|
|
Fade to black – Is government leveraging homeless agencies out of business? Thursday, March, 4, 2010
Is politics the problem or the solution to homelessness? Monday, March, 1, 2010
Why do you hate in the name of God? Monday, February, 22, 2010
Cardboard is for shipping, not for housing Thursday, February, 18, 2010
Throw the bums out—RPG game re homeless should be sent back Monday, February, 15, 2010
Down-sizing affordable housing could increase the reduction of homelessness Thursday, February, 11, 2010
Down and exploited in Beverly Hills - Is TMZ.com exploiters? Monday, February, 8, 2010
Is marriage the solution to poverty or is it the cause of poverty? Saturday, February, 6, 2010
Book on homeless man and Los Angeles journalist is highlighted by Long Beach Book Week Thursday, February, 4, 2010
Why homelessness is decreasing while hunger and poverty is increasing
Saturday, July, 2, 2005
The Homeless and the Numbers Game
The headlines said it all: 90,000 homeless in Los Angeles County.
For most of us, we don`t need a slide rule to figure out that homelessness has increased. Anyone who exits a freeway off-ramp, who travels through our downtown neighborhoods or even visits our world-famous beaches knows that there are too many people in our community without homes.
The counting of homelessness has always been hotly debated. Some want to exaggerate the number to encourage more funding for services; others want to diminish the number to deny that there really is a problem. For a decade we`ve argued over this number, as if it was some statistical problem rather than a human dilemma.
So now we have a number, an official count. But in this homeless numbers game, there are other numbers. There is the dollars game. It is big business. In fact, this homeless count was a result of the dollars game. The federal government mandated that all communities, including ours, count the number of homeless or else their much-needed federal funding would be cut. In Los Angeles County that means nearly $50 million per year.
Private fundraising for homeless services is also a high-stakes game of risk. If you don`t convince supporters that your charity is important, you risk closing your doors to people in need. I would estimate that private support of homeless services is many times greater than federal funding in our community.
Then there is the affordable-housing game. It`s a sad game of musical chairs in which there are too many players and not enough chairs. Round and round the people go, hoping for an empty home to buy or rent. But when the music stops, there are always people left out with no place to call home.
This all reminds me of the game of Monopoly. The urgency of gathering dollars, collecting property and staying out of jail. At the expense of other players, we hoard these resources in order to win. In the game, there`s one winner and the losers are only the other players. In the real world, the homeless "" and ultimately, all of us "" lose.
So now we have this large number: 90,000 homeless people. What does it mean?
Well, we obviously have a huge problem. If we wanted to build simple apartments for each person, it would cost our community billions of dollars.
We also know that the existing system of care is not solving the problem. Whether because of lack of funding or lack of coordinated services, our efforts over the last two decades to help the homeless have not improved the situation.
Clearly, this number defines Los Angeles County as the homeless capital of America, and shows that we need galvanized new leadership to end homelessness on our streets. Our new mayor is tackling crucial community issues head-on "" education, crime and traffic. I would hope that he and his new team also provide the same visionary leadership in working toward ending homelessness.
Originally published in The Los Angeles Times.
Please fill in the form below.
Taxing Our Way Out of Homelessness? Friday, November 21, 2008
A Third Wave Of Addressing Homelesness Monday, November 13, 2006
705 Missing Homeless People: Where Did They Go? Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Civil Overestimation Friday, January 30, 2009
Unemployment Numbers: I'm Worried...
Linda Rosenberg, MSW Juan was a delivery driver, but his health problems were putting him at risk of losing his job. His diabetes was poorly controlled and had caused foot ulcers that made it difficult for him to walk. He also had bipolar disorder, which was not being controlled. When he joined the Working Well program in Harris County, Texas, Juan worked with a case manager to get orthopedic shoes, to receive support in developing a diabetic diet and exercise plan, and to make an appointment with a psychiatrist to bring his mental health condition under control. As a result, Juan was able to continue working full time as a delivery driver and received a raise for exceptional performance (Bohman, Stoner, & Chimera, 2009). Working Well is part of the....
Homelessness Resource Center "I believe that people who are trained in Motivational Interviewing have a different perspective on building relationships. Many people are trained to view clients in a paternalistic manner, like they are children. This attitude says that providers always know what is best for a client. This attitude makes us think that we must convince clients that we know what is best for them. In this view, success is measured by the provider’s actions, not the client’s." In the spirit of Motivational Interviewing, Alan Pickett, a Mental Health Outreach Nurse at the Project Outreach Team (PORT) for Washtenaw County Community Mental Health in Ann Arbor, Michigan, does not define success this way. He believes his first task to is to make himse
David J. Jefferson “The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.” When William James, ostensible father of American Psychology, penned this line over a century ago, he had embedded the idea in a discussion on religious experience, in which he also extolled the virtues of voluntary poverty. Today, in a totally distinct context, James’ words are imbued with new meaning. Due to economic recession and what many economists have deemed a jobless recovery in contemporary America, people who never before feared poverty—the educated, or middle class—must now confront harsh new realities. The current conditions are like nothing we’ve ever seen. Conspiring myriad circumstances....
Jamie Van Leeuwen When Denver’s Road Home began over four years ago, we never could have anticipated a year like we just had. Who could ever imagine that our economy would shift into a global recession unlike anything the country has experienced since the Great Depression? And yet, in the midst of unparalleled economic shifts, there comes great opportunity. We believe there has never been a more important time for Denver to have a plan to end homelessness. During the past year, our homeless plan has been tested and we expect the coming year will continue to pose new challenges for us. Housing foreclosures, unemployment and funding cutbacks will continue to place new demands on our ten-year plan to end homelessness. As a result, we updated our plan so....
Linda Valverde & General Dogon The authors have lived and worked in Central City East—commonly known as Skid Row—for a combined thirty years. During all of our decades of living in Los Angeles, neither of us had ever heard of gentrification until about five years ago, when we became members of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN). Now it seems that gentrification has become a common household word in cities throughout the United States, and nowhere more than downtown Los Angeles. When redevelopment really took off in downtown L.A. in 2002, LA CAN and our allies created five principles for fair redevelopment. We wanted to see our neighborhood revitalized, not gentrified. The principles were....
Inforum RSS Feed