Not Uptown, Not Downtown… Just Out Of Town

A few years ago, here in Los Angeles, there was an uproar that the County of Los Angeles wanted to sweep homeless people out of downtown and into the suburbs.

A proposal that I thought was actually a sound solution… to develop regional service centers was blasted as part of a scheme to force people into the suburbs. One suburban mayor was quoted in the paper, “Over my dead body.”

Los Angeles is not the only metropolis that is struggling with this issue. Advocates for the homeless in Atlanta are actually suing the city for driving homeless people out of downtown. They claim “officials have undertaken a complex campaign to sabotage the shelter [system in downtown] with the ultimate goal of driving homeless, mostly African American men off the streets of downtown.”

Granted, these claims come with a slew of other accusations trying to show the city that they are allegedly shutting down shelters in the downtown area.

But the issue of moving homeless people into other jurisdictions is still prevalent in other urban areas.

Supporters of regional approaches to addressing homelessness say that homelessness is all over the region, not just in urban areas. People living on the streets of suburban areas are just more hidden. They also say that all cities in a region need to do their “fair share.”

This struggle is a result of cities who are doing a lot to feed, shelter and house homeless people are getting fed up that other cities in the region are doing nothing. And in fact, these non-participating cities may be pushing their homeless folks out of their cities.

So it is becoming a tug-of-war, or perhaps a push-war, where the participating cities—mostly urban—are pushing back.

Whatever the case, pushing homeless people from one jurisdiction to another is clearly not the answer. It’s just another example of communities getting sidetracked from real solutions.

(Pic from http://homepage.eircom.net)