Here’s the story so far: Last year the City Council repealed its law against sleeping in cars, which it more or less had to do because the Ninth Circuit told them they couldn’t enforce it anyway. Then in November they passed a new version of the law, published as LAMC 85.02, which supposedly corrected the last version’s problems. The new law, according to guidelines published by the City of Los Angeles, purports to allow living in a vehicle under these circumstances:

• Between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. – more than one block (500 feet) away from licensed schools, pre-schools, daycare facilities, or parks.
• Between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. – in non-residentially zoned areas which are more than one block (500 feet) away from licensed schools, pre-schools or daycare facilities or parks.

When the law was passed last November, CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin was quoted in the Times to the effect that these restrictions would leave half the streets in the City open to homeless car dwellers. More recently, the incomparable Gale Holland reported that, not only did the official City map only show about 10% of our streets open, but that that estimate didn’t even take into account so-called block-by-block restrictions. According to Gale Holland, Mike Bonin used this insufficiency as a reason to hurry along his proposed Safe Parking program, which would open up some City property for homeless parking. So I decided to look at these weirdly specific¹ block-by-block restrictions, which seem to have been passed almost exclusively post-Desertrain, from 2015 on. Read on for statistics and links to all of the Council Files.
Continue reading Despite His Generally Sympathetic Rhetoric, It Turns Out That Since 2015 Mike Bonin Has Moved Or Seconded Almost 60% Of Anti-Homeless Oversize Vehicle Bans, Helping To Make Revised Ban On Car Sleeping Even More Draconian Than Anticipated →