Is Los Angeles’ Approach To Homelessness A Failure?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the homeless policies of the Bush’s Administration. They see it as a “sort of Nixon-goes-to-China reversal of expectations” where a conservative Republican government is willing to address a typically more liberal social issue of homelessness.

Bush’s point person on this is Philip Mangano, the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Mangano is leading an effort to end chronic homelessness in ten years. He is traveling the country helping cities develop “ten year plans to end homelessness”.

After a few years of this effort, some cities are showing numerical declines of people on the streets. This includes San Francisco, Denver, and New York City.

However, the Wall Street Journal says that this Republican homeless initiative has “one huge failure: Los Angeles, which he calls the Ground Zero of American street homelessness.”

Is Los Angeles a failure in addressing homelessness? And should the federal government take the blame for homelessness in Los Angeles?

Some local political leaders would agree that it is the federal government’s lack of funding services and housing as the cause of homelessness in Los Angeles. But, frankly, I think that’s too simplistic.

Homelessness is the result of the entire society neglecting those who are poor—both public and private. If we are to point the blame finger at anyone, it should be toward everyone.

(Pic from www.apcstart.com)

Obama For President? L.A. Already Has One…

There is a President in Los Angeles, and his name is Eric Garcetti. He is the President of the Los Angeles City Council.

The Los Angeles Daily News recently reported on Councilmember Garcetti’s first year of presiding over the City Council. The main public policy and social issues that the Council has tackled are:

- Policies regarding Downtown Skid Row and the Homeless
- Affordable Housing
- Living Wages
- Public Safety Programs

It is an impressive list of activities. Although sometimes they are overshadowed by our Mayor’s priority list, the Los Angeles City Council—led by Council Member Garcetti—are addressing social issues that are certainly a priority.

(Pic from http://eecue.com/)

"Homelessness in Los Angeles--15 Minutes Of Fame"

One of my peers, Adlai Wertman (the CEO of Chrysalis), wrote a poignant article for the electronic magazine "Sharing Witness."

Here is the full link.

Here is the beginning of the article:

As the CEO of Chrysalis, a homeless agency with three offices throughout Los Angeles, I always heard the same plaintive cry from my peers - "Why isn't anybody paying attention to this tragedy?" If people only knew what was going on, we thought, they would surely respond with the funds and attention needed to address a population of homeless in our County of over 88,000 - significantly larger than any State.

In 2006, we all got what we asked for, sort of. First, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times wrote a series of articles exposing Skid Row - a thirty square block area in downtown LA which has the highest concentration of homeless in America (an estimated 10,000 to 15,000). These extremely dramatic and embarrassing articles caught the attention of everyone in LA. At the same time, the development of downtown lofts had finally expanded to where it bumped up against the edges of Skid Row. Suddenly, we had created a team of strange bedfellows - citizens, businesses, developers, government, advocates and service providers, all focused on the tragedy of homelessness in LA.

It should have been expected that the reactions would be quite different...

Read more here.

Will Cold Weather Move People To Resolve Homelessness?

Yesterday, the lows in Los Angeles hit 36 degrees. Not great for those of us outside, shopping or eating out. Devastating for those among us in Los Angeles who have to literally sleep on the streets.

A few more degrees colder, and it could snow in “sunny” Los Angeles.

On a day when we honor Martin Luther King Jr., I wonder if any public officials will mention that the “crisis” of poverty and injustice is still going on today—more than thirty years after King stood up to fight the same injustices?

People sleeping on streets because they are too poor to live in housing is simply an injustice in a country that is the most rich and powerful in the world.

In New York City, people who are homeless at least have the “right” to shelter. Here in Los Angeles, could we at least give people who are on the streets the “right” to be protected, especially when it gets as cold here as in New York?

I wonder if Cold Weather in “sunny” Los Angeles will move people into action?

(Pic from www.yopyop.com)