On February 9th the LA Times released an article explaining L.A.’s plan to build housing units for the homeless community. The idea is relatively simple: L.A. city can build multi-story housing units for chronically homeless individuals on a various number of public land, mostly bought in the two decades following World War Two. Parking lots have been zeroed in on as the best suited for the endeavor. Some 500 public land sites were reviewed, 129 were selected, and of that 129 all but 10 are parking lots. Exactly how this will be accomplished is of course dependant on a lot of variables, among them the reaction of council offices and neighborhood groups. A real estate broker from the Lincoln Heights area is quoted in the article warning about the potential impacts on local business. “Merchants are not going to have parking. People are going to move out. It’s going to hurt business.” Preliminary plans cited in the article all feature an expansion of parking spots, however. Opposition from community groups is to be expected, and similar policy proposals in the past have been derailed by political reaction and legal suits. Hence many advocates of the plan are implementing robust community outreach programs to get input from local community members and change public opinion.
Over the past week we’ve discussed how social support policy has been eroded. Specifically the L.A. Times article reminds me of skidrow, and how flophouses were destroyed to make way for development. I’m unsure if LA city’s plan will properly remedy many of the root reasons for homelessness, it feels more like a bandaid. Not that i doubt the effectiveness of the proposal, and it’s an encouraging shift in the policy conversation around homelessness. Instead I’m frustrated by reactionary policy proposals in general. Shelters and housing for the chronically homeless are inherently a response to homelessness, and are not intended to address the reasons why people become homeless. Further, I have concerns about how people may qualify for housing, the rules around shelters, and the longevity of such shelters given popular disdain for homeless people.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-parking-lots-housing-20180209-story.html

As we talked some about homeless counts this week in class, I started thinking more about the differences between long term and short term homelessness, and what defines these variations among the homeless populations. I came across an article in the New York Times about a family that has been living in shelters in New York for three years now because their landlord kicked them out to “renovate” their apartment complex. Three years later, and they are still living on the streets and shelters. Inspectors keep on checking in on the renovation process and continue to find that nothing is being done. Being that New York is such an increasingly expensive city to live in, the family this article focuses on does not have the financial means to find somewhere more permanent to live while waiting on their landlord to welcome them back into their home. This story exposes trends of gentrification, unfair bureaucracy, and power that affect homeless populations all across the country, not just in New York. It also shows the distinctions between long term and short term homelessness; both situations are difficult to find yourself in, but no matter if you have been homeless for one year or five, there are always remnants of optimism and positivity that it will soon end. This family continues to believe that despite the power their landlord and their city holds over them, something positive is to come.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/nyregion/while-the-landlord-renovates-life-in-a-homeless-shelter.html

Alright, tell me let me if I have this straight: the process of deinstitutionalization can be attributed to a) new advancements in pharmacology, b) fiscal pressures on states, c) human rights concerns, and d) the government’s willingness to provide SSI and Medicaid checks to people. Homelessness was then, in turn, a function of deinstitutionalization because federal aid was not strong enough to ensure the stability of people who were straight out of “institutions.”
If I have all of that right, I find pointing to what should have happened difficult because there are so many factors at play here. Given the role of deinstitutionalization in the homeless crisis, one could argue that people should still be in institutions and that governing the treatment of mentally-ill people is invalid if it denotes leaving “crazy people” on the street. One could also argue that the federal government should’ve been held more responsible for providing a safety net for the newly-deinstitutionalized, or that, alternatively, mental hospitals should’ve never been subsidized by states in the first place, in that perhaps the federal government would’ve been better equipped to deal with them. I find the latter argument interesting because (I think) it would entail more of a socialized healthcare system and less emotional and financial burdens upon families with mentally-ill people within them. However, because I imagine that a system of mental hospitals subsidized by the federal government would last longer than such a system subsidized by individual states due to greater levels of financial stability, deinstitutionalization in this country might’ve occurred later, or not at all. My problem with arguing for federally-subsidized mental hospitals lies in that fact that I still don’t know what I think about the morality of putting people in mental hospitals. Am I arguing for keeping people in mental hospitals for a few decades longer if I’m arguing for federally-subsidized mental hospitals?
I guess I have three questions for y’all. Would you argue for the replacement of state mental hospitals with federally-subsidized ones way back when they were a thing? If so, do you think that means arguing for prolonging the process of deinstitutionalization, and would that be “moral?” Also, do you think this all maybe doesn’t matter because human-rights activists would’ve still pushed for deinstitutionalization anyway?

This week in class we looked at the beginning of homelessness and the causes of it. I found it fascinating that there was never a problem with street homeless until the steep recession in the 1980s. Learning that street homelessness only became a problem in the 1980s showed me how new this issue is. I am not sure why I thought this was an issue that has been going on for a lot longer, but I learned that it has not. One of the things I found fascinating in regards to counting homeless was their reasoning for doing it in January. I had wondered why they did the count in January, but after learning the reasoning it made more sense. They do the homeless count in January because they hope it is easier to count people since it is cold outside, so they hope they are mostly in shelters. Something that was even more of a shock to me was the amount of money it cost to keep someone on the streets for a year. I knew it cost a lot of money for a homeless person to be on the streets, but I did not realize that it was $45,000. It baffles me that this money is not being put to a more efficient use, as I am sure it baffles many people. $45K is a lot of money that could be used to build shelters, temporary homes, or simply provide a meal for a person to eat each day.

When the words “Los Angeles” come up, many people instantly think of glamorous Hollywood and wealthy movie stars. They picture a beautiful land of opportunity. What many people fail to realize is Los Angeles is one of the most homeless places in America.

This week we read an article from the LA Times called LA’s Homelessness Surged 75% in Six Years. Thousands of more people have been put on the streets in these past years, because the economic climate is unfavorable. LA has a housing shortage problem, homeless programs are not effective enough, and minimum wage jobs are too low to pay rent. The cities of Los Angeles, Glendale, Pasadena, and Long Beach have a reported collective “total of 58,000” homeless (but as we discussed, these counts can be inaccurate so that number could be much higher than we think). “3 out of 4 homeless people live in cars, tents,” and other places not meant for human habitation. The chart in this article showed that LA is at the bottom when it comes to sheltering their homeless, having approximately only 25% of them with shelter.

I am a lover of Los Angeles, and Koreatown is my hangout spot when I go into the city. There is a small shopping center I go to and across the street are high-end apartments. “People in Koreatown step outside their fancy condos to find tents, rotting food and human feces at their doorsteps.” There are homeless people in all corners of LA, including the nice areas- but many more in the not so nice areas. I have also been on Skid Row- a depressing sight to see. There are hundreds of people with no place to sleep or clean themselves, and attempts to help the latter issue have been removed in the past. “In 1992, an activist put out portable toilets in Skid Row” but the mayor at the time removed them. They were removed again in 2006 when they were “being used for prostitution”.

Los Angeles may be famous for its movie industry wealth, but poverty is all around.

Citation: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-how-we-got-here-20180201-story.html

Listening to everyones group present was both interesting and informative. The thing that stood out to me the most was the overlap between all of our material, specifically the recurring theme of societies misguided idea of how people become homeless. People on the street may pass by and ignore people or be unkind because they believe that people in these situations got there through their own doing. It was present in the book I read Down, Out, and Under Arrest with police brutality behaving as if people in this situation are sub-human or deserving of the bad things that come their way when there is a huge range of reasons why people end up in these situations.

Everyday people’s inaccurate perception of people in poverty snowballs the problem; if you don’t look business presentable you will have trouble getting and holding down a job. Doctors and people in stores won’t take you seriously, and police will automatically assume the worst. It deepens the cycle of not being accepted by society, and further dividing the line and understanding between the classes. It makes me wonder what we can do to fix this problem. A clear solution is education, but I think that there are a lot of organizations and groups that speak to this issue and it is not being heard so there may be a different way to effect change. I look forward to doing more readings that focus on policy because it seems likely to me that this is an area that hold a lot of potential progress.

This week I really enjoyed learning about all the different books that each group read. It was amazing to see how every group came together to present in various ways to keep the class engaged. I really loved reading Mothers because it showed the everyday struggle mothers go through to provide for their families. It also showed that they go through abuse  sometimes from early childhood and they have it in their systems so they just assume that it is “normal”. The story about the mother who attacked her husband because he was abusing their son really made me emotional because she had the mother bear instinct but couldn’t get out of the awful situation she was in. The only thing that stooped her from killing her husband was her son yelling at her to stop. Another story that got to me was the mother who married her husband while he was in jail. He would put her in harmful situations and she just kept going back to him. The mother picked up her life and moved near the jail to be near him. She eventually got her life together and went to a safe haven house which was an amazing outcome. She later got remarried but her new husband was abusive also and she realized that way sooner then she did her last husband.

After the last presentations, the class and material covered from the books stayed fresh in my mind. With this I returned home from Redlands for the weekend and ran into an old coach and grabbed something to eat. We began to talk about college and my courses and everything along with that. I began to explain to him how we were assigned books and did the presentations on those books. Conversation followed and he began to express certain points and questions based on his perception and experiences with homelessness. I was able to inform him directly about Skid Row, being that it was what was in my book, and the history of it involving policies, ordinances, mega missions, etc.  I was effectively able to break down and explain the reason that his perception of homelessness on Skid Row was the way it was, and answered his questions. In result he was more understanding of the people in a way, and as I progressed in explaining things he seemed to understand the view from the bottom up and vice versa.

Through the presentations that my peers shared I was also able to explain different stories and point of views, expressed in the books they were assigned. I talked about the mothers, newspaper vendors, etc. In this conversation my coach was intrigued and even asked for book titles. Never did I see myself being able to simply explain and put learned text into words with everyday people , and engage in discourse. I am excited for the rest of the semester and what knowledge is to be gained, understood, and shared.

            This week I read “Voices”, with sometimes chilling but also wondering stories, about the lives of the homeless and their perspective. I have had friends that were homeless for an extended period and yet I never truly took in what it took to get back on their feet. I think one of the most chilling chapters was the barriers to work and the health of homeless. Their stories frustrated me. So much depends on appearances in order to get any type of help from society.

            Getting a job, getting medical treatment, simply being assisted in a store or hanging around on a park bench all depends on how “civilized” you look. Do you have raggedy clothes? Do you have clean teeth? Do you have a decent haircut? Not only do these small things help with being assisted they can also give a person the can-do-attitude that many of the homeless struggle to keep every day. If there were more outlets and availability for the homeless to obtain any of these appearances, they may have a better chance of getting back on their feet.

An Insider’s video demonstrated a celebrity hairdresser going around the streets of LA giving free haircuts to the homeless. Jason Schneidman, the hairdresser says, “So what I find in helping homeless people with haircuts is their appearance changes and their attitude changes and then also the people around them see these people differently.” One of the homeless men that Schneidman cut hair for looked sad but happy, and while looking into the mirror says, “Damn, yeah, that took about 10 years off of huh” then smiles at Schneidman. “I think if we all do a little, we can help out a lot.” Little things do help a concept not only emphasized in the video but throughout “Voices”.

Today the LA Times published an article on the increasing number of arrests in the homeless community of LA over the past 5 years. While overall LAPD arrests decreased by 15% between 2011 and 2016, arrests of homeless people have jumped by 31% in the same time period. LA has more than a dozen “quality of life” laws, and the overwhelming majority of these arrests have been for minor offenses under within the purview of such laws, such as sleeping on the sidewalk, living in a car, and the like. To be arrested, fined, and otherwise penalized for simply existing is horribly dehumanizing and illustrates a city attempting to balance the limits of “humane” treatment and the desires of wealthy residents and business owners who overwhelmingly support such measures. City officials have said they “have to balance the rights of homeless people against the quality of life and safety of the whole community.” These laws are essentially pointless, and are constructed specifically to target and marginalize homeless people.
The fact remains that the criminalization of homelessness is a lucrative endeavor, and the city is well aware of that fact. When it’s all said and done tickets can charge up to $200 or even $300, and tickets pile up. If anyone fails to show up to their court date there’s an automatic warrant issued by the LA superior Court, “a decade ago LA Superior Court computers were spitting out 8,000 bench warrants a week for failure-to-appear charges.” In 2014 a court ruling reported that California receives an annual revenue exceeding $75 million. Large institutions are designed to make bank by taking advantage of the vulnerable homeless population who have little to no representation in government.