Housing is a real problem everywhere. The one issue that I have seen fail time and again is when the homeless are housed in the general population housing units. Often times its more about the numbers and how many you can house than what happens next. Many times the homeless are drug addicts, dealers and mentally ill. They are dropped into a population around the same age and what happens after that is for residents of said housing units to deal with. We wonder if there are social workers involved? We wonder why the apartment management turns this around on us when we are threatened by the dealers or sex workers bullying their way into or out of the building. The failure is in the follow through not the caring. We all care about the homeless but we aren't qualified to deal with this effectively. You can't think that now that they are housed the problem is solved.
This is definitely true! Los Angeles, though, consistently ranks among the cities with the most unhoused, along with New York. From what I understand, though NYC has a much larger shelter system than we do in Los Angeles. No doubt, there are significant substance abuse, criminality, and psychological problems with this population. The biggest challenge identified so far by the A&M audit disclosed in court is how people are evaluated entering the Coordinated Entry System in Los Angeles, then quality control. This is a big reason Ruth and I have been pushing for CF19-1020, which would create a Lived Experience Advisory Commission so that learning knowledge is incorporated into the system. Pay is low for workers in this sector, which leads to a lot of turnover, and when people end up cycling through the system ultimately it just costs more than treating better them upfront.
The REAL Housing First as prescribed by Dr. Sam Tsembris and passed into law had a maximum % of recently homeless people (maybe 20%) recommended for any particular project, so unhoused people weren’t supposed to be abandoned in a big building that never gets maintained, or “warehoused” together, which is truly a nightmare scenario for all involved.
Housing First was never implemented properly in Los Angeles and most unhoused people never truly had access to permanent housing that was actually available to them under Housing First.
There are actually “remediation” programs available for recently homeless people who secure federal vouchers, which aren’t typically available to the landlords of all voucher recipients. It’s called the HIP (homeless incentive program) and it’s actually safer in a way to participate in that because that acts as insurance if anything does happen to the unit.
Housing is a real problem everywhere. The one issue that I have seen fail time and again is when the homeless are housed in the general population housing units. Often times its more about the numbers and how many you can house than what happens next. Many times the homeless are drug addicts, dealers and mentally ill. They are dropped into a population around the same age and what happens after that is for residents of said housing units to deal with. We wonder if there are social workers involved? We wonder why the apartment management turns this around on us when we are threatened by the dealers or sex workers bullying their way into or out of the building. The failure is in the follow through not the caring. We all care about the homeless but we aren't qualified to deal with this effectively. You can't think that now that they are housed the problem is solved.
This is definitely true! Los Angeles, though, consistently ranks among the cities with the most unhoused, along with New York. From what I understand, though NYC has a much larger shelter system than we do in Los Angeles. No doubt, there are significant substance abuse, criminality, and psychological problems with this population. The biggest challenge identified so far by the A&M audit disclosed in court is how people are evaluated entering the Coordinated Entry System in Los Angeles, then quality control. This is a big reason Ruth and I have been pushing for CF19-1020, which would create a Lived Experience Advisory Commission so that learning knowledge is incorporated into the system. Pay is low for workers in this sector, which leads to a lot of turnover, and when people end up cycling through the system ultimately it just costs more than treating better them upfront.
The REAL Housing First as prescribed by Dr. Sam Tsembris and passed into law had a maximum % of recently homeless people (maybe 20%) recommended for any particular project, so unhoused people weren’t supposed to be abandoned in a big building that never gets maintained, or “warehoused” together, which is truly a nightmare scenario for all involved.
Housing First was never implemented properly in Los Angeles and most unhoused people never truly had access to permanent housing that was actually available to them under Housing First.
There are actually “remediation” programs available for recently homeless people who secure federal vouchers, which aren’t typically available to the landlords of all voucher recipients. It’s called the HIP (homeless incentive program) and it’s actually safer in a way to participate in that because that acts as insurance if anything does happen to the unit.