Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, 83, sparks fury by telling homeless crowd to 'GO HOME' when they crashed LA emergency shelter event in search of housing vouchers
'We don’t got no home, that’s why we’re here. What home we gonna go to?' one woman yelled back at Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters
The progressive lawmaker, 83, attended a Los Angeles event that was aimed at helping homeless people get emergency shelter services
A social media post led people to believe that the city was giving out Section 8 vouches for subsidized permanent housing instead, leading to massive crowds
The Los Angeles Times, which reported the story, was told by Waters: 'You’ll hurt yourself and the community trying to put this together without background'
March 31,2022
ep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) sparked outrage among a crowd of homeless Americans late last week when she told them to 'go home' during a tense confrontation in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Times, which reported on the incident, claimed the the 83-year-old progressive congresswoman tried to stop the outlet from publishing the story by warning its investigative reporter they would 'hurt' themselves and the community.
Waters had reportedly been trying to subdue a riled-up group of people who had come to a nonprofit advocacy group's event, misled by a social media post into believing they could obtain Section 8 vouchers for permanent subsidized housing.
Fathers and Mothers Who Care, the group which opened its South Los Angeles office to help California's homeless get emergency shelter, found itself swamped with 'hundreds of people' who were frustrated and growing unruly.
On Friday Waters told the crowd, 'you cannot get Section 8 vouchers here.'
Later, she told them to 'go home,' and fury broke out.
'We don’t got no home, that’s why we’re here. What home we gonna go to?' one person in the crowd yelled.
Others attempted to turn Waters' attention to how many people were already gathered there, and had been for hours.
'Nothing more is going to happen here today,' Waters said, waving her arms.
Someone else called: 'Miss Maxine, you need to work with me.'
She then erupted at activist who confronted her on the failings of California's housing system, the video obtained by the Times shows.
'Excuse me, there’s nobody in Washington who works for their people any f***ing harder than I do. I don’t want to hear this. No, no, no,' Waters said angrily.
She added, 'What do you think I do every day?' when asked for more cooperation with the community.
'What you do every day? I'm still on the damn street!' a woman yelled.
She pointed out to the frustrated crowd, 'The money that you got thus far came from me in Washington, D.C.'
'I will continue to work, I will get the information … there are no more vouchers today,' Waters said before leaving.
A voice can be heard calling after her, 'There were never any vouchers.'
But Waters apparently blamed the federal government for the chaos in comments to ABC 7.
'I blame those who have the money that we have sent from the federal government who have not been able to communicate properly and to provide the services that we worked so hard for,' she said.
The Times had spoken to a homeless woman who was at the Friday event and said Waters told her to come back the following Tuesday, apparently still under the impression she could get permanent housing.
'I have it, everything they asked for. But every time we get near the front of the line, they shut the door. They opened the door about 20 minutes ago and said they’re not servicing anyone else today,' 77-year-old Joyce Burnett said.
Times reporter Connor Sheets said he was then rebuffed by Waters during a phone call and warned 'you'll hurt yourself and the community' if he published the account.
She also dismissed specific questions on the incident as 'a bunch of rumors'
'You’ll hurt yourself and the community trying to put this together without background,' the report claims she said.
'I don’t want you to start trying to write it, you won’t understand it.'
The call was reportedly cut short after five minutes.
California's cities have been gripped by a crisis of homelessness in recent years.
The state's most recent count found that 161,000 people slept without a roof over their heads in California on any given night, though the figure has not been updated in more than two years – since January 2020.