LOS ANGELES — Finding $1.2 billion to build housing for the homeless — as voters here did last year by overwhelmingly approving a hike in their own property taxes — may turn out to have been the easy part.
Los Angeles is now witnessing a fight that demonstrates why developing housing for the homeless has been such a tough challenge across the state, even when there is funding, good will and an open piece of land. A proposal to build a 49-unit shelter in the Boyle Heights neighborhood has been blocked by a City Council committee after running up against a wall of opposition.
Opponents invoked environmental concerns in seeking to derail the project, pointing to an abandoned oil well on the site. They also argued that its proximity to a lively restaurant and shopping mall catering to the largely Latino community there would be a source of disturbance for homeless people trying to start a new life. José Huizar, a City Council member who blocked the complex, said that while he supported the construction of housing for homeless people, the nonprofit group promoting this project was attempting to muscle through a plan over well-grounded neighborhood concerns. from the NYTimes
We do so love the homeless, and we want them to get better.
And that is why we give them cans of soup and then a sweater.
We’ve raised our taxes to finance new homes for their relief.
But when they live nearby us we are filled with bitter grief.
It’s just that our vicinity is not quite safe, you know.
There’s traffic and there’s noises and the wind can really blow.
They’d be better off far on the other side of town,
Where there is nothing but dead weeds and trees all turning brown.
In fact if you can manage all their shelters to construct
In another county we’d be glad to then conduct
All of them to their new homes, where they can always be
Snug and cozy and away from our vicinity.
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