Free Mansion In Hawaii: It’s Like The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air…

There are over three hundred media reports on a Japanese millionaire giving away a million dollar mansion to a homeless family in Hawaii. He plans to give away eight more. It’s like winning a lottery ticket…

But is giving a homeless family a million dollar mansion a good thing?

It is certainly good for the Japanese man who is one of the wealthiest people in Japan. The international media attention has been intense. And I’m sure the tax write off is just as good.

But when I think of spending money on helping the homeless, I look at the “return on investment” (ROI). How many people can we help get off the streets for the least amount of money?

I’m sure in his business dealings, this man looks at the ROI like any other business person.

So why not sell these eight million dollar mansions, and build permanent housing for 100 homeless families? Helping 100 families with children makes much more sense than helping one family.

But maybe his ROI is the international media attention, rather than helping as many families as possible? If that’s the case, I think he got what he wanted…

Mall Network Movement Is Growing: San Francisco Is Setting Up A Multi-Service Center

San Francisco’s approach to resolving homelessness has become nationally known for its Project Homeless Connect Day and its Permanent Supportive Housing initiatives. SF is now seeing the value of integrating support services onto one site.

This is what PATH calls the “Mall Network”—the promotion of multi-service centers as a means of retooling how support services addresses homelessness. Putting support services into one building—health care, mental health, substance abuse, employment, education, etc.—allows people who are homeless better access into a community’s homeless service network.

It appears that San Francisco will be setting up what they call an “Integrated Care Center”… here in Los Angeles we call it the “PATH Mall.” Same concept, different name.

Multi-service centers are more cost effective, coordinate services, encourage a regional approach to addressing homeless, and help direct people into permanent supportive housing.

A national movement is being established to promote multi-service centers around the country. Here in Los Angeles, we will be hosting a national “Mall Network Summit” in October 2007. L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa and Century Housing CEO Allan Kingston are the honorary chairs.

Currently the Mall Network has 48 members representing 26 cities around the country. You can learn more about this movement at mallnetwork.org.

Entertainment Industry Should Not Demean Hurting People

It appears that a film studio posted a video of homeless people in Puerto Rico engaging in degrading acts—for example, eating cat food on film. It reminds me of the “bumfights” videos that were circulating a couple of years ago--a video that actually encouraged teens to beat up a homeless man with a baseball bat.

This humiliating and patronizing attitude is simply wrong. Why in the world do people want to push down hurting people when these people are already down?

Should celebrities toss hundred dollar bills at homeless people at a stop light? Or pay a homeless person a hundred dollars to drink a can of beer on a sidewalk outside of a Hollywood club? Or, in this incident, pay a homeless person to eat cat food on film?

If we are going to have creative interaction with hurting people who are homeless, let’s concentrate our energy on creating solutions to end their homelessness, not expend energy on degrading them.

And Then There Is The Advocate’s Response To The Business Community…

Here is a response to the business community published in the LA Times:

Estella Lopez's letter states that "instead of an average 2,100 calls a month involving sick or mentally ill people, last month we [the Central City East Assn.] received 729." Where did all the sick and mentally ill people go? Did they go to jail? Did they get dispersed to other parts of the city and county? Neither of these outcomes are decent or humane. Are they even effective?

City and county officials and civic leaders continue to have the wrong discussion about homelessness, and local journalists continue to cover the wrong story. Our goal should not be to make all the homeless individuals go away. Individuals with chronic diseases and severe mental illness do not belong in our jails or prisons. And they certainly do not belong on the streets, regardless of what part of town they are in. Why are these individuals not receiving the treatment they are entitled to? Why are the city and county dumping this problem on the Los Angeles Police Department, instead of investing in the housing and services that have been shown over and over again to end homelessness and to be cost effective?

Why does Los Angeles continue to spend $1 per capita on homelessness, while cities such as New York are spending $212 per capita to end homelessness?

Los Angeles will never end homelessness until our discussion of the problem evolves beyond touting the success of 5,400 arrests in skid row in six months and the disappearance of sick and mentally ill people. We need to end homelessness, not make people disappear by arresting them and spreading them all over the county in places where needed supportive services do not exist.

ROBERT CARLSON
Board of trustees member
Skid Row Housing Trust
Los Angeles

(Pic from www.salon.com)

The Business Communities’ Perspective On The LAPD Activity In Skid Row

A community dialogue on homelessness is taking place on the pages of the Los Angeles Times. Here is a response to the ACLU Executive Director’s Op-Ed piece (March 12) from the head of one of downtown’s business associations:

March 16

Ramona Ripston is my colleague on the board of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. We are united in our frustration and disgust at the limited resources available to address the regionwide tragedy of homelessness.

But I respectfully disagree that the Los Angeles Police Department has turned skid row into a "police state."

The real threat to life and liberty on skid row is not the LAPD, it's heroin and cocaine. The LAPD's special enforcement is saving lives. It began in September, and the results are nothing short of remarkable:

• In 2006, the Central City East Assn.'s security dispatch center received a monthly average of 532 complaints of open-air drug activity. Last month, we received 383 such calls.

• Instead of an average 2,100 calls a month involving sick or mentally ill people, last month we received 729.

Should the American Civil Liberties Union prevail in its attempt to limit this enforcement, its attorneys will celebrate victory for a night; the drug dealers and criminal predators will celebrate every night.

ESTELA LOPEZ
Executive director
Central City East Assn.
Los Angeles


(Pic from www.bergoiata.org)

Does Free Housing With No Rules Solve Homelessness?

The trend today is “housing first” where permanent affordable housing linked to services is the answer. In Salt Lake City, and other cities around the country, they also include a “high tolerance” approach so that basically rules are void.

In other words, if you have been homeless for a long time and are struggling with a disability or substance abuse (chronically homeless), you can have a free apartment with no rules.

Does this work? Supporters of this movement say that it is cheaper for a community to pay for this type of housing rather than pay for a homeless person’s emergency room visits and perhaps even jail visits. Clearly, building such housing would get people off the streets.

Who would not want free housing with no rules?

But we really need to look at the bigger, more moral picture. The goal in ending homelessness is to help transform people’s lives. Not to simply give them a free ride—even if it is cheaper than letting them live on the streets. Ending homelessness is about transformation. It’s about helping people gain personal dignity.

We all need to feel proud and dignified. That is a personal right.

I think we should be building permanent affordable housing for people in need. But we should also be helping them access permanent employment. And if they can’t work, we should help them access activities that are dignified—perhaps part-time work or volunteer work.

Warehousing people into free housing is not the answer. Providing dignified housing that helps people live dignified lives is the real answer.

(Pic from www.cplweb.com)

New Yorkers Support Ending Homelessness...

Jonathan Hunter, the California Director of Corporation For Supportive Housing, sent me the results of a New York study. It shows that people do want solutions to ending homelessness.

Here it is:

A new study of New Yorkers’ opinions about homelessness and housing was released yesterday that found that

88% of New Yorkers favor supportive housing for homeless New Yorkers;
85% say they approve of having their tax dollars pay for housing for homeless people;
72% say they have ‘some confidence’ in nonprofits’ ability to run effective programs for homeless people.

Other findings include:

90% believe that New Yorkers have a basic right to shelter
72% believe that as long as homelessness exists, America “has failed to live up to its ideals”
67% believe that most homeless people are on the streets or in shelters owing to “circumstances beyond their control”.
60% say that they would not be upset at all at having subsidized apartments in their neighborhood.

The study was conducted by Public Agenda and funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation. To read the full study, go to http://68.121.83.90/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.shnny.org/.