State Senator Cedillo Answers Questions On His “Homeless” Bills

The LA Downtown News recently interviewed California State Senator Gil Cedillo. Here are some of his answers in regards to his ten “homeless” bills:

Q: Whose fault is Skid Row?

A: Everyone's. This is the fifth largest economy in the world. This is the most important and richest city in the richest state in the most powerful country in the world. It's absolutely unacceptable. We went down to see immediately some of the urgent things that we could do to deal with this.

Q: What did you see?

A: A lot of drugs. Lots of drug abuse and alcoholism. I'm familiar with that. I've had my brother-in-law go through recovery Downtown. I don't think there's a family in America that is immune from the challenges of alcoholism or drug abuse regardless of their economic situation.

So from that emerged our desire to create a recovery zone - a place, a sanctuary, for people who do have the challenge of drug or alcohol dependency to seek treatment and to do so in an environment that does not tolerate drug dealers preying upon their vulnerabilities. We're not liberal about that. We wouldn't tolerate that anywhere in the city, why would we tolerate that Downtown?

[One of our bills] would create the drug free zone, and one would enhance penalties for drug dealers. Then we want to [create] a drug court that deals with people who are drug or alcohol dependent or people who suffer from mental illness and who can make those distinctions. And then not criminalize those people but make circumstances for them to make a recovery.

There's also this question of dumping. Many people in this county, many people in this region and throughout the southwest send people to Downtown Los Angeles. They do not embrace their responsibility to members of their communities to provide services. Downtown cannot bear the burden of services for 13 million people.

(Photo by Gary Leonard... thanks CCE Blogger for reminding me to give credit...)

Are The County’s “Stabilization Centers” Reverse Dumping?

The local media just doesn’t have this correct… Los Angeles County recently announced an historic initiative to prevent homelessness, connected with a $100 million investment.

The media says it is just “reverse dumping.” (Sending homeless people from Skid Row to the suburbs.) I disagree…

The “stabilization centers” or “regional homeless centers” are not new facilities. They are simply new staffing and programs that will be housed in existing Homeless Access Centers. So finding new locations for these “centers” is a moot point.

In terms of “reverse dumping”… There are thousands of homeless people outside of downtown Los Angeles, throughout the suburbs of Los Angeles County. These “centers” will reach out to the people on the streets outside of downtown. They are not “centers” that will serve downtown homeless people.

Frankly, what these “centers” will provide are places for suburban municipalities to send their homeless. If you are in Lakewood, and there are homeless people that need help, you don’t need to send them downtown any more, you can send them to a local “stabilization center”.

These regional centers just make sense…

Poverty Is The Precursor To Homelessness…

The Institute For The Study of Homelessness and Poverty put out some facts on the recent Economic Roundtable study called, “Poverty, Inequality, and Justice: A Vanishing Middle Class in Southern California.”

Here are some of the facts:

* Nearly 1/3 of LA County, or 3.1 million residents, received public assistance in 2002.

* The bottom 17% of LA County wage earners received 2% of the total county income, compared to the top 6% who received 29% of county income in 1999.

* 7% of those on public assistance were homeless in 2002.

* South LA has the highest percentage of residents aged 24 or older without a high school diploma (48%), while West LA has the lowest (6%).

* The number of residents on Cal Works in LA County in 20 half that of 1996.

What does this all mean? Besides dealing with the existing people living on our streets, if we don’t also address poverty, homelessness will just increase.

Coincidentally, Mayor Villaraigosa will be hosting a poverty task force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors today in Los Angeles. They will be addressing education, jobs, and financial security for poor families.

Here’s what the LA Times reports about the Mayor’s efforts:
__________

Public policy experts give Villaraigosa high marks for making poverty a priority, even as they point out the delicate balance he must strike between the often-competing interests of labor and big business.

"He's staking his political future on solving a problem that a lot of mayors give up on," said Peter Dreier, a public policy professor at Occidental College and director of the school's Urban and Environmental Policy Program.

"There are a lot of easier roads on which to build a national political profile than to tackle homelessness and poverty in your backyard. I think it's a statement about his core values," the professor added.

Southern California Cities Gather Together To Form The Mall Network

Staff of cities and a few Counties from throughout the Los Angeles region met at PATH today to talk about developing a national network of cities and groups who support multi-service centers for the homeless.

“The Mall Network” is trying to re-design how support services for homeless fit into the current trend of reaching chronic homelessness and “housing first.”

Staff who attended or expressed support of the Mall Network today were from the cities of: Beverly Hills, El Monte, Glendale, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Pomona, Riverside, Santa Monica, West Hollywood; and the counties of: Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Bernardino. Agencies included: Midnight Mission, Ocean Park Community Center, PATH, Salvation Army, Shelter Partnership and Volunteers of America.

The County of Los Angeles is the Lead Agency, and the Partnering Agencies are: City of Long Beach, Midnight Mission, PATH, and Shelter Partnership.

This meeting was significant because rarely have such a diverse group of cities and counties met to discuss homelessness in the Los Angeles region.

Will Immigration Reform Penalize Homeless Programs?

Vheadline.com columnist Oscar Heck thinks so. Here is what he says:

"In the largest demonstration in California’s history, well over half a million people marched through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 25, in defense of immigrant rights and to protest the government attacks on immigrants, especially undocumented workers. The demonstration was the culmination of two weeks of protest demonstrations against new federal legislation, passed by the House of Representatives and scheduled to be taken up Monday by the US Senate, which would make illegal immigration a felony crime, as well as criminalizing all those who help illegal immigrants—including social service and charity workers who operate soup kitchens, homeless shelters and emergency clinics. The scale of the demonstrations has staggered the political establishment in the United States, while going largely unreported by the American media. Not until the mammoth turnout in Los Angeles Saturday did the national television networks even report on the protests."

Will Immigration Issues Trump Homelessness?

To have the largest demonstration in history, more than even the Vietnam War protests, occur here in Los Angeles, I’m a little worried.

Of course, I am worried about the direction the U.S. Congress is going in terms of immigration reform, but more urgently… I’m worried that the political and public attention that is currently focused on homelessness in Los Angeles will dissipate.

Those of us who have been struggling to resolve homelessness for the last decade have all along said to one another—“I wonder how long all of this community attention on homelessness will last?”

For years, we have been encountering the “Nathaniel’s” (the person LAT columnist Steve Lopez writes about in his column). We struggled to help homeless people with mental illness or drug addiction access permanent housing when no one noticed.

Now we worry that this public focus on homelessness—from newspaper reporters to the Governor, from the County to the city—will change to the hotly contested, highly emotional, debate on immigration.

To see these active high school students from our local schools march on our streets because they are worried about the legal status of their parents is moving. It definitely attracts attention.

Will this become the “tipping point” away from concentrating on homelessness toward another emotional societal problem—illegal immigration?

I certainly hope not. Both issues need to be addressed.

Homeless Man Burns To Death From Garage Fire

Early this morning, a fire consumed a detached garage behind an apartment building near the Coliseum. The LA Fire Department Blog reports that a sixty-year-old man who was homeless was unfortunately sleeping in that garage and succumbed to the fire.

It makes sense for someone who is stuck living on the streets to find shelter from the night’s cold elements as well as from the threat of harm; a residential garage is better than a sidewalk in Skid Row. But most people wouldn’t think the temporary place of “refuge” would burn down.

This is just another of numerous incidents in the past year that shows the need for more emergency and permanent housing for the homeless here in Los Angeles.

LAT Columnist Lopez Is A True YIMBY

In today’s column, Steve Lopez writes about an ugly issue that very well promotes homelessness in our community—NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). These are the vocal groups that fight against locating homeless services in their community.

It doesn’t matter how much money our cities and county pumps into providing services and housing for the homeless ($100 million from the county, $50 million from the city), if NIMBYism prevails, we still won’t be able to place these services and housing in our communities. NIMBY is a significant barrier. Money alone, will not solve homelessness. Enough affordable housing placed throughout our county, and coordinated services that helps people enter the service system and access housing, will only work if the community allows these facilities in their neighborhoods.

Although Lopez unfairly points a finger at Supervisor Antonovich, he does challenge public officials to take a leadership role in fighting back NIMBYism. He says, “Given the astounding wealth in the Southern California real estate market, public officials ought to be embracing creative solutions like inclusionary zoning, which would require developers to build more low-income units. Instead we've got political cowards afraid to jeopardize campaign contributions and incur the wrath of fellow NIMBYs.”

I say every community needs a “Project YIMBY” program. Yes! In My Back Yard is a campaign we are doing in the Hollywood and West Hollywood area that mobilizes the community to respond to homelessness in positive ways—like “Connect” days, coordinated street outreach, finding locations for emergency and permanent housing, and getting community members to help organize these efforts.