Court Decision Should Not Start New Fighting

The Ninth Circuit Court decided against the City of Los Angeles in their pursuit of enforcing homeless ordinances.

Rather than fight over the two opposing views of this opinion, I think we should be concentrating on solutions.

Although the opinion says that the City may not enforce the ordinance “at all times and places”, it still allows enforcement “at certain times and/or places”.

Therefore, I think we should implement a “progressive” enforcement of the ordinance. During the mornings, there are usually open shelter beds. This is the time we should be strongly encouraging people on the streets to access these beds while they are open. During these time we should be able to enforce the ordinance, if people refuse to access the beds. When the beds are full, then enforcement should stop.

The reality is that we are not going to provide sufficient numbers of shelter beds (nearly 60,000 new beds) any time soon. So rather than simply give up, and allow people to sleep on our streets, we should be both building more temporary and permanent housing, as well as being able to “triage” people off the streets.

Architecture Can Counter NIMBYism

I’m on vacation, but I was told there is a nice article in the Los Angeles Times about PATH, Midnight Mission, and how architecture can deal with NIMBYism.

Here is the link. Here is also an excerpt:

The PATH, or People Assisting the Homeless, facility in the shadow of the Hollywood Freeway, designed on a very tight budget by Jeffrey M. Kalban & Associates and completed four years ago, is a case in point. A converted industrial building, it has a bright color scheme and extensive signage — in part to increase its visibility to drivers who pass it every day but also to make it more of a neighborhood beacon than an eyesore. Kalban has designed a new three-story, 20-unit transitional housing facility for PATH in Inglewood, due to break ground this fall, that stresses openness and visibility in much the same way.

That effort goes hand in hand with PATH's strategy, every time it opens a new facility, to convince neighbors that its presence will make the area better and safer. Joel John Roberts, PATH's executive director, says that in the case of the facility near the Hollywood Freeway, he lobbied the city to repave surrounding streets and has allowed police to use the building's security cameras and its rooftop for surveillance.

According to Sam Davis, a San Francisco architect and the author of "Designing for the Homeless: Architecture That Works," good design is among the most effective antidotes to NIMBYism. He suggests building homeless centers that look brightly optimistic and meticulously clean, rather than cloaked or institutional, and that provide courtyards, alleys or other spaces for people to line up for services or smoke a cigarette, so they don't loiter out front. Indeed, when county officials are selecting sites for the five regional centers, they should give preference to those buildings that already include such areas. There's probably not room in the budget, after all, to create them from scratch.

I'm On Vacation...

Taking some days off from the grind...

Trendsetting Maine Wants To Protect Homeless People

The first of its kind in the country, a new law was passed to increase penalties for those who attack homeless people.

This is something we should do in Los Angeles… particularly Central City East (“Skid Row”).

Here is the article:

The governor of Maine signed legislation Thursday to stiffen the penalty for those convicted of attacking homeless people.

The measure, said to be the first law of its kind in the country, gives judges the flexibility to add additional incarceration time in such crimes. It comes amid a recent nationwide spike in violence against the homeless.

Michael Stoops, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, called the legislation “an important and symbolic statement” — adding that similar efforts are pending in Massachusetts and Florida. A comparable bill in Maryland recently failed to pass by a single vote, he said.

Violent attacks captured on videotape in Florida and San Francisco in recent weeks have added to the impetus to provide protection for the homeless, Stoops said.

Is L.A. Ready To Go Shopping?

I think sticker-shock would be a common response to the shopping list published in the Daily News recently.

They list the cost of all the urgent needs of Los Angeles. Their total price… $250 billion over the next 10 to 30 years. This includes things like highways and streets, sewers, community colleges, jails, health care, anti-gang programs, police stations, the subway to the beach, and, of course, homelessness.

The recent Bring L.A. Home plan states that our community would need to spend $12 billion in the next ten years to resolve homelessness. Not a big figure if you compare it to the quarter of a Trillion dollars listed.

So the big question is this… what is more important? Saving the lives of people floundering on our streets? Or building more jails and highways?

Like most of us prudent shoppers, we should put together a shopping wish list, with the most realistic purchases on top.

And what purchase should be on the top of this list? Saving people’s lives on our streets—homelessness.

Here’s the list:

Highways, streets, mass transit, sewers and storm drains throughout the county over 10 years: $100 billion

County's share of governor's infrastructure spending plan: $74 billion

L.A. Community College projects: $3 billion

L.A. County jails: $500 million

L.A. County health system: $1.1 billion

Gangs (proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase): $3.25 billion

L.A. County's share of unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions and retiree health costs: $50 billion to $60 billion

MTA Red Line extension through Westside: $4.5 billion

Homelessness: $12 billion

LAPD police stations (estimates from 20-year master plan adopted in 1996): $1.2 billion to $2 billion over 20 years

LA’s Suburbs Are Revolting

It is not like the French suburbs outside of Paris, where youth and disenfranchised French rioted for their rights.

Instead, today’s Los Angeles suburban revolts are all about the rights of middle-class America.

Their fear… that downtown’s homeless population will be “dumped” in their backyards.

West Covina, Burbank, Long Beach, Santa Monica and many other outer-lying towns are rounding up their wagons to fend off the “threat” of a stabilization center in their back yard.

I don’t think these middle-class citizens will torch neighborhoods or march against homeless people—that’s just not politically correct. But nevertheless, the wagons are circling. NIMBYism is alive and kicking.

With thousands and thousands of our citizens stranded on our urban and suburban streets, why would the middle-class be afraid of these vulnerable, hurting people?

Yes, I understand that communities don’t want “Skid Row” set up on their streets. Who would want that? But why can’t we help our hurting people while still banning the existence of street crime, drug dealing, and squatting?

Helping others should be a win-win situation.

And if we are really going to fear… we should fear that our most vulnerable citizens of our community will die on our streets.