Video: Maxine Waters Tells Homeless Voucher-Seekers to ‘Go Home’ in Los Angeles

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a crowd of people seeking housing vouchers, some of whom said they were homeless, that she wanted them to “go home” during a chaotic scene in Los Angeles, according to a video published Tuesday night by the Los Angeles Times.

Waters also attempted to quash a story about the incident, telling the Times in an interview Tuesday morning not to publish its report about the video, according to the outlet.

“It’s a bunch of rumors,” Waters told the Times. “You’ll hurt yourself and the community trying to put this together without background,” she warned. “I don’t want you to start trying to write it, you won’t understand it.”

The incident occurred Friday while a nonprofit called Fathers and Mothers Who Care, a self-described “homeless triage center,” was holding one of three planned events in South Los Angeles to assist people with finding housing.

The Times reported, however, that the “mostly homeless” attendees had shown up with the misunderstanding — from inaccurate information on social media — that they could receive “rare vouchers for permanent, subsidized housing,” that is, section 8 vouchers.

In the video, Waters is seen with a mask under her chin telling the crowd, “I want everybody to go home,” to which someone yells, “We don’t got no home! That’s why we’re here!”

Watch:

Here’s the video of Maxine Waters telling a group of homeless people to “go home” to which somebody replies “we ain’t got no home.” pic.twitter.com/wHMHkBlvtt

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 31, 2022

Fathers and Mothers Who Care responded to the mix-up Friday by writing on its Facebook page that it was not “handing out Section 8 Vouchers,” but was instead aiding in the housing assistance application process.

Section 8 is a federal government program in which U.S. Housing and Urban Development provides housing vouchers to low-income individuals through an application process managed by local housing authorities.

Waters explained to the crowd, “You cannot get section 8 vouchers here. … Nothing is going to happen here today. Nothing is going to happen anymore today.”

Waters said she had asked the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to attend the event to also help people, but the Times noted LAHSA workers were overwhelmed and unable to assist most of the hundreds of people who had shown up seeking the vouchers.

At one point during the video, the founder of a nonprofit called Kingdom Warriors Foundation confronts Waters, who drops the f-word, though it was censored out in the video. “Excuse me! There’s nobody in Washington who works for their people any f****** harder than I do,” Waters said.

Local outlet ABC 7 also reported on the event and showed Waters explaining that the confusion had ensued because “people don’t know the difference between the emergency homeless vouchers and the regular section 8 vouchers. They’re here today just trying to get help.”

Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.