I cannot describe the anger I felt today watching Kara Finnstrom’s report on homeless caves in Los Angeles. A road crew supervisor with Cal trans, Albert Miramontes, admits he had only cleaned the underpass five times in the last eight years. That’s not even once a year, so all the garbage that piled up down there is really the county’s fault. I mean, they knew it was there and that homeless people live there but instead of helping these poor souls by cleaning out the underpass a bit more frequently so that the homeless have somewhere safe and clean to live, we seal them out so Albert’s crew can go clean somewhere else.
The spokesman for Cal Trans Patrick Chandler is trying to convince everybody he is the good guy as he talks about welding the underpass shut to keep the homeless people out that had been living there. I sat there in silence while this poor homeless woman cried out, “Why do you keep taking everything from us?”
I don’t know what this country is coming to, but if Mr. Chandler worked for me at Cal Trans he would have been fired long ago. A good spokesman would have kept the P.R. on this one quiet, cleaned up the underpass for these people (again) and then left quietly from which ever way they came and called it a good day. A good day that could have been spent helping real people that needed it instead of calling the story in to every media outlet in town and doing things so “by the book” that it disgusts viewers with compassion as they watch this sad report.
How can anyone think they actually have the right to kick poor people out of the one place they can call home? Why is it so easy for people that have homes to hear stories like this one and not get angry? If anyone really thought that what they did today was truly “the right thing” then they should go park their Rolls Royce somewhere else on the planet. These people were not bothering anyone, but it definitely bothers me that these poor people are being evicted from their “high-quality” cave beneath a God Damn FREEWAY! What do the Los Angeles Sheriffs want them to do…pay them rent?