Tag Archives: Overnight Parking

Jul 02

Homeless Crises Hits California Students Hard

Posted on by

Adding to the Student Loan Crises are Savage New Figures on Student Homeless and Students Facing Hunger and Food Shortages.

by Uncle Paulie

 

The above chart, for the year 2013 (at least 4 years ago) shows the number of homeless kids in Public Schools state wide.  This would include presumably all grades up through 12.  The total of 64,218 would be at least a few percentage points higher today if current trends are applied.

The situation with the California State University system is not much better.  Their current report says that out of 470,000 students in the system, around 12% are in “unstable housing”, the politically correct term that is generally thought of as “homeless”. So by their own very rough count, 56,400 students in the system are homeless.

Even more shocking, if possible, is that about 112,800 students suffer from “food insecurity”, meaning in plain English that they are not getting enough to eat and some are actually starving at times.

What Needs To Be Done

Waiting for some future minor student housing is out of the question.  Action needs to be taken now.

Student Housing

  1.  Let students at CSU park and sleep in their vehicles overnight in the parking lots.
  2.  Remove “no parking at night” signs from the surrounding area.
  3.  Look into buying used RVs, vans and Motor-homes to use as temporary student housing.
  4.  Offer courses for credit for students to creatively “fix up” and make the vehicles look cool and  artistic.
  5.  Beef up shower and bathroom facilities.  Keep these open late at night.
  6.  Increase security on campus to protect kids sleeping in their vehicles at night.
  7.  If on campus parking is not enough then off-campus parking lots should be considered.  There’s  plenty of office buildings with empty parking spaces at night.
  8. . If not enough bathing and shower facilities are available then coupons or “chits” should be .issued to students to use local health club facilities.

Food

  1.  This is a very serious problem.  A long term solution is that the CSU system is going to have to  get into the food production business.  Property has to be acquired and students can volunteer  for credit to plant food gardens.  The schools should be able to grow a large part of their own  food needs. Fruit trees should be planted all over the campus areas.
  2.  Short term students and faculty need to form “Food Drives” to collect food from anywhere you  can, markets, bins placed in Starbucks and Post Offices and of course setting up outside the big  markets and have a canned food drive.
  3.  Farmer’s markets can be contacted to supply excess food from the day’s sales.
  4.  Some public schools are already putting in gardens to grow food as a credit.  This should be  expanded until the system can be self-sufficient.
  5.  Local residents should be encouraged to plant, with student help, gardens in their front yards.  Tax credits can be given to the residents who cooperate.  It might be possible to draw a 2 mile  circle around each school and give the tax credits in that special district to residents who enlist in  the program.
  6.  Many other ideas will come forth to give the schools housing and food security.  The next step  will be to cancel all student debt, jail crooked loan companies, and lower the costs of college for  all.

 

Nov 18

Create Overnight Parking Lots Now!

Posted on by

City of Los Angeles Should Act Quickly To Provide Overnight Parking For Folks Living in Vehicles (FLIVS)

Now that the City of Los Angeles is moving forward to tackle the massive issues of homelessness, they could do one thing quickly that does not cost a lot of money and would go a long way to help out those living in their vehicles.  Here are a few suggestions from the Gypsy Cool Council:

1.  Find parking lots where FLIVS (Folks Living In Vehicles) can park safely overnight

2.  The lots should have some kind of bathroom facilities, at least porta-potties.

3.  Rules and hours clearly posted.  Suggest start at 6pm with all FLIVS to be out of the lot by 9:00am.

4.  No drinking or illegal drug use allowed.  No loud or bad-behavior will be tolerated.

5.  Security to be on site for the protection of the vehicle’s occupants.

6.  This is to be a place of refuge, not a place for police to troll the lot to issue citations for minor vehicle violations, like expired license tags.  These people need help of all kinds.  They do not need to have their situation made worse by cops harassing them over minor vehicle issues.

7.  Possibly social service folks could at times be on hand to provide whatever services are possible.

8.  Information should be made available about local places to get free or low-cost food.

The City could contact other cities who have run such overnight lots to learn from them about the issues that have surfaced, like trash and other problems.  San Diego and Santa Barbara have run these types of facilities in the past.

Another thing that could be immediately done is to revise the “No Overnight Parking” signs that the Department of Public Works has put up all over town.  An example would be Riverside Drive, south of Griffith Park, where FLIVS and especially RVs used to park. The City has posted “No Parking from 2am – 5am” signs, eliminating the street for overnight FLIVS.  These signs should be taken down.  The street can be controlled from permanent camping by simply having 2 hour parking from 9:am to 6pm signs put up.  It is really cruel and discriminating to put up signs all over the city to keep poor folks, visitors, and vacationers from parking in those areas at night.  The signs should start coming down now.

Posted by Uncle Paulie

If you have comments on this issue send to gypsycool@live.com