Hollywood: Police Break Up Unruly Crowd –3000 vie for 150 apt applications

[kskiska]

Police dispersed a crowd of about 3,000 people vying for 150 low-income housing applications in Hollywood on Monday after some became impatient and rushed the line.

"You had some very desperate people who had a mob mentality," said Capt. Michael Downing of the Los Angeles Police Department. "It was as if people were trying to get the last piece of bread."

More than 40 officers were called to the 5600 block of La Mirada Avenue about 8 a.m.

After several attempts to restore order, police made the crowd disperse, Downing said. No one was arrested or injured.

People began lining up Friday to pick up the remaining applications for a 56-unit apartment complex at Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue. The complex is to be completed by April.

more…
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-housing15feb15,1,323125.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

[Mojambo]

1. 80 some billion to stabilize a country WE destabilized

Meanwhile here at home people are willing to bash in their neighbors head to get a roof over their own.

We live in fucked up times

[Hamsta1]

2. Hear, Hear

Maybe if we help the Iraqi's get back on their feet, they will be SO thankful that they will just send us a shitload of oil for free and then we can use the proceeds to help our impoverished(less fortunate) afford housing. In the mean time, why not slash funding for federal housing programs and just see what happens? See, the shittier we let things get the less we have to do to make it look like we're helping! What a wonderful world.

[Ian David]

5. Free oil in gratitude? You mean like Kuwait did?

NOT!

They didn't even greet us with flowers.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. There's no shortage of housing in America

Just a shortage of housing that poor people can afford.

There are also critical shortages of compassion, common sense, and the can-do mentality, but what do you expect under the rule of the Republican Party?

--p!

[LibDemAlways]

4. There is virtually no "affordable" housing being built

in Southern Calif. any more. A million and up has become the rule. Old, crappy fixers are torn down and replaced with mansions. A builder bought a fixer around the corner from me for $519K six months ago. Made some cosmetic improvements and has it back on the market for $825 - a 30 year old, modest single story tract house on a busy corner. He'll get his price, too.

It's a damn shame that it's all about greed, greed, greed. In the 1970s when I was looking to buy a "starter" home, new condo developments offered reasonably priced places and people snapped them up. Today, the 1100 sq. foot condo I bought for $34,000 back then would go for over $300K. Ridiculous. And some mortgage lender would send out an appraiser who'd ok the deal.

When the housing bubble bursts in this area, many people will be stuck owing way more than their places are worth.

Meantime, people of modest means either work three jobs to pay the rent for a roach-infested close-in dump, or move farther and farther out of town where they can still buy a new, poorly built stucco job adjacent to the freeway. It sucks.

[Anakin Skywalker]

6. Heh Heh Heh. What is this Bu**sh** about

the Great Ownership Society? Along the lines of "The economy is strong" -Bush 3.16, etc.

[gatorboy]

7. Notice they don't build new middle class homes anymore?

A friend and I were talking about this at work the other day. You drive around the city and these new homes that are being built are huge, upper class models. Middle class individuals cannot afford a brand new home these days, so why waste time building them?

[brentspeak]

8. Little pink mansions for me and you (n/t)

[Rose Siding]

9. X-treme version of the soup line

Now Rush can make up something about Reid saying that, and then Gannon can ask Bush how out of touch with reality dems are, and...oh wait. CASTING!

[zann725]

10. I know they quit giving out Section 8 Vouchers in L.A. County a year ago

And the neighborhood listed above, is majorly sleezy and dangerous. A person would be safer, smarter and save considerable money by sleeping in their car in a safer neighborhood, than pay whatever they're asking for apartments in that area. My guess is that even a "low income" unit there would ask a rent of about $1,000 for a one bedroom. How sad.