Counting Homeless in Las Vegas Is NOT Like Counting Cards

Most HUD-funded jurisdictions performed a mandated—every two years--homeless count this past January. It was the second homeless count. The first occurred in 2005.

Las Vegas was no exception in counting their homeless population. Three months later, the number ended up being 11,369 homeless people. In 2005, the number was 13,000.

Of course, homeless advocates have already countered that this number is wrong. They say that homelessness has not decreased in Las Vegas. In fact, advocates think the number is close to 14,500.

But we all know that homeless counting is not an exact science.

Here in Los Angeles, the number in 2005 was nearly 90,000. It took almost a year to release their numbers.

What will the number be for 2007? More? Less? The same?

It’s not an exact science, so that means it will basically be more political… More homeless would mean that all of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in homelessness in the past two years did nothing.

If it is less homeless then it means that homeless advocates will cry, “Foul!” or maybe even demand a recount. If the city and county of Los Angeles have not built affordable housing to house the number of homeless represented in a decrease, then the number would not be real.

It’s a real dilemma. But one thing we will all agree on. After spending a half of a million dollars to count the homeless in Los Angeles, there will still be tens of thousands of people living on the streets of Los Angeles County.

Mental Health Is Not Just A Homeless Issue

As we have sadly seen this week, even people who are not homeless struggle with the terrible disease of mental illness. Sadly, in Virginia, a college student living in the dorms fell victim to mental illness taking along dozens of other innocent people. He wasn't homeless. Instead, he was a deeply, deeply disturbed middle-class college student.

Homelessness has the stereotype of street people battling mental health issues—“the crazies on the street.” But as we have seen this week, all sectors of society have people who struggle with this.

Our society needs to be able to detect and care for people struggling with mental illness, and also be able to house and care for those who end up on the streets.

The time has come for society to acknowledge that people living on the streets with mental illness should be housed and cared for.

Our society, and especially our families, should never have to go through the consequences of a deeply disturbed person lashing out at society.

How About Providing A “Yurt” For Every Homeless Person in L.A.?

That’s what Joseph Mailander, an architectural specialist who also edits the blog MartiniRepublic.com, proposes in an editorial discussion in the Los Angeles Times.

This is what he proposes:

"In my dream city, Peter [the other writer whom Joseph is discussing], we'd stop handing taxpayer money over to developers and contractors for affordable housing projects and jails. We'd simply house whoever needed lodging, for a year or for a night, in New Yurt City, along the banks of the river south of downtown, in yurts—at under $7,000 a unit, a scant $175 million buys an astonishing 25,000 of these, and the city and County have the land. And we'd give them access to 2,000 Echo Park Lake-level secure necessary rooms that can be built for $17,000 a unit, not the $200,000 boondoggle outhouses they've incongruently plunked down on Skid Row. That would add another $34 million to the bill."

I like the “out of the box” thinking. Although setting up squatter villages throughout Los Angeles is not my kind of solution.

But certainly there is a compromise between having to build $300,000 affordable housing units or $7,000 Yurts. For example, we could build less costly affordable housing units, if we could reduce the required parking, build on public land, reduce the required sizes of rooms and units, and even eliminate the living wage requirement--this would be specifically for units that will house homeless people only.

Since there is a housing and homeless crisis, we certainly need new creative solutions…