Of Course Mayors, If Asked, Are Going To Say NO…

A day after the LA Times reported that the LA County plan to establish regional homeless centers throughout the county was progressing, the Mayor of the City of Pomona (an hour east of downtown Los Angeles) said she would not allow one of the centers in her city. This, after the paper had mentioned Pomona as one of the sites.

It’s clearly not a good thing for the newspaper to publish where these centers will be sited. Cities respond quickly and harshly against them.

It just makes sense. If you ask a local city mayor, “Do you want a homeless assistance center in your backyard?”, he or she will either say “no” or will change the subject. Homeless centers are not popular, vote-getting, issues.

It’s not fair, however, to just start asking cities to site homeless centers—without educating the community. It makes more sense to begin grass-roots mobilization efforts to help cities understand that our communities need more housing and services to reduce the number of people living on our streets.

Let’s stop planning homeless services via the media, and begin more community mobilization efforts to help neighborhoods join the effort to end homelessness.