"Homelessness in Los Angeles--15 Minutes Of Fame"

One of my peers, Adlai Wertman (the CEO of Chrysalis), wrote a poignant article for the electronic magazine "Sharing Witness."

Here is the full link.

Here is the beginning of the article:

As the CEO of Chrysalis, a homeless agency with three offices throughout Los Angeles, I always heard the same plaintive cry from my peers - "Why isn't anybody paying attention to this tragedy?" If people only knew what was going on, we thought, they would surely respond with the funds and attention needed to address a population of homeless in our County of over 88,000 - significantly larger than any State.

In 2006, we all got what we asked for, sort of. First, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times wrote a series of articles exposing Skid Row - a thirty square block area in downtown LA which has the highest concentration of homeless in America (an estimated 10,000 to 15,000). These extremely dramatic and embarrassing articles caught the attention of everyone in LA. At the same time, the development of downtown lofts had finally expanded to where it bumped up against the edges of Skid Row. Suddenly, we had created a team of strange bedfellows - citizens, businesses, developers, government, advocates and service providers, all focused on the tragedy of homelessness in LA.

It should have been expected that the reactions would be quite different...

Read more here.