The homeless crisis in Los Angeles is getting worse, and residents are calling for Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti to resign for his “failed leadership.”
Alexandra Datig, leader of the Garcetti recall effort, says part of the issue is the mayor’s “failed leadership.”
“I think we are living in third world conditions that are a threat to public health here in Los Angeles, and we have a mayor who is completely ignorant of that and he is an abysmal failure,” she added.
“That starts with me,” he said in the letter. “As your mayor, I take full responsibility for our response to this crisis. And like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need, I am both heartbroken and impatient.”
Garcetti blamed this issue on “illegal dumping” by residents and businesses in the city and encouraged people not to blame the homeless.
“Most of the things we saw in the news recently are from illegal dumping,” he said when news of the issue surfaced, “not from homeless folks, so it’s also important not to blame folks that are living on the streets for everything that we see.”
Democratic LA City Councilman Jose Huizar told NBC that LA’s homeless crisis is unique to anywhere else in the country.
“We need 5,000 beds today. And another 5,000 next month. And another 5,000 the month after that. That’s what you’re going to need to now solve this problem,” he said. “We have the largest concentration of homeless in LA—in Skid Row in particular. About 4-to-5,000 people wander around looking for service. At night, we have 2,000 who sleep on the street. You can’t find that anywhere else in the country.”
Since Tuesday, more than 8,000 people have signed a petition to remove Garcetti, but it will have no impact on the clerk’s office.