THE CITY - One might think from reading the Los Angeles Times recent coverage of the plight of the homeless in Los Angeles that the City would be mobilized to seek out and implement strategies to reduce homelessness. Notwithstanding the sad reality that almost 1 in 5 Los Angeles residents are living in poverty, and that LA is now the homeless capital of the nation, the problem is far from unsolvable.
Cities across the nation have made great strides: New York, Denver, Austin, just to name a few. What Los Angeles lacks compared to these cities is the political will to grapple with the problem in a meaningful way. Instead, the City has relied on a poor substitute for effective social policy – law enforcement.
As the Times has recently documented, the LAPD has been directed to roust homeless people from their hiding places, oversee the seizure and disposal of their personal property, push homeless encampments from one neighborhood to another, and ticket and tow the vehicles of people whose only buffer from the concrete sidewalk is the wheels of their cars.
Striving to stay ahead of the LAPD’s latest geographical focus, the homeless migrate around, first concentrated in Skid Row, then pushed to other neighborhoods in response to the City’s law enforcement directives; then back to Skid Row when residents of those neighborhoods beleaguered by the problems associated with homelessness—real and perceived—demand and get similar levels of law enforcement. While perhaps providing momentary relief to homeowners and temporary reprieve for political leaders, police enforcement does nothing to solve the problem of homelessness.
Housing, affordable to those without means, is the fundamental solution to reducing homelessness. Unfortunately, our mayor has never made housing a priority for his administration, and our city council has also failed to provide the necessary leadership.
Conceding that budgets are strained and, therefore, LA is unable to muster the resources needed to solve this housing crisis any time soon, the City should be looking for other concrete actions that would immediately improve the situation. There are actions that would address the root of the problem: the shortage of affordable housing. Some of them would cost the City little and all of them would offer substantial benefit, including:
• Resume the city’s existing subsidy program which funds the acquisition and refurbishment of small apartment buildings. Such a program could stanch L.A.’s loss of hundreds of units of affordable housing every year and, at $25,000-$50,000 per unit, this subsidy is modest compared to the cost of homelessness.
• Make underutilized, city-owned “surplus” properties available to not-for-profit organizations to create more affordable housing. For example, why not lease the air rights above city-owned parking lots to nonprofits to build shelters and affordable apartments? Eliminating the cost of buying land makes housing a whole lot cheaper to build.
• Systematize a distinction between the two types of illegal/bootleg rental units. There are reportedly between 40,000 and 60,000 bootleg units in the city, units that do not comply with Building and Safety or Zoning codes. Currently, the City’s well intentioned but misdirected code enforcement program makes no distinction between unsafe units and those that are simply lacking proper permits. Those that are uninhabitable should be shut down, but safe, habitable units should be approved on condition that they be rented to low income people. In a City with an acknowledged housing crisis, we should not be systematically eliminating hundreds of units of serviceable housing every year.
Finally, one must recognize that all these measures will take time to implement and that thousands of people will continue to go without shelter for some time. Therefore, the City should expand and extend the winter shelter program year round, and immediately provide safe and legal places for homeless people to sleep and park vehicles they sleep in overnight – with sanitary facilities close by.
If Los Angeles were to get bold enough to reset its moral compass, imagine tiny portions of grass set aside in each district amounting to just a fraction of the 40,000 acres of City-owned parkland. Places to rest—unharrassed—until enough permanent housing is developed to provide what we all know is needed: homes for the homeless and supportive services for those in need.
Of course, it will take strong leadership to stand up to the NIMBY attitudes that have led to policies that effectively bulldoze homeless people from community to community like mounds of trash in a landfill.
The mayoral election will reveal whether this kind of leadership is in our midst. Hand wringing and speech making will not get it done. After all, the City’s responsibility extends to all of its residents and that includes our unhoused neighbors.
(Steve Clare is executive director of the Venice Community Housing Corporation, a nonprofit housing and community development organization serving the Westside of Los Angeles. He can be reached at [email protected])-cw
Tags: Los Angeles, homelessness, homeless, Venice, VCHC, political will, LAPD, homeless capital
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 36
Pub: May 4, 2012
