As your Chamber of Commerce, we are focused on the homeless and all the issues that are impacting our streets, railroad areas, and freeway easements. The unincorporated areas have historically lacked proper resources and very limited law enforcement. We took a different approach to find additional resources to help our area. Instead of sitting in an office, we began working on the streets. We started by reporting all the issues from illegal dumping, graffiti, stolen vehicles, compromised fire hydrants, nonworking street lights, illegal power connections and community clean ups. Suspicious fires began to happen with the RV's. What we discovered during these incidents was alleged fires being set for non-payment of rent,
a lack of reporting to the elected officials regarding the fires. In 2022, the unincorporated areas experienced 179 RV fires. These fires took out infrastructure from internet, phones and power. Often times, causing local businesses to close for several days until the repairs were completed. For the first three months of 2023, the area saw 14 RV fires.
In January, we reached out to the Department of Justice, Environmental Crimes Unit to assist us with the issues from the RV Fires, Blocked Fire Hydrants and Illegal Dumping of Human Waste into the storm drains on 157th & Broadway. This effort brought help from the federal government to help local law enforcement and county agencies with additional resources.
Our next step was to involve the media and showcase the issues and what we are doing to create our own solutions. FoxLA, Fox National News were the first two agencies to reach out and begin shooting segments. Spectrum News 1 began working with us last week. CBS Los Angeles will be with us on Saturday, May 13th to showcase our community clean up efforts. We are planning to shoot additional segments regarding the downzoning and the RV removals.
Lastly, every other Wednesday homeless outreach teams from throughout the entire South Bay Area are on the streets assisting us with the hundred plus children living on the Broadway corridor. We made this happen. We created this Collaborative Outreach approach to ensure everyone is seen, everyone is aware of their options and the law enforcement is aware of the issues. There is much work ahead.
If you are not a current member of the Harbor Gateway Chamber of Commerce, please get involved & support our efforts.
Comments