EV skid row! How LA’s ‘Electric Avenue’ has become overrun with homeless – and drivers are too intimidated to charge their $60,000 cars at sidewalk stations
- A video shows homeless encampments surrounding EV charging stations
- Alexandra Datig, who posted the video, said: ‘It’s better to charge at home’
- LA has more than 62,000 registered EVs, with many more predicted
- Meanwhile, there are more than 69,000 homeless people living in the city
- Newly-elected Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency over the crisis
A conservative commentator has warned electric vehicle drivers in Los Angeles that charging stations for their $60,000 cars are littered with homeless encampments.
Alexandra Datig shared a video of her driving in downtown LA on Wednesday, with one of the local Blink EV charging stations surrounded by trash and tents.
‘When you live in Los Angeles, it’s better to have a charging station at home for that $60,000 EV,’ Datig wrote on Twitter.
‘The closer you get to downtown, the charging stations have homeless ‘attendants’ who live on the same sidewalk as the stations.’
The vagrancy crisis in LA carries on two weeks after newly-elected Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency over the situation. More than 69,000 homeless people currently live in the city.
A video shared on social media shows trash and homeless encampments surrounding one of the local Blink electric vehicle charging stations in downtown Los Angeles
Last year, Los Angeles had 62,851 registered electric vehicles, with city officials projecting even more in 2022. California as a whole had 563,070 registered EVs in 2021, more than 100,000 more compared to the year before.
The boom has meant that charging stations have popped up throughout the city, with about 4,296 public stations installed so far, according to PlugShare.com.
And even more are expected to spring up after the state approved a ban on the sale of new gas cars by 2035, demonstrating a commitment to electric vehicles.
Automakers are now required to reduce the number of gas guzzlers they sell in order to reach the first quota of the plan that mandates 35 percent of new cars, SUVs and small pickups sold in California by 2026 be zero-emission vehicles.
Datig (above) condemned the state of the stations and called on city officials to ramp up the crackdown on homeless camps
The quota increases every two years, with 51 percent by 2028, 68 percent by 2030 and then 100 percent of all new vehicles sold should be battery-powered five years later – 20 percent of these sold can be hybrid plug-ins.
But the work in LA could be undermined by the ongoing homeless crisis affecting the public charging stations.
While taking a jab at the state of the streets near the pricey stations, Datig said: ‘The human suffering is insurmountable around here,’ noting that there are thousands living on the streets of the city.
Conservative commentator Alexandra Datig, who posted the video, said that given the situation, LA’s more than 62,000 EV owners were safer charging their cars at home
As of December 2022, one count estimated that more than 69,000 homeless individuals reside in Los Angeles as encampments pop up across the city
Less than 24 hours into her role as Mayor, Karen Bass issued an emergency over the homeless situation, vowing to construct new shelters for the people
Less than 24 hours into her term, Mayor Bass vowed to tackle rampant vagrancy in the city, with plans to build 3,000 new homes, lease motel rooms and apartments, and issue tax payer-funded housing vouchers.
Bass signed the declaration of emergency on December 12 inside the city’s Emergency Operations Center, in a room designated as the ‘United Homelessness Response Center.’
‘We must build housing faster, and we will. We must coordinate shelter and services and we will,’ Bass said. ‘I will not accept a homelessness crisis that afflicts more than 40,000 individuals and affects every one of us.’
The declaration – which is scheduled to last six months – allows Bass to take more aggressive executive actions to confront the crisis, though the City Council will have to sign off on it every 30 days.
In a flyer released during her run for office, Bass released the details of her plan to help the city through its homeless crisis
As of December 2022, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, counted 69,144 people experiencing homelessness in LA.
The city estimates that more than half are sleeping in the streets as current shelters are filled every night.
That shocking number is up 4.1 percent from 2020, according to data from LAHSA.
The city’s homeless population has grown in tandem with a rising crime rate and the same economic issues the rest of the country currently faces.
Los Angeles has seen 7 percent more robberies this year than last, according to law enforcement, with 8,913 cases reported so far in 2022.
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