Bloggers Weigh In On Skid Row Solutions
Why not bloggers taking a swing at developing a Skid Row homeless plan? Everyone else has… the LA Times, political offices, business associations, and law enforcement…
So LAvoice.org describes an interesting blog interaction between to downtown bloggers who provide two different perspectives on Skid row.
At least people are talking about the crisis of homelessness. Sooner or later, however, we need move from talk to action…
posted by LA's Homeless Blog at
1:53 PM
19 Comments:
Go to skid row with nothing and experience the "help" to get out of the cesspool. The poverty industry will not let you escape!
Program after program, 12 step after 12 step, group after group, life skill after life skill, church service after church service,and after all this still homeless and no job training. I need real housing help and real job training help; Nothing else, thank you!
I agree! I don't need a resume class. I need SOMETHING to put on that resume!
Here's the solution. Do not give grants or donations to the homeless industry charities. All homeless funds are put on debit cards that are give to homeless people by DHS. All homeless charities are required to accept these debit cards for services rendered or lose their "business licenses". If clients do not want to wait in line or sit and be preached to before a lousy meal they will go to an agency that will accept the debit card and give good quality service and value, same for housing, job training, treatment, medical care services. And yes, trouble makers can be denied services and lose their card. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result... These hundred-year-old agencies keep on getting bigger and bigger without any change in outcome. Right now the charities are not accountable. Disagreeing with an agency will not result in "Anger Management Classes" requirements; it will result in an client taking his/her debit card to another agency that will give the client the needed qulity service requested and no take it or leave it atitude! Just watch the change unfold.
I love that debit card idea. LOve it>
Right now I ahve had to take some one in who has one lung and is going through chemo.
Because ther is no agency n skid row willing tohelp him. He doesn't use drugs or is an aloholic , so the services keep denying him.
He had a small machine that helps him take his medication stoeln from him.
You are right not eveything is hunky dory here , but we do have services that do work.
NOw that the light is shining on these services due to the redevelopment of Downtown it is high time those people who claim certain servies are not working speak up .
For many years these services have operated in the dark with no one questioning what they do and their claims of how many peope they have helped and what constitutes success.
Using generalizations does nothing to help if you aren't specific. SO be specific. Pleaes.
I don't have problem being specific. OCnsidering I know the many services in skid row very well and teh people who do fall through the cracks and the people who are helped and aren't
I will never forget when I was homeless and staying at Union Rescue Mission (1998). I had a job assignment helping deliver clothing to URM's huge clothing warehouse center.
As I was unloading the van into the center I noticed the warehouse office door open and lo-and-behold there was the President of the mission trying on expensive looking donated suits (pulling on some slacks, jacket already on). These agencies are not accountable. I always wondered why the homeless always get the shabby clothing, know I know why.
When I was homeless in Santa Monica (98-01) I went through 3- $11,000 drug programs (I never used drugs, not even aspirin), 1 -$18,000 ritzy Betty Ford Center alcohol program in the desert(I never really drank: "you're in denial"). I went through the food stamp and GA ordeal. The in-jail out-of-jail thing. What saved me is I met a soap-opera star who owned an apartment building where I was sleeping behind nightly. Two apartments were trashed by the previous renters and needed painting and I told her I can paint. 5 years later-I'm still running her 6 buildings; real help works! By-the-way, I went homeless because I ran out of money and did not have a lot of friend who could help me (like a lot of people in LA), plain and simple.
In the late 1980s, a service provider in Washington D.C. had an idea about a services debit card, but the technology was not quite there yet. His idea was that a homeless person, or other services would be issued a card with an account that they could use to "purchase" services. There would still need to be funding to pay for it, but the agencies would only get paid when they have served someone.
People have to realize that most of the agencies who help the homeless receive grants. The grants are very specific on what services we can do with the funds. I agree it's insane: ie. a homeless person comes to the clothing center without shoes and request a pair -as mean as it is- I can not give him a donated pair without a referral slip. I know that the person who donated those shoes want that person to have those shoes, but the grant that fund s my paycheck will not allow me to actually go pick those shoes up and give them to the person. Sorry folk but that's how it works
There would be a huge change in homelessness if all the angencies got out of the forced religion (Jesus, Higher Power, Spirituality, etc.) If you tell the agencies "I have NOT come to beleive" you are thrown right back on the street.
The VA does a lot of that forced religion or denial of services stuff. Religion and beliefs are so personal and varied from person to person that including a certain belief system in treatment becomes brainwashing and cultish.
I feel that people need to understand that if you need some sort of assistance that you cant have unrealistic expectations of how you should be treated or what you need to do to recieve the services that YOU need. There are always certain hoops that you have to jump through in life & if these agency's didnt have screening rules and proceedures they would be even less efficient than they already are, just by being the nature of business that they are. I've had to go to several of the places downtown for help and it is usually an ordeal because there are so many people needing help that the staff ( who are usually recovering addicts )are overwhelmed. If you are patient, and dont think that your case is more important than everyone elses you will usually recieve what you need eventually. The fact that lots of these places get grants from various places means that they have to fill out tons of paper work to see one client so as to document what they are doing with the money. The whole point is to use these places to get stable and then to move on, not make a career out of going from one mission to the next repeatedly over the course of years or even decades. What I've noticed is that a lot of people dont follow through with what they need to do to recieve help from these places and then cry when they can't get help instantly due to their own lack of followthru or planning.
Great article! Thanks.
Nice Blog!
Thanks for interesting article.
Thank You! Very interesting article. Do you can write anything else about it?
Very interesting site. Blog is very good. I am happy that I think the same!
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