A Week Off: But Blog Will Continue

I'm taking a week off for vacation. However, I have some key leaders filling in. Their insight into homelessness and housing is significant... former Planning Director for a County/City agency, former Legislative Deputy for City Council President, and a couple of agency heads. I think you will enjoy their insight...

We are still preparing the new--and improved--LA Homeless Blog. It will be rolled out in September...

Conventional Plea: Don’t Sweep The Homeless!

Every four years, you can expect the same at the national Presidential conventions—horns, signs, buttons, long-winded speeches, balloons, and… cities sweeping homeless people before the convention begins.

City officials just don’t want to show these political leaders the “dirty” side of their urban neighborhoods. So they dispatch the police to forcibly move their homeless people into other neighborhoods, away from convention goers.

The National Coalition For The Homeless is saying, “No more.” They are sending out letters to party leaders (and the media) asking the leaders of Denver and St. Paul (the location of next year’s conventions) to refrain from arresting and sweeping innocent homeless people.

This is no different than other high-profile events—Super Bowl, Olympics, etc. So will party leaders be willing to break this routine? Let’s wait and see…

(Pic from http://static.howstuffworks.com/)

Paper Blames The County For The Death of a Hospital

Now that the funeral of the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital is occurring, the community is now pointing fingers at each other.

The editorial from today’s LA Times says the hospital should be shut down, permanently. In an almost full column, the piece is titled, “Close King-Harbor.” They don’t mince words. But as you meander through the piece, the editorial board says that it needs to be replaced. I agree with that. If you are going to kill a dying patient—like the hospital—at least replace it with a better one.

The finger pointing in this piece is simple:

Yet to see the hospital as a failed institution is to miss the point. It is the county government itself that is failing. The county's foster care system, its jails, its probation department -- all have flirted with collapse. All are underfunded and neglected. All fail the same demographic -- the poor, African Americans, Latino immigrants -- over and over again.

The supervisors may be politically craven, but they are not irrational. They have little control over the billions of dollars they must spend. They have no leader. They find clout where they can, in their five separate domains. The system works poorly for the people they serve. Just as it's necessary to rethink how medical services are delivered to the southern part of the county, it's time to reconsider how the entire county is governed. That -- and perhaps only that -- would do honor to the original purpose of King-Harbor: to serve those who need the county most.

(And interestingly, on the opposite page—op-eds-- Erin Aubry Kaplan points the blaming finger at middle-class African Americans who stopped supporting the hospital years ago.)

At this point, finger pointing does nothing but divert attention away from what will really happen while this hospital is closed--an increase in homelessness.

(Pic from www.scpr.org)

A Closed Hospital Means An Increase In Homelessness

For years now, we have been watching the slow death of a health care facility that is supposed to help the poorest of L.A.’s poor. Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital was created in the aftermath of the Watts riots, to care for families and individuals in south Los Angeles.

The federal government recently announced their withdrawal of $200 million of funding (half of the hospital’s annual budget), and the County of Los Angeles announced they would close the facility.

Interesting that earlier this year, and all of last year, private hospitals were being accused of “dumping” homeless patients into downtown Skid Row. Government officials and community leaders screamed “foul”, and the hospitals were sued.

Clearly, it’s not a good thing to send homeless patients into Skid Row. But come on… it’s worse to shut down a large regional health facility that is supposed to prevent homelessness. Maybe someone (or some entity) should be suing those who are closing down this hospital.

We all know that the hospital was accused of really terrible health care—i.e., patients calling 911 in the hospital lobby. But shutting down the facility is not the answer. The facility is already there, and the health system is already established in the community.

The County of Los Angeles should cover the costs of keeping the hospital open and making sure the management of the facility is effective. The County has a $21.775 Billion dollar annual budget. It can afford to spend $200 million.

Affordable health care is a significant prevention piece in solving homelessness. Without such care, people end up homeless. The closing of this regional healthcare facility in a significantly poor part of Los Angeles will certainly cause an increase in homelessness.

Not All Teens Bash Homeless People

In Calgary, Canada, one teen celebrated her birthday helping at a homeless center rather than partying with her friends.

Here's part of the article:

The ice cream was abundant at Hayley Gorman's 14th birthday yesterday as she celebrated with about 1,200 people she didn't even know.

The teen spent her special evening serving dinner to Calgary's homeless at the Calgary Drop-In Centre rather than partying with friends.

"I get to share my birthday with so many people and they're all people who need help," she said.

"I'm helping by giving people more food than they would normally have."

Hayley decided to spend her birthday serving dinner to strangers after she volunteered at a dinner sponsored by her father's cooking club in January.

Nice to know that not all teenagers are picking up bats and attacking people who are homeless.

(Pic from www.mylilypads.com)