The Los Angeles homelessness crisis: big enough to fix now?

Underneath the 110 freeway in downtown Los Angeles, just west of Staples Center

The news dropped three weeks ago that homelessness in Los Angeles County jumped 12 percent over the last year. Within the city of Los Angeles, that number is 16 percent.

This followed news a few days earlier that the filth from homeless camps is contributing to a disease, trash and rodent epidemic at some city buildings. Most alarming is the rise of typhus cases in the area - something we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

The next week Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote an open letter to residents, saying he takes full responsibility for the homeless crisis. Seven days later, he said that solutions are in progress, but it will take time to see improvement.

The following day, Garcetti had a press conference to announce that the city will pick up trash around homeless encampments and deploy mobile hygiene stations:

"CARE teams will also make an effort to get to know the housed and homeless people in each neighborhood. Garcetti said these teams will be able to provide focused care for the homeless population, and possibly help provide them with information on how to obtain other necessary services, such as mental health care."

What this means is that it's taken the city a long time to commit to just doing the basics, as collecting trash and providing a place to shower and use the restroom is only the very tip of the iceberg. There is no plan for dealing with the deeper issues behind the homeless crisis.

No one has been more on top of the growing homeless crisis than Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. He has written about the issue for years, both criticizing the tepid response from city officials and profiling dozens of homeless people. Where some have been quick to blame the homeless for their circumstances, Lopez has given them faces and stories. One of the tales that has stuck with me was the story of the middle-aged kidney dialysis patient who lives out of her car, and sleeps by the hospital where she gets treatment.

Work by people like Lopez has helped quiet the homeless-blaming, as has the growing understanding of the way gentrification is affecting our society - especially in cities like Los Angeles and Seattle, which have seen tremendous, large-scale business growth over the last 10-plus years. Tax breaks for businesses have allowed them to grow and expand at will. The corporations don't build new housing to accommodate the influx of new workers that they draw, which drives up rents and pushes people out of neighborhoods.

Once someone has become homeless, it is hard to get back to a stable place. Dealing with those issues is what's missing in Garcetti's efforts to "help" those on the street.

Not stunned

When news of the rise in homelessness dropped, city officials said they were "stunned." If they're not lying, this indicates that they don't get out much, and/or that they live in an area already too gentrified for them to notice that tens of thousands of people are living on the streets.

I have watched the crisis unfold before my eyes.

Small pockets of homeless people began showing up at both of the parks closest to my home about three years ago. In the park to the west, two people slept in a tent on one of the sports courts for a while. Random others slept on blankets by the running track. Every time I came around, I'd notice something different about the parts of them that weren't covered by a blanket or a sleeping bag. Old, worn shoes. Dirty hats, dirty hair. Weathered hands. Stolen shopping carts and salvaged strollers filled with belongings were jammed in the bushes all the time until recently, when park workers finally trimmed the hedges to almost bare.

Most noteworthy was a man who kept a mattress between the bushes for about a year. He'd sleep there all the time. Sometimes various pieces of furniture that had been discarded would show up there, like a shelf. Eventually they'd disappear (probably stolen), but his mattress remained until park workers apparently became tired of it and threw it away. Haven't seen the guy since.

The park to the east is much smaller. Men will come through for a time and sleep on bleachers or a ledge near an outdoor court. And until a park worker finally cracked down on them this past winter, the men would also curl up next to the toilet in one of the two outdoor restroom stalls. The filth and griminess of those concrete floors spoke to the level of their destitution and desperation.

In 2016, a small woman showed up at the park and set up her nest on a small platform adjacent to the park office. She was always sleeping when I'd run by on weekday mornings, as it was early. If I ran there on the weekends, her bed would be empty and she'd often be somewhere in the park. One October weekend day it was unseasonably hot, and she wasn't in her "bed." I rounded the corner to see her laying on a blanket under a tree to get some shade. She raised her right arm up and waved at me. I waved back.

After running my laps I stopped to talk to her; I'd never been greeted like that by a homeless person before. Her name was Desiree, and she had a good sense of humor. After that, we were on friendly terms. If she was around, I'd wave some days and say hi, and other times I'd stop running to speak with her for a few minutes. The following spring I brought her a hat I got from the dollar store, some antibacterial wipes and some non-perishable food items. I continued to bring her some food here and there, while residents of the street brought her clothes and socks a couple times. It was like we all felt like we needed to look out for this small woman who was by herself.

Witnessing Desiree live at that park for over a year taught me some things. I'd show up to run on the track before dawn in the wintertime, gloves and hat on because temperatures were in the 30's. Desiree would be sleeping under one blanket, and usually without a hat on. Homeless people are tough and resilient, even in milder climates like Southern California. At the same time, hard living ages a person faster. Desiree told me she was 39, and it was sobering because she looked easily 15 years older.

When homeless, life becomes about the basics: sleeping, finding something to eat, finding a restroom for its toilet and for cleaning up, and finding money. Sleep sometimes happens in the middle of the day, as night time causes some people to sleep lightly to protect themselves against threat. Those who aren't able to clean up fairly often become more and more ostracized by society by the day, due to appearance and/or smell. But finding such hygiene resources is challenging, at best.

Desiree reminded me that everyone has a past and a history. One day we were talking and she mentioned that she had a grown son. She said his full name, first, middle and last. Said he worked at a store, at a mall not too far from the park. But the store had closed a while back, so I knew she hadn't talked to her son in a long time. It made me sad, as I sensed there was a story there.

The last thing I learned was that there is no real help for homeless people in this city. I tried to get Desiree to a shelter, but Los Angeles City Hall doesn't return calls. I called the office of my city council member several times, and each they said they'd send a social worker out to talk to Desiree. There were no shelters, they said - even for women alone. I checked with her a few times, and she said she hadn't talked to a social worker. Maybe they did show up and she didn't remember? But no help was ever given.

One day I rounded the corner into the park and I didn't see Desiree or her belongings anywhere. After two days, I knew she was gone for good. What made her leave a place she'd been for 14 months? Where did she go? I hope she is alright.

The more fortunate homeless people live in cars, motor homes and other vehicles. I am now used to the sight of a car that is being lived in: windshield shades, lots of clutter within, makeshift curtains over the windows. In the early mornings, as I run by, I can see people inside the cars sleeping. If it's later in the day, sometimes there is a pet or two waiting inside the messy vehicle, its windows cracked, for the owner to return. At the park to the west, an older man has been living out of a larger car there for at least a year now. He parks on the side street that isn't marked for street sweeping, and uses the drinking fountain to wash up after using the portable toilets.

Dilapidated motor homes dot the landscape of Los Angeles. In one industrial area of the city, they are parked bumper-to-bumper for almost three quarters of a mile on each side of the wide street. It's an overwhelming sight.

Most heartbreaking is when families are living in vehicles. One morning I was about to enter the eastern park when I saw a father helping his young son smooth out the clothes he had obviously just put on inside the car. The kid couldn't have been older than seven. I have witnessed kids playing around motor homes like my brother and I used to play outside our childhood home. I can't imagine growing up like that, but some kids do. And many times their parents are the ones who go to work at their jobs every day and live in their vehicles the rest of the time.

There are 130.000 homeless people living in the state of California, with 26,000-30,000 of them living in Los Angeles County. That's a ridiculous number.

Maybe the City Council will deal with the elephants in the room

If Garcetti doesn't know what to do about this crisis, the Los Angeles City Council is now facing it. They've asked the state for more funds to tackle the issue. And they acknowledge that the problem has several sources:

But “Angelenos are falling into homelessness at a faster rate than they ever have due to multiple crises in housing affordability, in poverty, in challenges within our foster system, our criminal justice system and in our healthcare system,” Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, told the council.

The Council also realizes that eradicating homelessness involves much more than clean ups:

He and other council members ruminated about a wide range of issues, including finding ways to link homeless people with their families, the needs of mentally ill Angelenos and the toll of state laws, such as the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict renters from apartments if they are getting out of the rental business.....

Councilmen Jose Huizar and David Ryu called on Los Angeles County to explore legislation to appoint conservators for people incapable of caring for themselves because of severe mental illness. O’Farrell also wants to convene a conference on poverty to come up with ideas to prevent people from sliding into homelessness in the first place.

Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, urged the city to look into incentives for housing developers to agree to rent a minimum number of units in their buildings to Section 8 households. And Wesson called on city officials to explore using a 3-D printer to construct housing for homeless people.

Creating or finding housing for the homeless is a huge issue. Every time I drive by a vacant lot, I think, "you could put homeless people here." But the even bigger task will be the social services aspect of assisting this population.

The homeless run the gamut from the mentally ill to the perfectly sane, from the drug-addicted to the employed. Social workers and other professionals will have to differentiate between the needs of homeless citizens, and then guide them to the right services: mental health facilities for some, treatment for others, job training, and maybe even some assistance finding jobs. I ascertain that it is the enormity and complexity of this task that has kept politicians from doing anything significant about the homeless issue until now, since it became a crisis, rendering them no choice but to deal with it.

But will they address all the issues that need addressing? Past experience says no. History is a series of stories about people who try to fix things in a half-assed way, even when their intentions are good. We will see.



At Hobart and Seventh Street in Koreatown, Los Angeles