Caitlyn Jenner criticised for suggesting homeless people be moved to ‘open fields’

‘They’re destroying Venice Beach. They’re destroying all the businesses down there,’ says former Olympic champion seeking to become GOP governor of California

Caitlyn Jenner has face heat for her comments (Getty Images)

Caitlyn Jenner has said that homeless people should be moved to “open fields” during her bid to become the Republican nominee in the California governor’s race.

Ms Jenner offered this eyebrow-raising solution while arguing that homelessness detracts from small businesses. She made her case while appearing on Inside California Politics, a show on the local network KRON 4.

"They’re destroying Venice Beach. They’re destroying all the businesses down there," the gubernatorial candidate said. She argued that “they don’t need to be there”.

Ms Jenner argued that an uptick in crime was due to “homeless-on-homeless murders” and asserted “we can’t have that in our streets”.

She said California ought to create “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”.

According to the AP, there are 60,000 homeless people in LA County. However people online were not supportive of Ms Jenner’s policy suggestion to tackle the issue, given her enormous wealth.

“Caitlyn Jenner, whose net worth is roughly $100 million, proposed moving homeless people to ‘big open fields’ out of sight & out of mind from the rest of us. Political cowardice & inhumane disconcern,” Lisa McCormick wrote on Twitter

Another user asked, “Is Caitlyn Jenner’s entire platform just complaining about homeless people?”

Another person lamented, “Britney Spears can’t have her IUD removed , Bill Cosby is free and Caitlyn Jenner said that we should take homeless ppl to an open field somewhere and leave them to pitch tents there because they’re ruining Venice Beach.”

“I wish Caitlyn Jenner had access to the kind of money it would take to build a shelter for the homeless people in Venice Beach…oh wait!,” wrote another person on the social media site.

“So basically Caitlyn Jenner’s solution to fixing the homeless crisis in California is just to move them to Death Valley,” wrote Dane Southard.

Ms Jenner was a supporter of former Republican president Donald Trump, however she began to oppose him over his conservative policies regarding transgender issues. Ms Jenner herself is a trans woman, and said “it was easier to come out as trans than as a Republican candidate for governor” to Fox News 11 last month about how her family felt about her political views.

The former Olympian also angered people after she said she did not agree with transgender women competing in women’s sports on the grounds on “fairness”.

“This is a question of fairness,” Jenner said to TMZ. “That’s why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports in school. It just isn’t fair. And we have to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”

The Independent reached out to Ms Jenner for further comment.