Creating A Tent City To Advocate For Action

That’s what happened in downtown Los Angeles recently. In fact, it worried the Mayor’s office so much that the Mayor wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times to defend his record on addressing homelessness.

Clearly, no public official would want a “city” of homeless tents camped out on the front lawn of City Hall.

So the advocates of the LA Coalition To End Hunger and Homelessness, indeed, made their point clear.

"Exactly a year ago, our leaders came to Skid Row and pledged to end homelessness in 10 years," said Bob Erlenbush of the Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. "But, once the television cameras left, we heard nothing. All we got was lip service and rhetoric and no action."

Sure enough, in the past couple of years, public officials and community leaders have been very vocal about their support to end homelessness in Los Angeles County. But words are useless without action—and, frankly, additional funding.

Without significant funding and new ways to address homelessness, this issue will just go away. Having tents camped out on the City Hall lawn was a way to literally shove this issue in the faces of public officials.

Will it work? We will find out…

(Pic from www.enmassefilms.org)

Of Course Mayors, If Asked, Are Going To Say NO…

A day after the LA Times reported that the LA County plan to establish regional homeless centers throughout the county was progressing, the Mayor of the City of Pomona (an hour east of downtown Los Angeles) said she would not allow one of the centers in her city. This, after the paper had mentioned Pomona as one of the sites.

It’s clearly not a good thing for the newspaper to publish where these centers will be sited. Cities respond quickly and harshly against them.

It just makes sense. If you ask a local city mayor, “Do you want a homeless assistance center in your backyard?”, he or she will either say “no” or will change the subject. Homeless centers are not popular, vote-getting, issues.

It’s not fair, however, to just start asking cities to site homeless centers—without educating the community. It makes more sense to begin grass-roots mobilization efforts to help cities understand that our communities need more housing and services to reduce the number of people living on our streets.

Let’s stop planning homeless services via the media, and begin more community mobilization efforts to help neighborhoods join the effort to end homelessness.

Develop A Regional Approach To LA’s Homelessness Is Correct

The LA Times reports that the L.A. County’s $100 million homelessness initiative is on track—even if the funding and the initiative is now one year old.

I talked with one of the reporters last week about this. They were looking for quotes that would show that the County has been too slow to respond. I wasn’t willing to say that. Instead, I told them that the County’s Stabilization Centers are very much needed for the region.

In the past, downtown Los Angeles has taken the brunt of addressing homelessness for the county. In today’s anti-“homeless dumping” environment the surrounding cities are unable to send their people who are homeless to downtown Los Angeles.

So these cities (88 total in the county) have no place to send people. Stabilization Centers—even if they were “demonized” a year ago—have now become solutions to a regional problem. Cities need a regional homeless center in their vicinity to send their people who are homeless.

These centers would house numerous services—mental health, health care, substance abuse, etc. They would be similar to the PATH Mall—a regional center that houses nearly two-dozen homeless service providers.

Let's hope the next year will actually result in regional centers around the county.

Is Oprah The Answer To Homelessness?

That's what some think in Santa Barbara... a small group of homeless advocates marched from Santa Barbara to Oprah's vast compound in Montecito, a four mile walk.

They placed signs, signatures, and even an Easter basket at Oprah's fence.

They hope that this mega-millionaire star might be willing to promote the cause of homelessness.

Can Oprah end homelessness? I'm sure with her influence and wealth she could make a significant dent in reducing homelessness. But the only way this societal issue can really go away is when everyone--government, faith community, philanthropy, business, and even super stars--commit to working together to find real solutions.