Quality of Life: Neighborhood Outraged!

We Deserve Better than this!

Helping the homeless is an important and worthwhile goal.

However, it must be done in a socially responsible way that does not victimize others. Hard working Venice residents are angry about St. Joseph Center (SJC) because its facilities and programs invite and attract abnormally high concentrations of mentally ill chronically homeless persons into a tiny residential area, thereby creating unreasonable and unnecessary security risks.

On a daily basis St. Joseph Center tells us that they will be serving 80-120 clients a day and that 70% of them have some sort of mental illness. We ask how would you like to have your next door neighbor getting almost a hundred "crazy" mentally ill individuals visiting them every day?

It is frustrating for Venice residents to watch their neighborhoods being slowly transformed into a garbage pit of trash, litter and human feces.

Here is the reality ..... Living with the mentally ill chronically homeless .... in the neighborhood, reported by community memebers to VeniceSonic.com here is some of what we are getting:
Folks there is something wrong with the system......

Mr. Rosendahl stated, “I promise that the quality of life will not deteriorate in the neighborhood.” He also stated that the biggest problem is fear and that once the center is operating, the fears will go away.

Mr. Rosendahl we disagree our quality of life is deteriorating and it scares us to add more chronically homeless mentally ill people roaming around in our neighborhood!

We in Venice have been burdened with this unfairly for many years and have been more than tolerant but we have had ENOUGH!

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My elderly neighbor left this letter for me on my gate. I scratched out her name, however we live on Vernon Avenue in Venice. Since Saint Joseph's Center opened up in our residential neighborhood, you can expect more calls like this. We have never had such activities as encampments or threats by service-resistant homeless. It is unconscionable to me that senior citizens, who are weak and vulnerable, let alone anyone, would be discouraged from reporting crime, and then have to wait for a 3 hour response time. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Natasha Watson

*(we typed the content of the handwritten note read below)

"It took me 3 hours (3 calls) Yesterday to have police come to alley behind house to remove (4 new origin) 2 men who were drinking & then passed our & sleepin in alley. My 2 neighbors called & finally 2 police cars came - Officer White in one who said (one in orange jacket was harmless) This Harmless man is said to have ... attacked one of our neighbors. I believe he is the regular Latino who drinks behind in alley. He awoke once, staggered down alley a few feet, urinated & went back to his sleeping on our nighbor's cement in front of garage! Police gave me a bad time on call to them!" ps. There is a homeless encampment on Lincoln on sidewalk Near Gary's building!

One of the encampments on sidewalk 700 block of Lincoln Blvd.

Yes she is urinating right on Lincoln Blvd. during rush hour traffic!

This is what our children walking home from school get to see along Lincoln Blvd. in Venice. Broadway Elementary School is just 2 blocks south from here. St. Joseph Homeless drop in Center is two blocks north from this location, something draws these people here and we feel that this type of facility is partially responsible.

Mr. Rosendahl stated, “I promise that the quality of life will not deteriorate in the neighborhood.” He also stated that the biggest problem is fear and that once the center is operating, the fears will go away.

In front of Smart & Final, sitting at the bus stop.

The view while eating at the California Chicken Cafe Restaurant two doors down from The homeless drop in center.



Stoned and deranged and in Pain and SCREAMING!

In front of the La Fortuna Mexican Market on Lincoln Blvd.







Mr. Rosendahl we disagree our quality of life is deteriorating and it scares us to add more mentally ill people roaming around in our neighborhood!

How can you expect our neighbors not to be scared?

How do we know that a screaming mentally ill drunk or high on drugs individual is not going to cause us harm?

Harm our children?

Harm our elderly?

We really do deserve better than this!


This man is SCREAMING!

F....ck YOU! Bi...ch!

This little girl is walking to the market to get ice cream with her older brother!

Look at her body language! Look how scared she is!

How can we expose our children to this kind of insanity?

Homeless Sleeping Adjacent to SJC These are the photos from Sunday night 4-29-07. There were two people sleeping in the front of my building at the North East corner of Lincoln and Flower, right across from SJC. Both people refused to leave when I asked them to.

I called the police and they never showed up. Notice the urine puddle on the sidewalk. The next night there was another person sleeping in the same place. Also on Monday morning there was yet another person in the same place and they also refused to move along. Presumably they were waiting for SJC to open in the morning. Notice the trash, shopping carts, the lack of respect for private property. I did not have the SJC patrol number. I will call them next time.

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This is "Tara", when I took this picture she said:
Please help me, I'm mentally ill and I have no place to go.

Now I am sure that Tara has had help available to her but the big question has been would she take the help? How does she manage to stay out on the streets year after year?

The question for me is do I meet Tara the quiet and coherent taking her medication Tara or the "you fucking bitch I'm going to kill you" Tara?

"YOU DIE YOU BITCH" angry incoherant Tara?

Here is the eMail I sent to L.A.P.D. Pacific Division
Captain Williams,

Which he never responded to! And Tara continues to be around just outside my home.

Tara one of the long time transients who hangs out around my home threatened to kill me yesterday afternoon. She said if I took any more pictures of "them" she'd kill me "YOU WILL DIE!".

I came out of my alley Indiana Ct. and was on California Ave. and in my car driving as I was waiting to turn left in front of Cafe 50's and Tara came running over from the "bum wall" along Ralph's market parking lot and jumped on my car! She spit on the car I think she aimed it at me and missed. (Thank God!)

My window was open about 4" and she grabbed on to the window and hung on to the side of my car and started screaming at me "YOU DIE! YOU BITCH!

If you ever take another picture of us without MY permission I'll kill you!"

Her face and foaming mouth mere inches away from my face, I was petrified and horrified that it has come to this. My heart was racing and I did not know what to do. There were about four other transients crazy mentally ill "regulars" around on the sidewalk watching her and this really scared me what if they all ran over to me. Is my car locked? Will I be able to get away?

I missed the first green light as she was hanging on my car screaming "YOU DIE and go ahead run me over, I'd love that! My feet are right under your tire! You can't go until I tell you to go you fucking bitch.

I'll kill you! Now my spit is on your car and you are MARKED!"

About 4 pm lots of people around but nobody helped me people just looked on. She finally let go and thank God it was a green light again and I was able to drive away. I was trembling and scared to death.

I drove to the Police station and filed a Terrorist Police Report. Officer Rodriguez who took the report told me that there is no police report number to refer to that number is not generated for a few days. I would like to ask you to please eMail me with the number. 4/26/07 1600 hrs. is the time of the incident and the report was taken 1645.

I told the officer that I wanted to file a restraining order against her and he told me that they can't do that because she is a transient and I don't know her name. To which I replied I'm sure some of the officers who have arrested her in the past know her name I have pictures and Craig White knows who she is. Well officer Rodriguez told me I would have to find out myself and then file it in the Santa Monica Court.

I have no way of finding out her last name or an address for her. She is still around my home and sometimes I'm scared to come out of the house even in my car.

We are scared here in Venice having to walk past and live amongst all the mentally ill "homeless" derilicts who wonder our neighborhood.

Do we wait till something terrible or some kind of tragedy happens before the city is willing to actually do something about this? The system is broken we must help these poor broken people and giving them a shower and a change of clothing and a lunch is not the answer. This kind of "kindness" is actually cruel, it enables these people and helps them stay on the streets.

I'm a 65 year old senior citizen and have lived in Venice for over 40 years and I've never seen the streets be this out of control.

Our plea for help from the Police and City Officials fall on deaf ears!