In Whittier on Thursday afternoon, an apparent random incident resulted in an elderly man being punched in the face by a homeless guy. Sitting on Mimo’s Café’s patio to enjoy his lunch, the man took a hit to the face.
“Without a warning, he just got up and hit one of my customers in the face with his fist,” Mimo’s Café owner Ramon Arteaga stated. “He was bleeding to the point he was taken to the hospital and he has four stitches.”
Arteaga expressed concern about the rise in attacks by homeless individuals in the neighborhood and expressed optimism that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order will address the issue.
“I don’t think there is anything more urgent or more frustrating than addressing the homeless encampments in the state of California,” Newsom stated.
One of the broadest responses to a US Supreme Court decision permitting such prohibitions was the governor’s order to state agencies to remove homeless encampments from public land.
“We are done it’s time to move with urgency at the local level to clean up these sites and focus on public health and public safety,” Newsom stated.
While counties and cities are not legally required to follow the directive, it puts pressure on them to do so. Hilda Solis, the supervisor for LA County, stated that she believes this presents a chance for collaboration between many departments.
“What I don’t want to see hopefully is that these people are just taken up and moved to another city because that doesn’t resolve anything but that people are really sent to services, interim housing permanent housing and case management,” Solis stated.
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But homeless services provider PATH’s Katie Tell worries that this will be a blow to all the hard work the organization has already accomplished.
Tell stated that, “What I don’t want to see hopefully is that these people are just taken up and moved to another city because that doesn’t resolve anything but that people are really sent to services, interim housing permanent housing and case management.”
Arteaga is among the many business owners who support Newsom’s decision, stating that prior to the Supreme Court verdict, businesses had little or no choices for dealing with homeless encampments.
The exact date on which the executive order will go into effect has not been made public by the governor’s administration.
