L.A. Mayor Wants City Attorney To Investigate Homeless “Dumping”

Mayor Villaraigosa called on the City Attorney, yesterday, to look into “what are the legal recourses we have where jurisdictions—including, but not limited to, law enforcement agencies—purposefully drop off the homeless in our city.”

The mayor also wants to look into imposing stronger ordinances to crack down on the practice of “dumping.”
(Here's the article.)

This is in response to the LAPD’s accusation that the county and other law enforcement agencies are dropping off homeless people into the downtown area.

This “leaf blower” mentality of sweeping (or carting off) people who are homeless into other neighborhoods is not new. It is a short-term—but ineffective—solution to a complex human problem.

I write about this in my book: “A quiet match of shoving and pushing, pushing and shoving commences. People sleeping on the streets become human pinballs in our society’s pinball machinery. They are bounced around one neighborhood to another, except most people do not hear the whistles and bells of this sad societal game. The sweeps usually occur late at night or early in the morning when most housed people are cocooned in their own bedrooms. Nobody really wants to watch this game.”

Los Angeles, with the largest homeless population in the country, plays out the homeless drama like no other.