By MICHAEL DEAR
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce held its annual inaugural dinner Jan. 25 at the Beverly Hilton. The theme of the gathering was “Together.” However, there was little togetherness in the speech of one prominent Chamber leader, who spoke angrily about breaking the grip of “organized labor,” and using the Internet to unite business leaders in a crusade for economic progress.
A different kind of togetherness was envisaged in a recent petition, signed by 54 L.A.-based academic researchers, advocating multilateral action to end homelessness in L.A. These nonpartisan experts called on business to unite with politicians, service providers, and communities to combat homelessness.
Los Angeles has the largest homeless population of any U.S. city. It gained notoriety as the nation’s “homeless capital” in the 1980s. Back then, L.A. responded to homelessness by using federal funds to expand its emergency shelter network. The problem is L.A. remains stuck in an emergency shelter mentality. But to get people off the streets for good, transitional housing, jobs, health care, and addiction services are also needed. To date, L.A. has not provided these pathways out of homelessness at a scale necessary to meet the demand. Only 25 out of L.A. County’s 88 municipalities spend money on services for the homeless. Some of these non-contributing communities prefer to dump their homeless residents on Skid Row, using it as the solution to their local homelessness problem.
Today, Skid Row is under attack. Opponents want to dismantle its shelter and service infrastructure (the largest in the region), and cleanse the district of homeless people. There’s a story going around about some developers who went to Wall Street for money to support downtown redevelopment. Sure, they were told, you can have the funds but first you must clean up Skid Row. Yet to close down Skid Row without first providing adequate services throughout the county would be tantamount to a death sentence for many homeless individuals, for whom Skid Row is already the community of last resort.
Action plan
A five-point action plan endorsed by the 54 academic experts recommends combating homelessness by creating jobs, making welfare work, providing housing, stopping the flow of homeless people to Skid Row, and ending NIMBYism.
-The mayor, City Council and county supervisors must act in concert to fix a broken system. The county must raise general relief payments, currently $221 per month, exactly what it was 25 years ago. Welfare recipients need more education and training for jobs. Many county dollars could be saved by helping people obtain federal Social Security benefits and veterans’ disability payments to which they are entitled.
-Social service providers must move beyond a shelter mentality and build pathways out of homelessness that include jobs and supportive housing. It makes no economic sense to warehouse people in shelters, jails and hospitals that are not designed to move them beyond homelessness, and are expensive to operate: one night in supportive housing costs $30, but shelters cost $37, prisons $85, mental hospitals $607, and general hospitals $1,474.
-Communities must care for their own homeless people, and be prohibited from exporting them to other cities (by illicit dumping or contracting out for services). Zoning restrictions that make it possible for neighborhoods to reject needed facilities should be scrapped; such facilities should be mandatory elements of each city’s general plan.
-Finally, business must provide leadership that is constructive and visionary, instead of pushing for policing and cleansing of Skid Row. If businesses help pay to end homelessness in municipalities across the county, the flow of homeless people to Skid Row will dry up. It will then go back to what it was, simply one more downtown neighborhood. Business leaders could also ensure that a portion of California’s infrastructure bond monies goes to provide jobs for homeless people.
We can afford to end homelessness. In 2005, L.A. City spent under $1 per capita on homeless aid; Chicago spent $3, Boston $8, and Seattle $13. Currently L.A. County, local, and private sources spend $600 million on homeless services each year. We need $1.5 billion a year to help every homeless person in L.A. County. New York City spends $1.7 billion each year, with enough success that it is closing its largest, 1,000-bed shelter in June.
Experts know what causes homelessness and how to end it. The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, if it truly believes in togetherness, should now deploy its moral and economic leadership in a community-wide coalition to end homelessness.
Michael Dear is a professor of geography at USC.
