STOP BONIN FROM MAKING VENICE A PERMANENT HOMELESS HUB

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BONIN'S PLAN TO MAKE VenICe A HOMELESS HUB

In February 2014 – a few months after Councilman Mike Bonin took office – the Los Angeles Times reported that there were 174 homeless people in Venice.

Today, more than 1,120 people – overwhelmingly working-age males from other places – live on Venice’s streets and beaches.

This is largely because Bonin has launched a campaign to transform Venice into the designated homeless hub for the western half of Los Angeles, by installing a massive infrastructure for the ongoing delivery of “homeless” housing and services unmatched anywhere in the City, including:

Hundreds of units of free housing for life on some of the most desirable lots in the world at a cost of $1,250 or more per square foot.

Hundreds of new shelter beds, even as the utilization rate of existing shelters in Los Angeles hovers below 60%.

Showers, toilets and water stations for mega-encampments on Ocean Front Walk and at 3rd and Rose, even as he opposes funds for clean up.

Reese-Davidson Community

2.8-acre Prop. 2 housing project with 140 units, two parking structures and extensive roof decks directly on Grand Canal at the Gateway to Venice Beach.

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Thatcher Yard

98 units on 2 acres on Marina Green – just across the street from the Marina itself -- in the strictly residential Oxford Triangle.

Rose Apartments

Prop. 2 housing project with 34 units in a 4-story, 40-foot structure across two lots with minimal setbacks and substandard parking. The largest building in Venice’s Oakwood subdivision.

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102 Navy Street

14 units a block off the beach. Funded with $500,000 from the City of Santa Monica to house Santa Monica Homeless in Venice.

Lincoln Apartments

Prop. 2 housing with 40 units and extensive roof decks directly adjacent to St. Mark School. Also provides walk-in services to street-dwelling population at large.

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Marian Place

Prop. 2 housing project with 8 units, one block from the new site of Ecole Claire Fontaine preschool (formerly First Lutheran Church and elementary school). The land alone cost $7.35 million.

Disability Community Resource Center

38 units – with density bonus – within 500 ft of Beethoven Elementary, Mark Twain Middle School and Venice High School.

St. Joseph Bridge Housing Hub

New bridge housing “hub” on Rose Avenue, reportedly funded with $5 million grant from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Bridge Home Venice

154 shelter beds on 3.15 acres a block from the beach, with meal service, community garden, lounge, dog run, art studio and bicycle pavilion. Virtually no rules.

Oakwood Shelter

100 shelter beds at the Oakwood Recreation Center in the heart of Venice.

INFO AT YOVENICE!

Westminster Park Homeless Services

Bonin spent almost $1 million on showers, storage and counseling facilities across from Westminster Elementary and 3 preschools. Venice stopped him with a lawsuit … for now.

Permanent Encampments

Bonin has shut down law enforcement and sanitation, while spending heavily on toilets, showers and water fountains to grow Venice’s massive encampments.

Indeed, virtually every piece of usable public land in Venice and all of the best undeveloped lots in Venice – ranging from the 3.15-acre MTA Lot on Main Street to the 2-acre Thatcher Yard Lot on the Marina Green to the 2.8-acre Venice Median Lot a block from the beach on the Venice Canals – have now been commandeered by Bonin (or those who walk with him) for the use and benefit of the “homeless.”

Bonin has also taken tens of thousands of dollars from the Venice Fund “for additional funding for community services benefiting the homeless” in Venice, while creating an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (“EIFD”) to use Venice property taxes to fund public housing projects exclusively in Venice. He also wants to use federal COVID-19 funds to purchase distressed properties from private citizens at bargain basement prices for use as public housing projects, presumably in Venice as well.

The Bonin Effect

Bonin says “every part of Los Angeles needs to be part of the solution” to homelessness, but there are only two new homeless housing projects pending – both in West L.A. – for the rest of Bonin’s district (Council District 11) combined.

In fact, Bonin was so determined to avoid putting a housing project in Brentwood that he funneled $32.5 million in limited Prop HHH funds – which have been depleted by overspending on an epic scale – from the City to the federal government to pay for federal housing in a remote section of the Veteran’s Administration Campus insulated by many acres of forested parkland.

The Truth in the Numbers

Demonstrating the magnet effect that caused the City Council to formally reject the failed “containment policy” that gave rise to the original Skid Row, the street-dwelling population in Venice has skyrocketed since Bonin rolled out his so-called “Plan to End Homelessness in Venice” in 2016, while the street-dwelling population in the rest of his district (Council District 11) has dropped by double-digits, including a 77% drop in Brentwood, a 59% drop in Pacific Palisades, and a 42% drop in Westchester/Playa Del Rey during the same period of time.

In short, the explosion in Venice’s street dwelling population – and the lawlessness that has come with it – is not the result of population growth, economic conditions or other circumstances beyond our control. In fact, homeless has dropped nationwide since Bonin took office in 2013. More than anything else, what’s happening in Venice is the result of the anti-Venice policies of a self-serving politician who has no business on the City Council.

As a result of Bonin’s policies, Venice now accounts for just 5% of the land but 49% of the street-dwelling population in Council District 11…

…and just 4% of the land but more than 40% of the street-dwelling population in LA County’s beach communities from Malibu to Palos Verdes.

WE REJECT THIS FATE. WE ARE FIGHTING BACK! PLEASE JOIN US!

The biggest development in Venice since the days of Abbot Kinney...

THE MONSTER ON THE VENICE CANALS

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Fight Back, Venice!

Fight Back, Venice is an group of Venice neighbors and residents committed to informing, engaging, empowering and mobilizing our community to ensure the equal application of the law for all who live, work and visit in Venice.