L.A. begins seizing tiny houses from homeless people (xpost from GD)

[KamaAina]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tiny-houses-seized-20160224-story.html

Escalating their battle to stamp out an unprecedented spread of street encampments, city officials have begun seizing tiny houses from homeless people living on freeway overpasses in South Los Angeles.

Three of the gaily painted wooden houses, which come with solar-powered lights and American flags, were confiscated earlier this month and seven more are planned for impound Thursday, a Bureau of Sanitation spokeswoman said.

Elvis Summers, who built and donated the structures, was out Wednesday with a flat-bed trailer, trying to move houses scattered up and down Harbor Freeway bridges into storage.

"These people are beaten down so hard, you give them any opportunity to be normal, it lifts them up," Summers said.

The houses were removed as part of a street cleanup requested by the office of Councilman Curren Price, who represents the neighborhood, sanitation spokeswoman Elena Stern said. When the city took the houses, they didn't offer housing, they straight kicked them out.
T
he three houses taken in early February are being stored on a city equipment lot but ultimately will be destroyed, Stern added.

Some advocates for the homeless see the wooden, single-room structures — each about the size of a parking spot — as a simple and safer alternative to having the homeless sleep on the sidewalks.

Mayor Eric Garcetti's spokeswoman, Connie Llanos, said he is committed to getting homeless people into permanent and not makeshift housing.

h/t FLPanhandle

[HassleCat]

1. That's a noble commitment, Mr. Mayor.

In fact, it's so important it just can't wait. In order to accelerate the program, we have to take away their makeshift housing before we allow them to have permanent housing. Which does not exist yet. And probably never will.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. What he should have done was to buy or lease property upon which to place said houses.