LA Plans to Make Homelessness Go the Way of the Dodo Bird

Instead of pretending homelessness doesn't exist, creating new laws to make it illegal to sit or sleep in public, or sending homeless residents on a one-way trip out of town, Los Angeles County may attempt to actually do something about ending homelessness. And the county is setting the bar high; it hopes to reduce its homeless population by 70 percent in the next five years.

With almost 50,000 without a place to call home (pdf) on any given night, Los Angeles has been called the homeless capital of the United States. Providing services for those who are homeless, particularly the chronic homeless who make up 25 percent of the population but consume 74 percent of available resources, costs $875 million a year. That's enough to pay every homeless person in Los Angeles to work a full-time minimum wage job, and still have money to spare.

But, instead of throwing more money at programs that are not working, the plan is to make better use existing resources. An action plan (pdf) released earlier this month by the LA Area Chamber of Commerce and United Way called the way the county has been dealing with homelessness "outdated" and urges shifting to a housing first model. Towards that end, the goal is to move homeless residents directly into permanent housing instead of costly shelters and temporary housing, particularly the chronically homeless.

"Homelessness has existed for so long that we have accepted it as part of our reality. We have become immune to its impact on all of us, and we therefore have needlessly allowed it to continue," Jerry Neuman and Renee White Fraser, co-chairs of the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness, wrote in the action plan's introduction. "The most striking characteristic of homelessness in Los Angeles is that it does not need to be this way."

According to the action plan, two recent studies in Los Angeles have shown that it is 40 percent less expensive to place someone in permanent supportive housing than to leave that person on the streets. Providing permanent supportive housing for all chronically homeless individuals could save $280 million a year. In addition to dramatically reducing the overall homeless population, the plan aims to completely eliminate chronic and veteran homelessness by 2016.

While it is admirable and long overdue to attack homelessness head-on, it cannot be ignored that poverty is at the root of homelessness. If Los Angeles truly wants to attack homelessness, it must also ensure that its residents have access to affordable housing and jobs that pay a living wage. So tell the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to adopt a plan to end homelessness that includes tackling poverty.

Photo credit: B. S. Wise