When Hospitals—Places of Healing—Send People To Places Of Harm…

She could have been anyone’s mother or grandmother. The taxi driver pulled out her old rickety wheelchair from the trunk, and helped her out of the car. The taxi was parked in front of our PATH Regional Homeless Center at around 5:30 pm, and had departed from one of the local hospitals.

Our mall of social services was closed. But she still rolled her chair to the front door and knocked on the glass. She needed help. She was released from the hospital, and now needed a warm place to stay.

What could our staff do, but let her in and take care of her. She had no other place to go.

Sadly, she is only one of hundreds (maybe even thousands) who are released from hospitals and sent to homeless programs.

And, as we have discovered in the last few months, many are sent to Skid Row. Just this past week, three hospitals acknowledged the practice—Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Here's the article.

How can hospitals—that are respected institutions in our community—send people from places of healing to places of harm? It just goes against the values of our community hospitals.

The system of caring for people who are homeless is completely broken.

When law enforcement send people to other communities, when we allow children to live in Skid Row, and when hospitals send people to the roughest neighborhoods in the region, the problem of homelessness becomes more than simply neglect.

It becomes criminal negligence.