A Third Of A Billion Dollars For One High School…

This past Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District opened up the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, a high school for 2,400 students just outside of downtown Los Angeles.

It cost $350 million to build, and took ten years longer than expected. There is even a $17 million “toxic gas mitigation system” that costs $250,000 per year to operate.

Hmmm… I wonder what else we could have spent this money on rather than another high school. Try 1,200 brand new affordable homes for homeless families in Los Angeles.

Instead, we have what the San Jose Mercury News stated: “The school became a symbol of bureaucratic ineptitude and wasted taxpayer monies. The ensuing scandal swept a district superintendent and almost half the school board out of office.”

(Pic from curbednetwork.com)

Homeless Numbers Increasing in LA’s Skid Row

The blogdowntown is reporting that the LAPD is issuing their monthly homeless count. And it looks like from the same period last year, the number of people living on the streets of Skid Row increased by about 150 people. From 750 people in August 2007 to 923 people in August 2008. Remember Skid Row is a 50 square block area in downtown Los Angeles. That’s a lot of people sleeping on the streets in this condensed area.

Midnight Mission, a large emergency and transitional housing program in Skid Row reports that their average daily count of people accessing services jumped from 150 last year to 250 this year.

What’s going on? After a “successful” LAPD Safer Cities Initiative helped clean up the streets, is Skid Row going back to its old ways?

(Pic from www.nyu.edu)

Where Do Homeless People Go During A Hurricane?

There’s an interesting article in a Jamaican paper answering this question. Here’s the beginning of it:

THEY DID not have to worry about their houses being flooded or washed away; but they sure wished they had homes.

They live, roam and sleep on the streets and sidewalks of the island's capital city.
Joseph Binns, 45, is one of them. Our news team met Binns along East Street. He was making his way into the belly of downtown Kingston - Coronation Market to be exact - to search for leftover mangoes. It was still raining.

Binns, who seems naturally jovial, told The Sunday Gleaner that he would bring the "bounty" back to the nearby poor-relief shelter - where he spent the night - and share the loot with his friends.

His crooked fingers, which were wrinkled from being cold, and the evidence of hunger painted at the corner of his mouth told only a few sentences of his 'hard-knock' life story.

He says he sleeps anywhere, but the streets are dangerous sometimes. Binns explained that some young boys roam the streets of downtown at nights and make sport out of hurting homeless persons while they sleep. He has been at the receiving end of their youthful fury.

(Pic from www.hurricane-tracking.co.uk)

The Killing Of A Homeless Man

Here in the Los Angeles region, there has been another shooting of a homeless person. Similar to the circumstances of a killing of a homeless woman a decade ago, this past weekend’s killing occurred from the gun of a police officer.

An Inglewood Police Officer shot and killed a homeless person, because he had a fake gun. It’s similar to the killing of a homeless woman ten years ago in Hancock Park.

The tragedy is, of course the fact that this man is no longer living. But while investigators look into this incident, no one will investigate why our community allows homeless people struggling with mental illness to stay on our streets. It’s just not fair that we let them live on their own on the streets.

And frankly, it’s not fair for police officers to have to become MSW-educated case workers trying to figure out if these people are threats to the public or simply a public nuisance. If someone, even a homeless person, brandishes a toy gun at a police officer, the odds are high there will be shots fired.

While blaming fingers start pointing at each other, let’s point the finger at all of us—for allowing people to stay on our streets.

The Homeless Numbers Game With A Twist

The Christian Science Monitor put out an editorial about the recent “reduction” in homelessness as per the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They acknowledge that chronic homelessness (people who have been on the streets for years) has fallen by 12 percent since 2005. That’s the good news.

They also acknowledge the critics who criticize HUD’s numerical approach on counting.

“Housing First”, the approach where you put homeless people into apartments first and then provide support services, is acknowledged as the solution.

The CSM’s suggestion (or twist)? Apply Housing First principles to homeless families and the working poor. In other words, don’t just help the chronic homeless (who are only 10% of the total homeless population), but apply this solution to the whole homeless population.

In theory, this is a great idea. However, the federal government (let alone local governments) do not have the political will to provide the resources to develop housing for all of its homeless population. Los Angeles, alone, would have to invest something like $15 billion to house its homeless.

It’s just not going to happen. But cheers to CSM for promoting a more just approach to helping the hurting people living on our streets.

(Graphic from www.athleticmindedtraveler.com)