By ERIKA MARTIN | Reporter
Just ahead of the Homelessness Count taking place across Los Angeles this week, the Pacific Palisades’ efforts to address the issue received national attention thanks to Fox News correspondent and Palisadian Anita Vogel.
The segment, which aired on the station Monday, Jan. 25, focused on the work of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH) to form a community-based response, including an interview with PPTFH Chair Maryam Zar.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
Palisadian Matthew Reiser was also able to raise questions about the enforcement of trespassing and fire danger in the coastal bluffs. Reiser said it was an opportunity to capture the sentiment of “the silent majority.”
“We’re glad to have a voice,” Reiser told the Post following his interview, which took place on the Via Bluffs where a November 2015 fire was started by homeless people.
“It’s all set up for an authoritative citation, arrest, removal and prosecution under current law. There’s absolutely no reason why that shouldn’t be happening.”
Reiser and other neighborhood residents have also taken matters into their own hands, organizing volunteer bluffs clean-ups and banding together to call for greater enforcement.
Citing state senators’ recent proposal of a $2 billion campaign to end homelessness, Reiser said he would prefer that public officials focus on improving existing public services.
“We want enforcement and correct, appropriate deployment of resources we’ve already paid for,” Reiser said. “If the problems [of homelessness and safety] get conflated then nothing will get done. We don’t want to pay, again, another $2 billion to get enforcement.”
(See more on the PPTFH on page 4.)
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