(KRON) – Gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner is voicing her concerns about California’s homelessness crisis.
In an exclusive interview with Inside California Politics, Jenner talked about a recent visit she made to Venice Beach.
A popular tourist area, the beach has become inundated with homeless encampments that have proliferated along the popular boardwalk and in surrounding neighborhoods.
“They’re destroying Venice Beach. They’re destroying all the businesses down there,” Jenner said. “They don’t need to be there. The crime rate is going up … it’s mostly homeless-on-homeless murders. We can’t have that in our streets.”
Meanwhile, an effort is underway to clear the area and get unhoused individuals into housing.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homeless Outreach Services Team was sent to the area with a goal of clearing the beach of all homeless encampments by July 4. The area is not in the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
The homeless population in the county is estimated at more than 60,000, according to the Associated Press.
“We have to clean those places up. We have to provide some place for those people to go, whether it’s an open field out in some place, or if you notice at the veteran’s facility, there’s these big open fields and a lot of places there,” Jenner said.
The 71-year-old Jenner — who won the men’s Olympic decathlon in 1976 and decades later became a reality TV star and transgender woman — announced her candidacy back in June in a written statement on Twitter. Since then, her campaign has been slow to unfold.