To the editor: Reporter Noah Goldberg’s recounting of the recent brutal attacks in the Venice canals was impressive. What hasn’t been impressive is the continuing commentary by city officials that permanent affordable housing is essential in Venice, where the undercounting of the homeless population continues.
Becky Dennison, co-director of Venice Community Housing, stated in the article that four property managers and case managers would always be on site at the proposed Venice Dell Project. No professional health, psychiatric or addiction counselors have been so designated.
With 140 units containing a full complement of residents, bedlam and the continuation of the “Venice Troubles” are guaranteed. As with the now-distant Troubles in Northern Ireland, we need higher political powers to save us.
Jerome P. Helman, Venice
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To the editor: We could all take a page out of Mary Klein’s book for how to live a better and more full life. After a brutal assault, she is determined not to allow fear to control her life.
More importantly, she doesn’t need to lay blame anywhere. She knows that it happened because the system is failing all of us.
She hasn’t personalized her attack, though it was of the most personal kind. She looks to elected officials to do their job and take care of the mental health crisis playing out on the streets of Los Angeles.
This is what every city election has been about for more than a decade, and we witness the problem getting worse by the day. Every election going forward will be about this issue until we can, once again, get our steps in at the end of each day, as Klein was trying to do when she was attacked.
I wish continued healing to Klein and all of us.
Mary Ann Cherry, Los Angeles
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To the editor: I lived in Venice for almost a decade. Unhoused people were ubiquitous, sleeping in alleyways and on the beach. It has certainly gotten much worse recently, and the recent assaults there are alarming, to say the least.
What I find galling is that new storage facilities have been built in Venice and nearby areas. In other words, we’ll build spiffy new storage facilities for all the junk that people can’t fit into their homes, but it’s much harder to do the same for people who have nowhere to live.
Sickening.
David Tempest, Mar Vista
