Thefts have increased in Los Angeles due to economic problems — Adrin Nazarian

People need to feel safe in Los Angeles to be able to support their families instead of wanting to leave, newly elected member of LA City Council Adrin Nazarian told Alpha News.

“The past four years in Los Angeles have been difficult in terms of economic tension. Unemployment is high, people are concerned, and all this leads to economic problems. When we compare the number of murders or other similar dangerous cases with the past 30-40 years, we see that the number of such cases has decreased dramatically, but due to economic problems, there are more thefts and hooliganism. I believe in this case, the primary task should be to increase the number of police officers. People should feel safe here to be able to support their families instead of wanting to leave. People should safely make investments without thinking they could be robbed,” Nazarian said.

Speaking about homeless people living in Los Angeles, he said, “When homeless people from other states come to Los Angeles, it’s already a problem. We need to get funding from the government to be able to help these people because this is not a problem of Los Angeles only. We never helped the homeless, we didn’t have any programs to solve this problem, and because of that, in 2016-2017, especially in Los Angeles, the number of homeless people increased dramatically. It’s like unemployment: there will always be certain cases, but we must do everything to make them as few as possible.”