no more Skid Row??
I would love to hear everyone elses opinion on this:L.A. approves $100 Million Dollar County Homeless Plan
Highlights:
- Under the new plan, one "regional stabilization center" would be built in each of the county's five supervisorial districts at sites yet to be named
- The centers would be 24-hour drop-off points
- Each facility would offer at least 30 short-term beds
- About $80 million would also be placed in a trust fund to help build emergency and permanent housing and to provide rent subsidies
- Nearly 90,000 people — including 10,000 children — are homeless in the county on any given night
posted by pablo
8 comments
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urBenLA said...
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pablo said...
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steve w said...
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steve w said...
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pablo said...
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steve w said...
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Post a CommentIt's a horrible idea. Basically it means that services will be split up and the numbers will grow larger in each of these 5 wards. In addition, these Skid Row missions and charities which have been been built and survive because they are rehabilitating and finding jobs for many of these people will either have to pick a ward to service or end up drying up. Also, this means creating 5 "undesirable" areas of the city where people can expect prostitution, mental illness, drug/alcohol addiction, unemployed/homeless parents with children. Unfortunately, this means all the ministries which are putting millions of dollars into serving this population now will have no central place where they can find and service these people. Also when folks are looking for their homeless relative, there's 5 areas of the city they have to try and see where their relative may be. Unfortunately, this also means that these service-providers and ministries will be unable to keep tracking of these folks consistantly, and those comfortable living homeless could go from area to area living off those services and never fully have their needs met.
I know these remarks may sounds unlike a social-conscious political mentality, but as someone who has worked with homeless and homeless families, I see this as more of an addition to locking people into a system, rather than finding solutions to the problem and rehabilitating them or treating their illnesses.
This is often what happens with bureaucracy, as the rich move in, we have to accomodate those folks who are paying and paying well, and ditch those who may be down on their luck, not all there, or addicted. This leads me to my main thought behind this: what would be Jesus' solution? Obviously, what's been happening the last few years may not be the best solution, but what would be his response? I believe he would be trying to make that change/rehabilitation happen now, meeting people where they're at and changing their lives for the better in a new or different way. They would be able to see and feel value in themselves that they may have never had and those that are able would be changed and work to serve others. It wouldn't be about pushing them out of the area, dividing them, but changing their identity and allowing them a future. I'm not sure how it would happen politically or if it would need to, but with that mentality as the starting point of the solution, it would make a much bigger dent than the current proposed "solution."
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thanks for the response ben. i hadn't thought of those things.
the main hesitation i have is that i see those 5 wards being put into already struggling communities and making them worse. let's be honest, San Marino is not high on the list of potential areas. it will more likely be places like inglewood that would only suffer more by placing them there.
and in response to alex, that $80M is earmarked for non-housing stuff. hopefully they try to put programs into place to help them fend for themselves eventually.
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Now an opinion...
Skid row is an eye-sore, it is too large of an outcast colony in America, it is attracting too much bad press for LA, and in an irrefutable way exposes years of failed government policies. Therefore, this plan is an attempt to sweep the problem under the rug and stop the bad press. It is not an attempt to help people.
>> it is not an attempt to help people
aah, here i agree with you. to me, the bottom line is that the l.a. housing market has gone the way of the loft. there is lots of prime real estate there if you clean up the area. the shnazzy/preppy guys wearing Diesel don't want to look out the windows of their 500 sq. ft/$1 million dollar lofts to see homeless people.
but regardless of intent, i am still wondering whether or not it will help in the end. it doesn't seem like any of us think it will.
That's the only thing you agree with? ha, ha :)
So what do we do? Just say, oh well?
STORY: A 10-year plan to eradicate homelessness in the Los Angeles area, at a cost of more than $1 billion a year, will be formally unveiled on Thursday.
click here
Halfway into the story is this sentence: "But Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal told the Daily News such a plan could force officials to raise taxes, risking making more people homeless."
So one independent analysis says the LA government's plan to eradicate homelessness runs the risk of actually causing homelessness. Go figure.
What would compassion do? (not compassion from someone else, from us?)
I think our American homeless colonies are much like the leper colonies in Bible times. What is the Christlike thing to do?
(We also have other leper-like colonies in America.)
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