Housing and Homelessness

It is long past time that Los Angeles take more seriously the housing and homelessness crisis we are in. For too many years, the City has played kick the can with this humanitarian disaster and now the can is in our parks, on our beaches and at our doorsteps. We do this all-too-often: environmental crises, dumping waste into our oceans and sitting idly by as genocide is perpetrated in foreign nations are but a few examples where we continue to turn a blind eye or refuse to address these challenging issues with difficult solutions. Homelessness in Los Angeles is no different.

As one of the over 200 districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles¹, Westchester must do its part in helping to provide solutions to the homelessness crisis. Given the complexity of the crises, the absence of supporting shelters and services in the neighborhood and the growing demand, the sooner we start on a multifaceted approach, the more quickly we will be able to reverse the erosion and begin the recovery. If we continue to defer and hope someone else will address the problem, the problem will only continue to grow out of control. We can no longer wish they were Not In My Back Yard.

A panoramic view of the Westchester Park playing fields on April 16, 2021. Unfortunate gopher holes mark the fields; not likely related to homelessness.

This is the first in a short series of posts I will write to present why I think there are a collection of compelling proposals set forth that we must act on today. I am writing this because I have read a lot of misinformation and lies on social media and more mainstream media related to the causes of our homeless crisis and ineffective responses in Westchester as well as neighboring Venice and Mar Vista.

Councilmember Mike Bonin of Council District 11 represents Westchester in City Council. Mike does not posses executive powers; he is part of a 15-person legislature that must represent the needs of the entire City. Fortunately, this is a Citywide issue, affecting every park, sidewalk and underpass equally. Campers are parked illegally in every community. Because this is a Citywide problem, we must address it with Citywide solutions. We must all bear the burden of the corrective actions that must be taken to right the ills of how we have addressed mental health illness, substance abuse, poverty and race in Los Angeles for decades and longer.

I mention Mike Bonin because he had the courage and foresight to author a motion seconded by Mark Ridley-Thomas, Council File 21-0350, calling for the City to look at a collection of actions to provide shelter to those living on the street: safe camping, safe parking, tiny homes and purchasing hotels and motels. His motion, if passed in Council, will direct the City’s agencies to assess the feasibility of these programs and provide recommendations on viable approaches.

As I mentioned, I have read a lot of mistruths and lies online about the subject of homelessness and Mike Bonin’s proposed response. I plan to do further research and address each of the following questions in greater depth in subsequent posts. Following are some highlights of the issue and the bottom line up front (BLUF):

Why are our parks and beaches being targeted? There must be better locations.
- BLUF: the City has been looking for years without any success; Councilmember De Leon recently introduced a motion in Council File 21-0063 calling on the City to reassess available properties while excluding future uses considerations as has been done in the past. That is a great idea, except the assessment, prioritization, negotiation and clean up of these properties will take months to years. We need a solution now, yesterday.
- That said, viable suggestions from the community are more than welcome and some have been proposed. Unfortunately the majority of them are not viable options and most would not be a viable alternative for camping because they are no where near the resources needed by the homeless.
Why is the City letting people camp in our parks, park for extended periods overnight and sleep on our beaches?
- BLUF: the City’s hands have been tied by various rulings and now COVID-related relaxation of enforcement²
Why are safe camping, parking and tiny homes better than what we’ve been doing?
- BLUF: these efforts are not better; they supplement other programs such as the HHH housing being constructed all over the City. The benefits of these new efforts are they are adapting the chaotic conditions that exist today into managed offerings that both relieve our communities from the stresses of homeless encampments while being considerably quicker and cheaper to implement than full service housing coupled with reduced disruption to the unhoused. They also represent an element of the flow needed to progressively move homeless residents into more integrated and supportive service offerings.
Why isn’t the homeless crisis being addressed with Prop. HHH-funded indoor housing?
- BLUF: Prop. HHH funding is one part of the solution but is much less an agile solution than is needed.
El Segundo and Santa Monica address their homeless problems; why can’t Los Angeles?
- BLUF: there are several reasons that Los Angeles can neither treat homeless people as poorly as they are treated in other communities to our south and north nor would we want to. More on this soon.
The Venice bridge house – is it really a failure from what it promised?
- BLUF: Venice has long attracted a counter-culture ethos and its homeless problem is far greater than could be solved by one bridge house with 100 beds. It is true that there are many homeless encamped near the bridge house. Many more projects like this are needed to make a serious dent in the local homelessness community.
Valley of Hope project in Alexandria Park – why is it a good model for other parks and undeveloped properties in Los Angeles?
- BLUF: it strikes a good balance between low cost and rapidly deployed solutions with a safe environment in which to house people who can then begin to access services and begin their journey of recovery.
If the majority (> 67%) of homeless in Los Angeles suffer from mental illness or substance abuse how can they be let to stay on the streets?
- BLUF: the statistics on the proportion of homeless that suffer mental illness or addiction vary wildly based on criteria³. Mental illness ranges from mild anxiety (from which many suffer) to various forms of psychoses⁴. Most importantly, the alternative to “let to stay on the streets” is the criminalization and institutionalization of these homeless. That’s just not acceptable. They need shelter so they can be treated.
Cities around the country are shipping their homeless to Los Angeles; aren’t most of the homeless here not from Los Angeles?
- BLUF: There doesn’t appear to be any reliable source that reports of systemic busing or otherwise shipping their homeless directly to Southern California. Cities do sponsor programs like Homeward Bound that provide homeless with bus fare to return home⁵.We know that some neighboring cities to Los Angeles enforce homeless evictions that result in their being displaced to Los Angeles, and finally, based on a survey by LAHSA, over 75% of the homeless in LA County are from Southern California⁶.
And then there are the collection of exaggerations:
- “mentally ill who are unpredictable & oftentimes unsafe & violent” – oftentimes unsafe & violent is absolutely not true – going to hunt down statistics, but I am certain that is not true
- “APR 14 – 85+ TENTS (An increase of 26 tents in 2 weeks, or an average of +13 tents per week)” – I personally walked the entire park on April 22, 2021 and mapped the location of each and every tent. While far too many tents, there were only 61 tents in and near the park.
- “transient who was living there who kidnapped a little boy a few years ago” – i believe this refers to an attempted kidnapping by a housed person from North Hollywood⁷
- “The park is completely unusable and it’s dangerous” – this is not true; it is used every day by kids playing basketball, playing catch in the fields, adults enjoying the fields and could be used more.
- “the deaths that occur there” – I am not familiar with any deaths that have been caused by homeless people living in the Westchester Park but I likely have missed something.