Frustrated residents in an upscale Venice Beach neighborhood have turned to an unusual private security option, hiring former MS-13 gang members to help confront what they describe as a worsening homelessness crisis that city officials have failed to control.
“I don’t know what we would do without them,” Venice apartment owner Rick Swinger told the California Post, referring to the former gang members now working as security enforcers.
Swinger is among roughly 250 residents, along with several local businesses near the iconic California community’s multimillion-dollar beachside homes, who pay a monthly fee to Ghost Town Consultants, an unconventional firm hired to reduce disorder linked to large homeless encampments in the area.
Before the private patrols arrived, Swinger said daily life around Rose Avenue, a major Venice Beach corridor, had become unbearable. “We were in a war zone,” he said.
“We saw everything,” he said, describing a stretch where as many as 200 unhoused people had formed a sprawling tent city. The encampment grew so large that locals began calling the street “Skid Rose,” and the problems eventually spilled into parts of the world-famous Venice Boardwalk.
“I got hurt, my wife got threatened. We called for help — no one showed up,” said Swinger, who at times wore a full HazMat suit and helmet during weekly city cleanup efforts to mock what he saw as ineffective municipal responses and to send a message to county officials.
“It just kept getting worse,” Swinger said of the conditions in the Venice Beach neighborhood.
In response, Swinger and dozens of other homeowners and business owners now pay monthly fees starting at about $300 for security patrols. The team, made up of roughly 12 people and led by founders Bobby Luna and Ricky Myers, checks properties throughout the day, documents conditions with photos and sends regular updates to clients.
Luna is a reformed alcoholic with deep Venice ties, and Ricky Myers was homeless at 15 and once involved with the notorious MS-13 gang in the Oakwood neighborhood of Venice.
When asked if there were other former gang members working for Ghost Town, the pair would only say their employees share similar experiences to themselves.
But several customers told The Post that some of the company’s workers told them they are former gangbangers.
Myers grew up in Oakwood when gangs were a powerful force in the neighborhood.
But he said he escaped when community activist Melvin Hayward rounded up local kids, got them bicycles and took them on rides from Venice Pier to Santa Monica.
“I played sports because of him,” Myers said.
Luna said he himself struggled with alcohol for years before getting sober six years ago.
Both men eventually became fathers and soon found themselves trying to protect another generation.
While coaching children at the local Penmar Recreation Center, Myers found needles on the ground with users openly doing drugs. Parents had to physically clean the area before letting their kids play.
Eventually, they canceled practice.
“I was pissed,” Myers said.
Luna reached his breaking point when a drug user tried to steal his son’s bike at the park.
Myers said the people were high on meth and pipes and needles were scattered around an area used by children.
The two started stepping in themselves.
Ghost Town grew from there.
“We did it out of our hearts because this is where we grew up,’’ Myers said of the business — which now also includes a string of shops on Rose Avenue including the popular Venice Beach Wines.
Ghost Town’s rise comes as LAPD is struggling with a severe staffing shortage, leaving fewer officers to respond to the persistent crime and street disorder residents say pushed them to seek another layer of protection.
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said it made good sense that residents and businesses there would hire a private security force.
“Unfortunately, Venice is the No. 1 tourist destination in LA County, and it attracts a nomadic population of drug abusers from the entire nation,’’ he told The Post.
“You get free food, free clothes, no rent, cheapest drugs around, and when you get high and defecate in public, everyone looks the other way.
“There’s no consequences for illegal behavior,” said the ex-sheriff, who was known for clearing out the homeless in Venice during his tenure and is now running for the office again.
“The political establishment in LA County has created an ecosystem that is openly hostile towards law enforcement.
“When you create that environment, you’re not going to recruit and retain cops. …There are not enough cops around to actually make a difference.”
Dennis Zine, a former Los Angeles city councilman who spent decades with the LAPD and still serves as a reserve officer, said today’s department bears little resemblance to the one he joined nearly 50 years ago.
“It’s a far cry from what we used to do,’’ he told The Post of officers’ duties these days.
“You talk about defund — these people have been deflated,” Zine said of local officers and the far-left push to abolish police departments.
Zine blamed both the shortage of officers and restrictions he believes have left cops reluctant to intervene in crimes for the need for dramatic measures such as residents hiring their own security service.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told The Post in July that the force had shrunk by about 200 cops since February, to 8,550, while the number he says it needs to properly police the city has risen from 12,000 to 12,500 — leaving the LAPD nearly 4,000 officers short.
“It’s basically, ‘Back off,’ “Don’t, stop this,’ ‘Don’t, stop that,’ ‘Don’t do this,’ ” Zine said.
“There’s more ‘’don’ts” than dos.”
“Our officers are so maxed out with responsibilities and duties and lack of personnel,” he said.
“But what happens there [in Venice] is happening in every division.”
Ghost Town’s approach doesn’t involve using weapons, but conversations, said its bosses — who added that they got their name and logo with AI help.
“They come by, and they talk to them, and they get them to move,” Swinger said of the interaction between the security personnel and vagrants.
“And it’s very peaceful.”
“If we don’t have the government coming up to the plate like they used to, we have to have businesses come up to the plate,” Swinger said.
Luna and Myers said they use their knowledge of Venice and homelessness to urge vagrants to move on, referring to the struggling street people by name and sometimes a very personal approach.
The men said some of the homeless who they ask to leave a doorway one afternoon will turn up to their office the next asking for food, which they dole out as they can. The firm also keeps dog food for pets at the ready.
“We give out burritos and waters all day long,” Luna said.
Luna and Myers said they regularly come face-to-face with break-ins, trespassers, homeless encampments and drug users behaving erratically on methamphetamine and fentanyl.
Myers said drugs can turn a simple conversation into an unpredictable encounter, with someone talking normally one moment before screaming and behaving erratically the next.
But if someone wants to get off drugs, Luna and Myers said, they’ll try to get them into treatment.
“We have a 24-hour policy at this office,” Luna said. “If you want to get off the street and you want to get help, come here.”
They also described helping a mother stranded in a nearby RV with three children, including a 6-month-old baby, get into housing in the San Fernando Valley.
Ghost Town hasn’t fixed Venice. Homelessness, addiction and crime remain visible.
But residents say their block feels different thanks to the private service.
It’s “terrific,” Swinter said.
Additional reporting by Ben Chapman.
