LA’s Homeless Authority’s Latest Actions

I was at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission meeting yesterday morning. (The LA Times reports on this meeting in today’s paper. Click here.) This was the first time the Commission had met since the release of City Controller Laura Chick’s report on the agency's finances.

Here are some basic facts of the meeting:

1. The commission approved the hiring of Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio, and Associates to help LAHSA bring their books up to date, pay agencies, and set up a system to prevent this from happening in the future. They are spending $105,000 to do this.
2. The commission set up two new committees: (a) Finance, Contract, and Grant Management Committee; and (b) Executive Director Performance Review Committee.
3. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are also conducting a review.
4. LAHSA, LA Housing Department, and LA County Community Development Commission staff will meet with the service providers that are owed money. Below is the email that was sent out to agencies:
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IMPORTANT MEETING FOR AGENCIES THAT RECEIVE FUNDING
FROM THE LOS ANGELES HOMELESS SERVICES AUTHORITY

HOSTED BY

THE LOS ANGELES HOMELESS SERVICES AUTHORITY (LAHSA)
THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES HOUSING DEPARTMENT (LAHD)
THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION (LACDC)


Your agency is invited to a meeting on Thursday, July 28, 2005 to hear a presentation from LAHSA, LAHD, and the LACDC on the steps that are being taken to address past due invoice payments as well as outstanding unexecuted contracts with LAHSA.

The meeting will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at:

St. Anne's Auditorium

155 N. Occidental Blvd., Los Angeles

(Limited amount of free parking available on site)

There will be a general information session and then all agencies will be invited to sit down with representatives from LAHSA, LAHD, and the LACDC to discuss individual situations concerning past due invoice payments as well as outstanding unexecuted contracts. Please bring extra copies of documents related to these two pending issues
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Deadly Heat Wave Continues in Phoenix

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) reported yesterday on Phoenix’s deadly heat wave. Click here. They say that 15 homeless people are now dead because of the blistering heat. 50,000 bottles of water have been donated to help those who are homeless survive the high temperatures. 10,000 to 12,000 people are homeless in Phoenix.

Advocates in Phoenix say that what the homeless really need are more services. Here are the reasons why more services are not offered, according to those people quoted by the LAT in Phoenix:

1. High cost of housing is forcing people to be homeless.
2. NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard); developers would rather build expensive housing rather than homeless shelters.
3. People in Arizona believe in “individualism and limited government”; so homeless people need to help themselves.

Interesting reasons why people are dying in a heat wave in an American city… “Individualism and limited government” as the cause of their deaths?

LA’s MOCA Exhibit Highlights Formerly Homeless Artist

The art of a young artist of Haitian descent is being displayed in downtown Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Click here to read about it. Jean-Michel Basquiat started by drawing graffiti on New York’s subway system. At the time, he was homeless in New York. His art became well-known in New York and Europe.

In 1988, at the age of 27, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose. Now, in 2005, admirers of his art work flock to LA’s MOCA… Here is a link of Basquiat: Click here.

Homeless Death Count Continues To Rise in Phoenix

The death count of homeless people has risen to 14 in Phoenix, Arizona. Read article here. Four more bodies were found on Wednesday. This incredible tragedy started last Saturday when the heat swelled to 116 degrees.

Water bottles are being distributed throughout the streets to help those who are homeless. Perhaps this might be a wake up call that this city (and our country) should start providing permanent solutions to those people who end up homeless.

In Las Vegas, Nevada where temperatures match Phoenix, authorities are investigating six deaths to see if these people were homeless. Los Angeles's temperatures are projected to be in the upper 90's, but in the inland valleys over 100.

Laura Chick's Press Release on LAHSA

Here is City Controller Laura Chick's press release on her investigation of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. She calls it a "critical juncture in the homeless crisis."

Here is the link for the press release: click here.

Problems With LA’s Homeless Authority

Most of the local papers report today about problems with Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint city and county authority to address homelessness. Here are some of the articles about LAHSA: LA Times, Daily News .

Also, here is a description from a local blog, laobserved.com (click here):

Trouble at Homeless Authority

City Controller Laura Chick released an audit today that found "serious accounting issues" at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. When Jim Hahn was mayor and the two political figures were clashing, that would have been the end of it—unless the City Council decided to study the issue. But Chick and Mayor Villaraigosa are allies and pals, and within hours the mayor formed a team to deal with the problem and issued a statement that follows after the jump. Does it mean anything real? I guess we'll know in a few months.

Meanwhile: Villaraiosa is off to Washington this week to meet with congressional leaders on homeland security and transit money. The list of meetings given the press is also after the jump.
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STATEMENT BY MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA
REGARDING AUDIT OF THE LOS ANGELES HOMELESS
SERVICES AUTHORITY (LAHSA)

I am aware of the recently announced problems at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), as revealed by the City Controller and the County-Auditor Controller's audit. I appreciate their efforts to bring this matter forward so that it can be resolved as quickly as possible. I cannot overstate the importance of resolving the issues identified in the Controller's audit.

Homelessness is one of Los Angeles most pressing problems. We cannot afford to allow the agency responsible for homeless services to put this vulnerable population and the many fine organizations that provide services to them at risk because of poor management.

Therefore, I am assigning a technical support team to correct the problems identified in the Controller's audit. The team will consist of staff from the City's Housing and Community Development Departments along with the firm of Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio and Associates (TCBA), an auditing and accounting firm with experience in restructuring public sector entities. This team will put in place the necessary fiscal controls and procedures, while ensuring that needed services continue to be provided.

I am also creating, in conjunction with the County, a Management Oversight Team to take corrective action quickly and most importantly, to ensure that there is no interruption in the delivery of services to the homeless.

The team will consist of the General Manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department, Ms. Mercedes Marques and the Executive Director of the County Community Development Commission, Carlos Jackson and will report to me through Deputy Mayor Bud Ovrom.

I have asked the team to report back within 60 days on the status of resolving immediate and short-term issues identified in the audit and to develop a plan for long-term stability at LAHSA. Working together, the team will put in place the necessary fiscal controls that will ensure LAHSA is more accountable to taxpayers.
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Nine Homeless People Die in Phoenix Heat

A heat wave in Los Angeles is always annoying. You blast the air conditioner in the car, at home, and at work. You carry water bottles around; you find shelter in the shade. Anything to stay cool.

For most of us, we don’t worry about dying in the heat.

But if you are homeless in Phoenix, Arizona, it is another story. Eleven people have died because of their recent heat wave; nine of these people were homeless. Read article here. Decomposing bodies are being found. It’s not a pretty sight. Today, the weather is predicted to be 113 degrees in this Arizona city.

The city is passing out 5,000 bottles of water to the homeless, as a response. Police officers, fire fighters, and social workers are mobilizing to distribute water to the city’s homeless.

You would think if they are putting this much effort into quenching the thirst of people who are homeless, they would also work toward housing them as well. A water bottle is one thing, a home is another…

Skid Row: Not The Kind of Row Houses We Want…

When most people think of homelessness, their first images are of Skid Row. Here is a description of this terrible predicament that our community has fallen into. It is an excerpt from my book “How To Increase Homelessness”; the chapter is titled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Plan” (Click here to see the book):
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It has become a pipeline of low-income and homeless humanity gushing onto the sidewalks, gutters, and alleys of our central city. Sadly, to some people, they are considered human waste who waste away their own lives along with our community resources. So they are pigeon-holed into neighborhoods where nobody wants them. We call it Skid Row.

Skid Row. A derogatory term created years ago when the down-and-out “bums” in the Northwestern logging industry would hang out where the logs skidded down the mountains to the waterways below. Now we see it as a place where human life has skidded to the bottom rung of the social ladder, where people have given up on their personal hopes and dreams, where futures scream to a halt.

Small little cardboard pup tents propped up against urban concrete block buildings. Rows and rows of them, lined up on urban sidewalks, as if they are meant to be there. We drive by them ignoring their predicament, pretending that human beings do not sleep in these temporary street structures. Pretending that this is just an apocalyptic horror movie that we can walk out of after sitting through a couple of hours of terror. But no matter how much we want to wish them away, they’re still there. People skidding down life’s path onto our public streets.

Our streets become their bedroom, living room, and unfortunately, their bathroom.

It’s no wonder that businesses and homeowners living near this predicament are screaming for help. Imagine if dozens and dozens of Greyhound buses filled with homeless people dropped off their passengers in your neighborhood. Imagine if they started erecting cardboard pup tents on your streets, near the stores you shop at, along the route where your children walk to school. There would be a town hall meeting faster than you could snap your fingers.

Everyone loses when nothing happens. Certainly people without homes would rather sleep in an apartment than in a cardboard pup tent. Certainly homeowners and businesses would rather see these people thriving in employment and permanent housing than being arrested or living in squalor.

Everyone knows there’s a problem, and we all want to solve it. We just can’t agree on what direction.