Homelessness Is the 9,000-Pound, Hammer-Wielding Octopus of Our Time
By: Jon Regardie
Tags: Los Angeles, Homelessness, Politics

Homelessness Is the 9,000-Pound, Hammer-Wielding Octopus of Our Time

Some Good Work Is Taking Place, but It Will Be Years Before We See Change on L.A.’s Streets Jon Regardie Oct 2, 2019·6 min read

The Regardie Report

I f you’re looking for a positive streak amid the Los Angeles homelessness crisis, there is this: After years of inadequate response and limited action, some good and smart work is finally happening. The downside is that, after falling so far behind, it will be years before signs of progress reach the streets.

Inklings of change have been sparked by a mix of embarrassment, anger and visual devastation — the situation has deteriorated to the point that no one can any longer pretend it’s a mess for others to clean up. The proverbial passing of the buck has pretty much stopped.

A scene last year on First Street in Downtown L.A., with City Hall in the background.

That recognition has spread beyond Skid Row and even beyond Los Angeles. There are an estimated 36,000 homeless individuals in the city, more than 59,000 in the county, and some 130,000 in the state, with nearly 90,000 Californians living without shelter. The situation threatens to turn the Golden State into the Grim State.

It’s been said that this is the physical and moral crisis of our time, and that’s true. It has also been said that there is no silver bullet for homelessness, which is also true and also silly, because no one actually makes silver bullets.

The Regardie Report: In CD14 Race, What’s Behind Door Number 3?

The proliferating tent encampments are a result of copious contributing factors, each needing its own solution. There is everything from economic inequality to an underbuilt residential market. There is untreated mental illness as well as drug addiction and institutional racism. And let us not forget landlords who turn apartments into vacation rental units, further diluting the residential stock.

People who have been living on the streets or along riverbanks for years need a completely different support network than do families who wind up in a shelter because of a lost job. A homeless veteran has different needs than a woman who becomes homeless because she is fleeing an abusive relationship.

In other words, there is no one path to success, and there never will be. Trying to address homelessness is like wrestling an octopus, except that the octopus weighs 9,000 pounds, is covered in grease and carries a ballpeen hammer in each tentacle. And those tentacles are always furiously swinging.

Spreading Encampments

Angelenos, both housed and unhoused, are angry about the situation, and with reason. The vast majority of local elected officials long ignored homelessness, primarily when it was concentrated in Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles. Most were content to let it be a Downtown problem.

The status quo only started to change when tent encampments sprouted across the region and some sidewalks began looking like a Berlin Wall of garbage, broken chairs, bicycle parts and soiled clothing. Even then, progress was often tentative and filled with missteps. Solutions in the city of L.A. can vary by council district, and while some elected officials push hard for projects including permanent supportive housing complexes, safe overnight parking zones and hygiene facilities, others shrivel in the face of NIMBY opposition. Political courage can be in short supply.

Yet, if one steps back, there are some signs of hope — not on the streets, but rather in the approach. Today a lot of really smart people are working hard to address homelessness. There won’t be a quick resolution, but there are sustained and committed efforts.

That was on display last week in South Los Angeles, when a couple hundred observers showed up for a meeting of the Council of Regional Homeless Advisors, a panel formed in June by Gov. Gavin Newsom. L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who co-chairs the body along with Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg (the pair are among the rare public officials who have a long record in proactively addressing homelessness), organized the meeting.

“[Newsom] made it abundantly clear this matter is urgent and we should move in this regard,” Ridley-Thomas told the crowd near the start of the session.

A meeting of the the Council of Regional Homeless Advisors, a panel formed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, took place last week in South L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas (with microphone) ran the session.

Other panel members include Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Philip Mangano, who served as President George W. Bush’s homelessness czar. The group seems inquisitive, open to new thinking and primed to push for action — the key to success may be what proposals Newsom embraces, and what financial spigots he loosens (you can forget big money flowing from Washington, D.C., given the animosity of the current administration toward California).

The CRHA meeting touched on some of the money being spent. There’s $1.2 billion in city Proposition HHH funds going to housing, though a stunning price tag of around $500,000 per unit may undercut the effort to build 10,000 permanent supportive apartments. There is also about $350 million a year for services available through Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax approved by county voters. Some aid comes from the California Mental Health Services Act, passed in 2004, and the state has an alphabet soup of response monies including pots dubbed HEAP, HHAP and HOORAY (I made up the last one).

At the meeting, various speakers expounded on steps being taken in the L.A. area. Heidi Marston, chief program officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, detailed a “Gaps Analysis” document that shows resources versus needs, and who knew that exists? She added that prevention efforts kept 6,000 people from becoming homeless last year.

Other speakers discussed outreach teams, a sobering center and interim housing projects. There was talk of proposals to incentivize landlords to accept housing vouchers for formerly homeless tenants, and aims to use old motels for homeless housing. People mentioned efforts to speed up the allocation of state funding and ways to better utilize data.

There have also been aggressive approaches in city limits. City Attorney Mike Feuer has a suite of initiatives intended to address homelessness, including wiping away tickets for people who accept services. In August, Mayor Eric Garcetti spent more than an hour talking to reporters at the Arts District’s Unified Homelessness Response Center — again, who knew L.A. had one? — and went into depth on street strategies, emergency shelters, low-income housing construction efforts and more.

Mayor Eric Garcetti in August spoke to reporters for more than an hour at the Unified Homelssness Response Center in the Downtown Arts District.

Garcetti also showed up at the CRHA meeting. He touted some progress, but didn’t pretend that a win is imminent.

“I am proud Los Angeles is doing more, but I also have the caveat that no place is doing enough,” he said. “We are doing more I think than anywhere in the country, but no place is doing enough.”

Playing 3-on-5

The work taking place now is impressive. The problem is, this approach was not in play when regional homelessness could have been somewhat stanched by forethought and money. This is like a basketball team where only three players show up for the first half, and the ones who are there wear mismatched shoes. By the time the team gets serious the third quarter is underway and they’re down 74–6. You can have the five best players in the world, but it’s gonna take forever to catch up.

That’s where Los Angeles is. The streets are overwhelmed with tents and there have been outbreaks of typhus and other diseases — a public health emergency is upon us.

Construction of permanent housing and shelters are underway, but the slow pace of approvals and starting from so far behind means that people are falling into homelessness faster than they can be housed — the best that can happen in the near term is L.A. treads water, and things may get even worse before they get better. Absent a radical approach, it will take years before real improvement reaches the streets.

If that happens, few people will be placated by reports of good work happening behind the scenes.

Jon Regardie is the former editor of Los Angeles Downtown News and has contributed to numerous local and national publications. Reach him at jregardie@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @JonRegardie.