LA Times Publishes Blog Op-Ed Piece

The Los Angeles Times, today, published one of my recent Blog pieces in their Op-Ed section of their paper. Although they provided a few edits of my June 21st entry, overall it conveyed the same message. Here is the piece again:

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The Homeless and the Numbers Game

Without new leadership, we all lose.

By Joel John Roberts
Joel John Roberts is the executive director of People Assisting the Homeless.

July 2, 2005

The headlines said it all: 90,000 homeless in Los Angeles County.

For most of us, we don't need a slide rule to figure out that homelessness has increased. Anyone who exits a freeway off-ramp, who travels through our downtown neighborhoods or even visits our world-famous beaches knows that there are too many people in our community without homes.

The counting of homelessness has always been hotly debated. Some want to exaggerate the number to encourage more funding for services; others want to diminish the number to deny that there really is a problem. For a decade we've argued over this number, as if it was some statistical problem rather than a human dilemma.

So now we have a number, an official count. But in this homeless numbers game, there are other numbers. There is the dollars game. It is big business. In fact, this homeless count was a result of the dollars game. The federal government mandated that all communities, including ours, count the number of homeless or else their much-needed federal funding would be cut. In Los Angeles County that means nearly $50 million per year.

Private fundraising for homeless services is also a high-stakes game of risk. If you don't convince supporters that your charity is important, you risk closing your doors to people in need. I would estimate that private support of homeless services is many times greater than federal funding in our community.

Then there is the affordable-housing game. It's a sad game of musical chairs in which there are too many players and not enough chairs. Round and round the people go, hoping for an empty home to buy or rent. But when the music stops, there are always people left out with no place to call home.

This all reminds me of the game of Monopoly. The urgency of gathering dollars, collecting property and staying out of jail. At the expense of other players, we hoard these resources in order to win. In the game, there's one winner and the losers are only the other players. In the real world, the homeless — and ultimately, all of us — lose.

So now we have this large number: 90,000 homeless people. What does it mean?

Well, we obviously have a huge problem. If we wanted to build simple apartments for each person, it would cost our community billions of dollars.

We also know that the existing system of care is not solving the problem. Whether because of lack of funding or lack of coordinated services, our efforts over the last two decades to help the homeless have not improved the situation.

Clearly, this number defines Los Angeles County as the homeless capital of America, and shows that we need galvanized new leadership to end homelessness on our streets. Our new mayor is tackling crucial community issues head-on — education, crime and traffic. I would hope that he and his new team also provide the same visionary leadership in working toward ending homelessness.

New LA Mayor Doesn't Mention Homelessness In Goals

In today’s LA Times, an article lists Mayor Villaraigosa’s city-wide goals for his administration. This includes promises he made during the campaign—increase the police force, expand public transit, better the educational system, and develop affordable housing. These are certainly very, very important issues that need to be addressed.

In the list of goals, however, homelessness is not specifically mentioned. Yes, a fully funded Housing Trust Fund will help people who are homeless. But the majority of these housing funds will go toward developing work-force housing.

When then-Councilmember Villaraigosa visited PATH a few years ago, he personally told me that homelessness is an important issue that he will address. I believe him. Just a few blocks from his new Mayoral offices is ground zero for homelessness.

We all know that homelessness is a major urban problem that needs to be addressed by both City and County leaders. I look forward to another list of city-wide goals that will include homelessness.

For more of Mayor Villaraigosa's goals, you can visit his website at:
Mayor's Vision For LA

KBEH-TV Channel 63 Visit PATH

Today, KBEH-TV visited the PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) facility outside of downtown Los Angeles to film PATH’s national model of serving homeless people. This station is the Spanish-language cable channel on 63.

It is certainly appropriate for this Spanish-language cable channel that covers 5.4 million households in Los Angeles, Riverside, and Santa Barbara markets to report on homelessness. In the latest Los Angeles County homeless count, 25% of the homeless population is reported to be Latino. That is just over 20,000 people.

Order In The Court

Last Monday, PATH board member and lawyer, Terry Bird, and Judge Michael Tynan posed for the PATH Lines magazine photo shoot at the PATH Homeless Court.

Judge Tynan, Terry Bird, and Public Counsel were instrumental in bringing the Homeless Court to PATH. Every month, Judge Tynan sets up court at the PATH Mall, where he presides over sessions that help homeless people work off their citations. In exchange for participating in a social service program, people’s records are cleared.

The Homeless Court is also linked with the downtown Los Angeles Streets or Services (SOS) program. PATH has a case worker located in the LAPD Central Division. When police officers prepare to cite a homeless person, they give that person the option of meeting with the SOS worker in order to enter a social service program. If that person finishes the service program, the citation is not processed.

The Los Angeles Times highlighted this program a couple of years ago:
SOS In LA Times

Homeless In Cincinnati

Today, a group of faith communities and service providers from Cincinnati, Ohio visited PATH to learn more about the PATH Mall. Like Los Angeles and every other city in the country, they have a homeless problem. Estimates range up to 25,000 homeless in the greater Cincinnati area.

The group wanted to learn from PATH about how to develop an integrated service center. They have plans to build a 100,000 sq ft center to house dozens of service providers.

No matter what city you might be from, homelessness is a fact of life. Unfortunately, it is so overwhelming that communities struggle with finding solutions. It is refreshing when groups seek to work together to develop long-term solutions.

The County Steps Up To The Plate

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $24.6 million allocation for homeless services. (Click title to read the article from our PATH website.) Compared to the City of Los Angeles’s past investment, it is like hitting a home run. Compared to the overall investment of money for homeless services, it is more like a bunt.

We need a lot of investment to solve this problem. And a $24.6 million allocation is a great step toward jump starting a new initiative to end homelessness in Los Angeles. The money includes:

• $20 million for new and existing year-round shelters. (The article says it will provide 70 overnight beds. That number must be incorrect. $20 million for 70 beds does not make sense.)
• $2 million to build a transitional shelter for homeless families.
• $600,000 for the Salvation Army’s homeless families shelter. (20 families)
• $2 million for administration of services. (That’s a lot of money!)

We are going to need a lot more help, however, if we are going to really end this problem. Just look at downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica (and the Westside), Hollywood, Long Beach, and other areas hit hard by homelessness, and it is clear we need a game-winning grand slam to really make a big difference.