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HOMELESSNESS
Status Report:
Nearly 250,000 people in Los Angeles County experienced homelessness
some time in the course of last year - and annually the figures
get worse. On any given night, between 50,000 and 85,000 people
are homeless, of whom at least 10,000 are children. And get this:
nearly half of homeless adults have full or part time jobs and
76% were employed for some or all of the two years prior to becoming
homeless.
Underlying the homelessness are four major factors:
LA County is short 400,000 housing units. This has driven rents
and housing costs to extraordinarily levels for working class
people and others. Families double and triple up. Inevitably a
lot of people end up on the street. Increasingly they are families,
particularly single mothers with children.
Wage levels in Los Angeles for people who are not in the professional
classes are among the lowest in the country. More than 2 million
people are below or just barely above the official national poverty
level. More than 4 million people (43 percent of 10 million county
residents) are below the "true poverty level" as defined
by what it costs to live in L.A. County vs. what it costs to live
elsewhere.
Federal funds for public housing and housing subsidies have been
either cut massively (Reagan years), cut heavily (Bush I and Bush
II years) or seriously under-funded (Clinton years). Accordingly,
the policy established in the New Deal/Depression years of assuring
shelter for all as a basic policy has been shredded by 22 years
of neglect by both political parties. President Bush is proposing
a huge cut of $1.2 billion from Section 8 "rent voucher"
housing in the next budget following smaller trims he made since
taking office. The effect will be staggering, especially to the
elderly, who already now fill shelters all over LA County.
Large percentages of homeless people are mentally ill (33%-50%)
or have substance abuse problems (30%-50%)…these populations
significantly overlap (and even overlap slightly with people who
nevertheless hold jobs and are homeless). The Reagan administration
initiated modern homelessness by stopping funding to live-in treatment
centers for the mentally ill. During and since Reagan, government
cutbacks or under-funding of other mental and drug treatment programs
(mirroring what happened with public housing budgets) have severely
curtailed the ability of affected individuals to work -or if working
minimally, to move up the pay scale and out of poverty. Even for
people not mentally ill or drug hooked, trying to maintain a job
while living in the streets or in temporary shelters is an enormous
challenge and can be mentally destabilizing.
Solutions:
The most dynamic and comprehensive blueprint for ending homelessness
in LA County has come out of an organization called the LA Coalition
to End Hunger and Homelessness, which is now working with the
county government agency Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
on hoped-for implementation. Other groups that have had major
impacts locally include the S. Calif. Assn. of Non-Profit Housing.
(See Housing section.)
The plan, which envisions ending homelessness in ten years and
reducing it annually (and which will cost less per year than three
or four days or war against Iraq) embraces the following major
steps:
Housing First. The core idea is to provide affordable shelter
no matter what the condition of the individual and wrap it in
a blanket of support services.
Homeless Prevention, which includes zero tolerance for dumping
people on to the street from public support, foster care, hospitals,
mental health facilities and prisons.
Economic Justice –more job assistance and training. Also
better job creation strategies from businesses that receive economic
development subsidies.
Prevention programs for mental health and drug abuse, with treatment
available on demand.
Support services for working people, including affordable child-care
and transportation.
Reforms of the existing county general relief program.
Click here for more Solutions details.
What You Can Do:
There are two areas that need help.
One is to find a role in the implementation of the plan. Call
the LA Coalition at (213)-439-1070 and ask how you can volunteer.
One way to help is bring any organization or religious center
you belong to into alliance with the Coalition.
Similarly but separately, you can become a Poverty Advocate.
Click here for details.
The second way to help is direct assistance to the homeless.
Click here to go to our Volunteering
section where you can research the names of organizations (shelters
and the like) that could use your assistance. They can also use
your donations.
Also, here is a short list of some major homeless resources you
can plug into.
Winter Shelter Program
From December 1 through March 15, selected community non-profit
homeless services providers offer temporary nightly shelter to
homeless people in Los Angeles County. All Shelters will open
at 6:00 p.m., except the Culver City, Sylmar, Glendale and Pomona
Armories, which will open at 7:00 p.m. Those who want to volunteer
for an emergency shelter, please call 1-800-548-6047. Those who
need shelter can call the same number. Free pickup and transportation
are available.
Interfaith’s Help Our Homeless Program
A network of congregations that work together to assist the homeless
in rejoining mainstream society. In addition to overnight shelter,
bedding and meals, each guest receives showers, clothing, bus
passes, referrals to medical care, job placement services and
referrals for permanent housing, community services and social
support. Contact your local church, synagogue or mosque to see
if you can assist. If they don’t belong, they will likely
know of another religious center in your area that is participating.
Ten Facts: Who is Homeless in L.A.? (Weingart Center Study)
66% are single (15% female, 51% male), 34% families
age: 75% are 25-54 for both singles and families
3.76% of adults employed for some or all of two years prior to
homelessness
20% - 45% work full or part time
33%-50% are mentally ill
childhood experiences: 27% live in foster care or group homes;
25% endured physical or sexual abuse, 55% ran away or were forced
to leave as a child
30%-50% have substance abuse issues
46% of homeless adults report one or more chronic health issues;
26% report
acute infectious condition; 3% report testing HIV positive; 1%
report having AIDS
4% are homeless for the first time
single adults are more likely than families to be homeless three
or more times
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WORKING POOR
Status Report
The 2000 U.S. Census and follow-up studies in 2001 revealed some
disturbing truths about LA County. Most dramatically there was
a huge increase in the number of fully employed individuals and
families who were nonetheless officially poor or close to it during
the supposedly prosperous 1990s. Factoring in the true cost of
living here (as compared to the national average cost of living
by which the federal government measures poverty), the increase
in the number of poor working people here is astronomical. According
to a study by Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, fully 4.1
million people here (43% of the population) does not earn enough
to meet the local cost of living.
Hunger and malnutrition are widespread. The County Health Dept.
found in 2000 that 1.3 million people here are "food insecure,"
meaning they could not be sure where there next meal was coming
from, and another nearly 600,000 had experienced intermittent
periods of hunger.
How do these families and individuals manage? They line up at
charity pantries for food. They fill up with starches, putting
their health at risk. They double and triple up in their living
quarters, causing intense friction that shows up in more disturbed
or drug-escaping children and more battered women and children.
They often go without utilities. Increasingly they end up on the
streets or in shelters. Try holding a job while living in a shelter
or on the streets, and you know what a real challenge is.
In stark contrast, the county also houses the largest number
of wealthy people in the U.S. and a large and prosperous upper
middle class. (The rest of the middle class is vanishing or doing
worse than in 1990.)
Key factors in "working poverty" are high rents (resulting
from a major housing shortage), high utility charges and a large
low-wage economy. Also, increases in the minimum wage have been
few and far between and have lagged way behind the rise in the
cost of living. The minimum wage would have to be more than doubled
to provide a "living wage" that met local costs. Many
immigrants work in sweatshops that don’t even pay minimum
wage. For budget reasons, the state has only a handful of inspectors
looking at illegal pay rates.
Some statistics:
During the 1990’s, poor families (as measured by actual
cost of living) rose from 36% to 43% of the county’s population.
The number of working poor increased by 34% while overall employment
increased by less than 5% in the 1990’s.
Nearly 60% of LA’s working poor do not have health care coverage.
Solutions:
Organizations that work on comprehensive solutions quite naturally
focus on the major factors. The need for a government-private
partnership to build a massive number of new housing units to
bring down rent costs and to subsidize renting or owning those
units. A vast expansion of the food stamp program to insure that
everyone can eat properly. Higher wage levels – going from
"minimum wage" to "living wage." Health insurance
for all. Bigger and better education programs to allow working
people to improve their skills
Efforts are underway in all these areas with strikingly mixed
results. On the positive side, both the city of LA and the state
of California have approved new Housing Trust Funds that will
create more units. Meanwhile, the federal government has authorized
a very slight expansion of the food stamp program and has placed
sanctions on LA County for its poor handling of the current program.
On the negative side, the Bush administration has cut the housing
budget and, except for food stamps, also cut virtually all other
support services for the poor, including education, and has resisted
increases in the minimum wage. It also provided less funds than
the Clinton administration to LA County’s public health system,
relied on by most working poor people, thereby forcing the county
to close clinics and jeopardizing the county hospital system.
Campaigns underway by a variety or organizations include expansion
of the LA City Living Wage Ordinance to other areas of the county.
What You Can Do
You can become a Poverty Advocate (click
here ) and help enact public policy changes (which is the
greatest need, simply because non-government efforts are overwhelmed
and can’t possibly keep up with the magnitude of the need).
Or you can send Donations to SHARE with the OTHER LA (click
here ) and thereby help us mobilize your neighbors to step
in and help!
If you want to help in any one of innumerable ways more directly
to lift up the lives of working poor, you can find opportunities
to do so by Clicking Here for a list
of Volunteer Opportunities.
***
EMPLOYMENT
Status Report
More than 250,000 residents of Los Angeles are currently unemployed.
Although the Los Angeles unemployment rate has dropped steadily
from 9.8% in 1992 to 6.8% in 2004, the number of working poor
increased by 34% while overall employment increased by less than
5% in the 1990’s. In addition to those unemployed, an estimated
3.75 million people in working families are sufficiently poor
as to not be able to meet the true cost of living in LA County
and, of these, 1.25 million live beneath the federal poverty level,
which is only $18,103 for a family of four.
Los Angles is the mecca of low wage employers in the United States.
Largely due to an immigrant population, sweatshops and low-wage
manufacturing, construction and services abound. People are desperate
and it is easy to take advantage of them with illegal wage levels.
Sixty percent of these working families have no health coverage.
One out of every two of these families will have to supplement
their food supplies from giveaway sources in the course of the
year, many of them regularly…1.3 million are classified as
"food insecure" by the County Dept. of Health.
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