Beau and his wife are homeless in Venice Beach, California

During this interview, you can see Beau’s wife packing up what little belongings they own. Signs were posted on the street they pitched their tent at night that Los Angeles Police and the Bureau of Sanitation are coming to sweep the area.

This fiscal year, Los Angeles budgeted $30 million for homeless sweeps. In contrast, the budget includes a $20 million fund to construct emergency bridge housing city-wide. I honestly don’t know how anyone can publicly claim they support our homeless friends and then privately support criminalization and homeless sweeps.

Homeless outreach workers are supposed to visit the areas before the sweeps to offer support, but that rarely happens. The reason is there is no support for people to get out of homelessness. There are no shelter beds, and there is no housing.

The police tell homeless people to move without offering any solutions. They just say “don’t be here,” but there is nowhere else to go. Bean adds that they lose touch with outreach groups when they are forced to move because they do not have any way to communicate with them.

Beau and his wife have been on the streets homeless in Los Angeles for over a year. The job he has lined up fell through. They survive on two hundred dollars a month plus food stamps.