidewalk.” Every time I’ve read this quote I feel something different.

It’s true, people don’t want to see the truth if it’s not pretty, but that’s their problem. These homeless people have nowhere to go. This is where they can eek out some money so they can at least eat. What are they supposed to do? As for the walk of stars, it’s not that impressive, pan handlers or not.

Mike Neely, Los Angeles’ Homeless Services Authority Commissioner said, “it appears the unsheltered are still a problem.”

Neely’s words are equally as upsetting as Kanagi’s. They speak about these people as if they are not people. As if they aren’t suffering and don’t have rights like the rest of us. I dislike that they paint the unsheltered people as the problem. There’s a deeper underlying cause.

Yes, right there on the Hollywood Stars Walk of Fame people sleep and pan handle. It’s the same walk of fame we see in the tabloids, with the flashy dressed stars and the bright sun, and it looks so beautiful. Society does their best to ignore these people they’ve given up on while the wealthy bask in their luxuries. While I know I can’t single handedly change the direction of this long term crisis, I can and will help, and I can and do hope that officials and citizens can come together and provide a viable solution for the stark contrast of how their population lives.

A solution better than banning people from sleeping in their cars over night.