By: Marvin McCoy
The truth matters.
Once again I can’t express this anymore clear and with the Inglewood city council preparing to take legislative action to receive grant funds to hire a homeless service coordinator, citing its own staff report that homelessness is yet an increasing and ever-evolving problem that’s hard to get a handle on despite the City’s carefully scripted-like Broadway show denying homelessness, housing instability, or the fact that the “Inglewood’s Renaissance ” so to speak continues to be a driving force behind the increase in homelessness and housing instability not only here in Inglewood but across Los Angeles County.
Inglewood went through the hassle of creating a Housing Protection Ordinance and accompanying Housing Protection Department that is only TEMPORARY. They were forced to do it because landlords were evicting entire buildings that are in close proximity to SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome. They slyly did it at the height of the pandemic when residents weren’t allowed in city hall and the only elected official to question the council’s action was former Councilman Ralph Franklin who just so happened to decline to run for reelection a few months later. George Dotson wasn’t physically there but based on what 2UrbanGirls has been publishing, there’s a LOT of fighting behind closed doors between them.
Related: City of Inglewood creates Housing Protection Department
Don’t get me wrong homelessness began under former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa when he allowed developer Tom Gilmore to begin the reimagining of Skid Row and turn it into the “Old Bank District” which not only reduced SRO’s (single room occupancy) but it continued to explode to the epic numbers we see today.
Villaraigosa’s pitch that Angeleno’s “don’t need backyards” and we could be like New York also reverberated to Compton when former Mayor Aja Brown wanted to make the city the “new” Brooklyn. Hence, the zoning changes that increased density around all major transit projects as we see happening with the new buzzwords “Transit Oriented Development”.
Related: Aja Brown, Compton’s new mayor: ‘I see it as a new Brooklyn’
The truth matters and we can argue, debate, and tell off-color jokes about the Mayor’s extramarital affairs with his ex-aide, but to allow him and this council to continue its perilous rampage across the City by pillaging and pilfering resources under the guise of development and or renaissance is something Inglewood taxpayers will be burdened with the financial consequences for decades to come.
We didn’t have to be here but once again it’s the reporting of the Daily Breeze and the hyperlocal website 2UrbanGirls that despite fierce opposition and scrutiny report the facts and we the public, especially when the facts are in direct conflict with politicians or elected body’s public disposition and or position it’s at that time the electorate and or constituency must respond accordingly or the flip side of that coin, as we see today, is that homelessness is not only here but in Los Angeles County has escalated to the point of a third world nation and the sooner we admit we all have dirty hands in this stain on our society we can never earnestly pour the resources and energy that we need to tackle homelessness and housing instability once and for all.
In closing, I ask kindly that 2UrbanGirls continues to be a voice for the voiceless because although Inglewood Mayor James T Butts used to dismiss you as that “little blog” the numbers don’t lie and according to LAHSA and Rand Inglewood has over 700 unhoused residents in the with many more facing housing instability in a world post COVID-19 and we have to deal with these hard, cold facts head on.
Any other approach without tackling homelessness with the cold somber truth that websites like 2UrbanGirls provides is irritating to those in power and is the only true foundation, tried and true that we must begin to tackle the arduous but rewarding task of eradicating homelessness and housing instability immediately.
The homeless numbers in Inglewood will only get worse seeing that Inglewood renters were gently reminded by 2UrbanGirls that the Housing Protection Ordinance will sunset in 2025 which will leave even more residents susceptible to displacement right on time for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics.
Marvin McCoy is an opinion writer and lifelong resident of Inglewood, Ca. He can be reached at therealmccoymarketinggroup at gmail dot com and on Twitter @MarvinMccoy32