Lincoln Place: TENT CITY REPORT
By C.V.
Beck
Tent City is still on hiatus due
to winter.... we intend to resume when it is warmer. In the meantime, my focus
will be on LINCOLN PLACE.
One of our neighbors, who lived at Lincoln
Place for a very long time, has passed away. Charles (Chuck) Snow, husband of
Sharon (Shapiro) Snow died on January 20th after a lengthy illness. Chuck was
born on October 1, 1954.
The memorial
service at Four Square Gospel in Venice, was held on January 28th. This very
thoughtful service was well attended by old friends, family and residents of
Lincoln Place. The eulogy was spoken beautifully by our councilperson, Bill
Rosendahl, who was accompanied by Mark Antonio Grant, field deputy. Sharon
Snow read a poem about her life with her husband. His sister spoke and the
pastor, Steven Hurrell gave very sensitive and moving testimony celebrating
Chuck’s life. Charles has been cremated and a beautifully engraved metal
urn containing his ashes was accompanied by a happy photograph of Chuck
barbequing for a family gathering during happier times.at the front of the
church. His large, well-worn white Bible was on a table at the entrance of the
church along with the guestbook. Refreshments were served afterwards in the
patio.
We will miss Chuck’s
“aggressive evangelical” energy in our struggle to preserve Lincoln
Place as a vitally necessary source of truly affordable
housing.
We were waiting for a Malibu
court date for mid-January in the Ellis Act matter which we remaining residents
of Lincoln Place, all seniors and disabled persons, believe to be not legal. .
This is now continued forward to a date in late March, April or perhaps, even
May. More hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. The attempt at forced
relocations of Venetian citizens has been going on for almost 20 years and we
are used to it, unfortunately. However, our quality of life is not what it used
to be, is it? What’s up next on the landlord’s agenda for this
punishment of innocent citizens of a small beach town?
One of our supportive property-owning
neighbors, has pointed out to me that even only 5 acres of open space replaces X
thousand tons of numbers of air conditioning units...seems like open space is a
clear winner in this chat and this should be a no-brainer, ‘cept maybe on
the westside of Los Angeles in Southern
California.
Meanwhile, we can sit and
think about our fates or strategize further. It is my feeling that this is
cruel and unusual punishment for seniors/disabled and people on the lower end of
the economic strata and an outrageous violation of the public trust. While
these overly/well/paid city council persons (not referring to Bill) sit around,
stalling and ruining our beloved city by their greediness, people’s lives
are being irreparably changed for the worse. It is my opinion that our public
servants are really working for the developers and are in thrall to them, hoping
to get home free with all the benefits and perks, clean as a hound’s tooth
while we pay the price for their lack of engagement with reality. Not nice, not
nice at all.
The other day, I overheard
from a worker at the 99 Cent Store, that “LAX is buying my
apartment”...naturally, I inquired how much was being offered and she
replied, “twenty-five thousand dollars “and seemed to think that was
a lot of money.
On January 31, I
attended the first of what will be an on-going series of meetings at WCIL
(Westside Center for Independent Living). The purpose of these meetings are to
identify main concerns for disabled persons now. Topics introduced by the
facilitator, Fidel Valenzuela, and to be discussed in depth include (1) Housing
(2) Transportation (3) Health/Wellness and (4) Assistive Technology. These
meetings will be held at the Center (located at the corner of Beethoven Street
and Venice Boulevard) and will be announced well in advance. There were people
from Venice as well as other areas of the western edge present at this first
meeting, a good sign. Next time, there will be more.
Posted: Thu - February 1, 2007 at 01:16 PM