Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of anti-homelessness ordinance that would impact roughly 40,000 unhoused Angelenos
- The LA City Council passed an ordinance that would prohibit homeless encampments in some areas of the city.
- The measure restricts "sitting, lying, or sleeping or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in the public right-of-way."
- The measure passed Wednesday in a 13-2 vote, but LA Mayor Garcetti still has the power to veto it.
The Los Angeles City Council voted on Wednesday in favor of an ordinance that would prohibit homeless encampments in some areas of the city.
The measure, which would replace a similar version known as Municipal Code 41.18, was co-authored by city council members Paul Krekorian and Mark Ridley-Thomas. It would prohibit "sitting, lying, or sleeping or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in the public right-of-way."
There are approximately 40,000 unhoused Angelenos who would be impacted by the ordinance, according to the Associated Press.
Members of the LA City Council first voted on the measure on July 1, approving it in a 13-2 vote. However, a second vote was required because it did not pass unanimously the first time around.
The second vote also had 13 in favor and two against. Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Mike Bonin both voted against the ordinance in the meeting.
Raman posted a thread on Twitter detailing her concerns, saying that "real solutions - housing, outreach, and services - take time and money."
"None of it is easy to do," the councilwoman wrote. "But that's exactly what we *need* to be doing, not enacting harmful and illusory 'quick fixes.'"
During the meeting, Bonin said pointed to contrasts between "housing" and "sheltering."
"We need a right to housing, not a mandate to shelter," Bonin said. "People want housing. They don't want warehousing, they don't want shelter, they want housing."
Earlier this month, Krekorian, one of the councilmembers who proposed the ordinance, defended the ordinance to Spectrum News, saying it "does not make homelessness illegal," "criminalize homelessness," nor does it "make any conduct that is fundamental to being human illegal"
"What it does do is it guarantees that we will reestablish passable sidewalks," Krekorian said on July 1. "It protects the users of our public infrastructure and the unhoused residents of our city from being put into positions of interaction with automobiles, around loading docks, driveways, and so forth. It guarantees access to our fire hydrants, entrances to buildings."
Some Los Angeles residents, however, find the ordinance to be unjust. Knock LA, an independent journalism platform, captured a few of those disapproving statements while covering the city council meeting.
"You're creating a problem because you're going to be arresting a lot more homeless people," a resident told Spectrum News at the Right to Rest Without Arrest Rally, which took place outside of Los Angeles City Hall prior to the Wednesday meeting.
"The idea is they're trying to keep the homeless people moving all the time," the resident continued. "That's impossible. They get tired. They're carrying their stuff. They need places to live and stay, and they don't have it."
The ordinance is not law, yet. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti still has the authority to veto the measure. Representatives for Garcetti did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.