Venice first, Westchester next: Is Traci Park simply sweeping homelessness around her own district?2/2/2025 Since taking office, Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park has done little to actually address homelessness in her district. Instead of working toward real solutions like affordable housing, she’s relied almost exclusively on police sweeps to push unhoused people out of sight—particularly out of her own neighborhood of Venice. But homelessness isn’t something you can simply “sweep away.” Rather than solving the crisis, Park has just moved it around, forcing people south into Westchester and other areas of Council District 11.
It’s a cynical and cruel shell game, and it’s no accident. Park has deep ties to the police—who funneled over a million dollars into her campaign—and she uses them as her personal cleanup crew, deploying LAPD and sanitation teams to clear encampments at will. The result? A constant cycle of displacement that does nothing to actually help people get off the streets. Venice First, Westchester Next Venice has long been a political battleground over homelessness, with wealthy homeowners and business interests pressuring city leaders to remove encampments. Park, who lives in Venice and rode this anti-homeless sentiment into office, has prioritized aggressive sweeps there. But where do people go when they’re pushed out? According to CityWatch LA, data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) dashboard suggests that many displaced people from Venice are simply being relocated south—particularly into Westchester. This is a deliberate political move. By removing unhoused residents from high-visibility areas like the Venice Boardwalk, Park can claim to be “solving” homelessness without actually reducing the number of unhoused people in her district. She’s just shifting the problem onto another neighborhood, one with less political clout and fewer high-profile protests. For Westchester residents, this is infuriating. For unhoused people, it’s devastating. Constant displacement makes it even harder for people to access services, maintain stability, or secure permanent housing. The stress of being repeatedly uprooted takes a severe toll on physical and mental health. Policing Over Housing Park’s strategy hinges on enforcement, not housing. That’s because her donors—especially the police unions—have ensured that LAPD remains her primary tool. Instead of funding long-term solutions, Park has leaned into criminalization, using police to harass and displace unhoused residents rather than helping them find stability. This reliance on policing is even more glaring when you look at what Park won’t do: build housing. The clearest example? Her opposition to the Venice Dell project, a proposed affordable housing development that would have created 140 units of permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness. Park, siding with NIMBY homeowners, fought against the project, ensuring that those who need housing the most won’t get it. You can’t claim to be addressing homelessness while blocking the very thing that ends it: housing. But that’s exactly what Park is doing. The Consequences of Bad Policy Park’s approach isn’t just ineffective—it’s making things worse. By refusing to create housing and instead pushing people from neighborhood to neighborhood, she’s ensuring that homelessness remains a visible crisis in CD11. Westchester is now seeing the consequences firsthand, and it won’t be long before other communities feel the same impact. The truth is, sweeps don’t work. Criminalization doesn’t work. The only real solution is affordable housing, supportive services, and long-term stability—the very things Park refuses to invest in. As long as she continues prioritizing her own neighborhood’s aesthetics over real policy, the homelessness crisis in CD11 will continue to spiral. Council District 11 deserves leadership that actually **solves** homelessness, not just shuffles it around. Until Traci Park stops catering to police unions and starts building housing, this crisis will only get worse.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives |