Last year a man by the name of Elvis Summers was highlighted on multiple news outlets, including Inside Edition, CBSLA, CBC News, for starting a campaign to build "little houses" for the homeless, to replace the tents, cardboard boxes and other makeshift ways the homeless have to protect themselves from the elements while having to live on the streets.
The little houses have solar-powered lights and American flags and in the videos below you will see some of the reactions from those on the recieving end of Summers campaign to house them..... but first, look at the difference between what they had and what Summers is providing them, and to which the city of L.A. is taking from them, kicking the homeless back into the street, taking their new little houses and planning to simply "discard" them, declaring them a "serious health and safety risk."
Watch How Dozens of Homeless People React to Receiving a Tiny House
Nearly a year later, Summers, who was once homeless himself and has received more funding from donations from across the world to build more of these little houses for the homeless, is having to remove these houses before an upcoming city sweep, after city officials had already confiscated some to be "discarded."
Mayor Eric Garcetti's spokeswoman, Connie Llanos, said he is committed to getting homeless people into permanent housing and services.
"Unfortunately, these structures can be hazardous to the individuals living in them and to the community at large," Llanos said in a statement. "When the city took the houses, they didn't offer housing, they straight kicked them out," Summers said.
The tiny house crackdown came as the city continues to struggle to balance enforcement with housing and other aid for the burgeoning homeless population.
The city passed a tough new sweeps ordinance that identified tiny houses as “bulky items” subject to immediate confiscation. More than 30,000 people sleep on the streets in Los Angeles County.
These little houses aren't much, anyone reading this already has more, access to the internet, most likely a roof over their head and food to eat, yet these people as seen in the video above and the ones below, are grateful for these tiny wooden structures to protect them from the elements and the city is deliberately putting them back onto the street.
Where is the heart? Where is the empathy? What kind of monsters would take away the one thing that could mean the difference between life or death to these unfortunate people?
Johnny Horton, 60, whose heavily bandaged legs were scored with wounds from uncontrolled diabetes, wept silently Wednesday as he contemplated going back to sleeping in the street.
"Laying on that tent on the sidewalk, it's impossible to keep clean," Horton said. He said the staff at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, which discharged him Tuesday, said they'd try to get him housing, but it would take one to three months.
Maybe we should all stand up and speak out, call, email, leave a message on "Monster Mayor" Garcetti's Twitter page... all listed and linked below.
