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WESTSIDE - The Homelessness Committee of the Venice Neighborhood Council met for nearly three hours last Thursday night (8/28) with adding new members as Jonah Glickman, the Homelessness liaison for LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath (D-3) was the principal speaker in trying to explain the structural changes in how county homeless services will be delivered in what can be best described as a post LAHSA era.
Jonah Glickman
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) has been under strict scrutiny with a change in leadership as the County of Los Angeles is seeking to create a new bureaucracy by July 1st of next year by combining a Department on Homelessness with Housing for Health, and that some $350 million in funding will be transferred to this new super agency of sorts.
But despite this apparent restructuring, LAHSA will still function and conduct the annual homeless count while continuing to be a recipient of federal funding as it pertains to the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD, as well as play a role in the distribution of Section 8 housing vouchers.
Glickman indicated that the county will be bracing for a reduction in federal dollars as the Trump Administration seems to be in conflict with a county that has displayed little, if any success in managing and reducing the county's colossal homeless population.
According to the self-reporting numbers of LA County, Glickman noted a 3% overall drop in the homeless population from roughly 74,000 to 72,000 between 2024 and 2025. At the same time under question and answer one caller noted that LAHSA has refused to reveal the actual "community count," and many cast this miniscule reduction as unreliable and in-doubt.
Here in Venice, there is no actual head count that has been made public regarding the number of homeless on the streets today.
And while the whole point of LAHSA was to have a cooperative and coordinated approach to homelessness, the exact opposite has occurred.
For the complexities of services and bureaucratic wrangling that exists in providing basic services, several in the audience under committee comment were highly critical of St. Joseph's Center, one the primary service providers here in Venice.
Committee member Sarah Mahir was highly critical of this not-for-profit as well as Lisa Redmond, herself an employee of the Rand Corporation that recently released a survey that homelessness decreased in Hollywood as well as Venice, but not so in downtown on Skid Row.
Alley Bean ran the meeting and was reappointed to serve as the committee's chairperson once again for 2025-27.
The rest of her committee consists of Judy Goldman, John Reimers, Julie Bean, Naomi Nightingale, Redmond, Mahir and Pat Raphael.
Glickman covered many issues and was gracious with his time, but few were impressed by the level of progress in fixing homelessness countywide or here in Venice.
Washington Boulevard remains plagued by RVs despite the best efforts of LA City Councilwoman Traci Park (CD-11) who has been in many cases the only hope for residents in cleaning and clearing the streets of Venice of this obvious scourge.
Glickman said working with city officials in addressing homelessness is ongoing despite the lack of definitive progress in removing these vehicles from the streets of Los Angeles.
But many believe the City and County are in many instances talking past each other, and that a plan to eliminate duplicative services and creating best practices has been slow and inefficient.
Glickman conceded that bed space is lacking, and the cost of a bed and services varies.
Committee member Judy Goldman observed that there is a lack of trust by residents to get things done as they apply to homelessness.
She questioned basic accountability, standards and practices and inquired how does the county change ineffective service providers.
Redmond questioned why the Main Street bridge housing facility was closed, and in her mind prematurely, and that construction at the bridge housing locale was still "years away."
Glickman gave insight into the size of this bureaucracy as he mentioned that 14 different county departments are involved at some level in the homeless crisis and admitted that a new merged agency could create better efficiencies. He also indicated that mental health funding will be a priority in the 2026 budget, that should be more strategic and offer new monitoring standards as well.
And while LAHSA will still remain with replaced leadership and diminished influence, one could not leave the ZOOM call without saying, what is really going to change?
For even basic best practices like a universal database of those unhoused and the services they require does not currently exist.
In other committee business, a motion passed 7-0-1 to rename the body the "Housing & Homelessness Committee." When asked what the point of such a name change was, one committee member chimed in, "words matter."
The last agenda item was to support a motion that would strengthen LAMC 41.18 preventing homeless individuals from congregating at schools, parks and other sensitive locations.
Incredibly, the motion failed with a 4-4 tie-vote and was endorsed by Councilwoman Traci Park (CD-11) who has made managing the homeless population off the streets and into housing the signature issue of her time in office.
Voting in the affirmative to strengthen 48.18 enforcement was Bean, John Reimers, Julie Bean and Goldman while voting against the resolution was Redmond, Pat Raphael, Mahir and Naomi Nightingale, who complained the resolution being poorly worded and vague.
Obvious political overtones were part of the opposition's continued criticisms of Councilwoman Park, a Venice resident who enjoys strong support with tenants and homeowners on the issue of homeless encampments and RVs.
You get the feeling Park in many instances is fighting a one-person, lonely battle to normalize the conditions on the streets of Venice despite her personal popularity with locals to move the needle in a positive direction.
Park pushed for her own neighborhood council to support her in this fight to clean-up the encampments that continue to hold parts of Venice hostage as quality-of-life concerns by actual residents are being trumped by transients who have no connection or stake in the community except illegally parking with little or no repercussions.
One wonders how you can justify not limiting encampments in sensitive residential zones which is truly a quality-of-life concern.
I left the call believing transients, drug dealers, gang members and others who routinely break the law have more support on this committee then the actual residents themselves!
The continued efforts by local left-wing extremists to normalize the notion of street encampments and RV living is reaching crisis conditions as these activists are nowhere the consensus of most Venetians that cleaning up and clearing the streets of these encampments can only truly occur when a "no tolerance" position is finally implemented.
For it seems right has become wrong and wrong has become right with those who believe transients have more say than those of us who have lived here for over three decades and that's disturbing indeed.
These are not neighbors. Neighbors don't defecate in the street, do drugs and criminalize our streets. Normalizing such illegal and criminal behavior cannot become accepted as somehow normal.
(Nick Antonicello is a thirty-two-year resident who covers the deliberations of the Venice Neighborhood Council. Have a tip or a take all things Venice? Contact him via e-mail at [email protected])
