L.A.’s right-left divide on solving homelessness

With an estimated 75,000 people unhoused in Los Angeles County, there’s universal agreement among our readers that the situation in Southern California is unacceptable and deserves urgent action. Where they disagree is on what’s causing the homelessness problem and how to address it.

The last L.A. mayoral election, between Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, reflected that divide. It’s also seen here in the letters of our readers when we asked them to weigh in. What we heard fell broadly into two camps: One with arguments focused on law and order, a traditionally conservative view; the other focused on systemic issues such as economic inequality, a traditionally liberal worldview. Whether city leaders shift toward one side or the other can make a big difference in how our region responds.

— Paul Thornton, letters editor

To the editor: California’s housing shortage and homelessness crisis are what happens when you have politicians who have no idea of economics making laws, which have negative effects that the public must suffer.

Supply and demand is the cornerstone of our capitalist system; even a child understands that.

Democrats are driving California into a third-world state, and they wonder why people are fleeing this place.

Marcus Kourtjian, Northridge

To the editor: Please explain to us readers how it is possible that a place such as Skid Row exists in the wealthiest and most Democratic state in the country.

The very eloquent politicians have been working on this since the dawn of time, with budgets to buy small towns in the Midwest. The super wealthy of L.A. talk the liberal talk, do the spiritual work and eat the $20 avocado toasts.

Yet we read about Skid Row as if it’s OK to have such a place downtown. The dystopian future is here, and it has been here for years.

Michele Castagnetti, Los Angeles

To the editor: The incompetence of our civic leaders and institutions, including the media, is why we have been dealing with homelessness for many years.

It started with the failure to recognize the extent that mental illness plays a role. Commonsense observations and input from residents were either ignored or dismissed as prejudicial judgments against what many of your columnists might call a “victimized” community.

This failure was part of the next major failure, which was the inability to categorize different classes of homeless populations and come up with a plan to deal with each one separately. It’s somewhat akin to using the same chemotherapy regardless of the type of cancer.

Encampments point to yet another failure, where politicians use court rulings as “my hands are tied” excuses. For example, one such ruling allows for “rudimentary protection from the elements” for those who sleep on the streets. Common sense, which seems to elude our politicians, dictates that should not result in massive hazmat operations when the encampments are actually cleaned up.

People are getting tired of throwing money at this problem with little to show for it. That Proposition 1 barely passed shows that even the typical L.A. Times reader is slowly starting to allow fiscal responsibility to trump virtue signaling by bond measure.

Jesse Goldbaum, Woodland Hills

To the editor: Near Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth, there has been a homeless encampment for nearly a year. People there have continually refused shelter, and many live with addiction and mental illness.

Typically, you wouldn’t want this close to a school.

Those of us who have contacted City Hall about this have been told that little can be done until anti-camping and vagrancy laws change. Most of the areas in Chatsworth that have encampments cleared quickly get repopulated after massive cleanups.

The public would like our sidewalks back. We feel unheard and extremely frustrated as a community. We want to feel safe and be able to check our mail after dark without the fear of being robbed or stabbed.

Kristen Mason, Chatsworth

To the editor: I wish our political leaders would remember the rest of us in their decisions. They travel to Sacramento and Washington to solicit more funding for homeless services.

What about all the rest of us who live with the consequences of this crisis? The unaddressed blight on our streets. The dying of trees in our parks. The car break-ins.

Many of us mourn the loss of civic pride, which is clearly not a priority now. It is painful to witness.

Why aren’t our leaders doing more to clean up our streets and sidewalks, to get rid of graffiti, to keep our parks clean, maintained and the trees watered, all of which are dismissed as unimportant “quality of life” issues? We would thrive if they did that.

Many of us who once felt compassion and patience for those who live on the streets are angry because our needs and concerns have been overlooked.

Mary A. Fischer, Echo Park

To the editor: I live fewer than 13 miles from the greatest humanitarian crisis in our nation.

Almost daily, I drive by encampments near the 110 Freeway in Highland Park. Unhoused people who illegally occupy the sidewalks, parkways and embankment terrify law-abiding residents of the area. For more than three years, I have reached out to several local agencies about this. And until recently, the situation would only get worse.

But last month, because of the nonstop effort of Highland Park residents to document and report the dangerous activity on their street, combined with an L.A. Alliance for Human Rights lawsuit, I witnessed the biggest comprehensive cleanup I’ve seen there in three years.

Litter still covers the embankment. Human waste and drug paraphernalia remain. I am guessing the unhoused people who left this area a disaster will eventually return.

Recently, large numbers of L.A. voters gave their support to progressive candidates who do not believe that homeless people should be held to the same legal standards as those of us with homes. If I, as a housed citizen, smoked fentanyl on your street or screamed threats at you, I would be arrested and held accountable.

If we want to live in a society that holds people accountable for their actions and protects children, in addition to sheltering the unsheltered and treating the sick, we must hold everyone to the same standards of lawful behavior.

I am not criminalizing homelessness. I am criminalizing unlawful behavior that has turned Los Angeles into a mess.

Tori Stover Mordecai, San Marino

To the editor: I think it is fair to say that the city and county administrators of Los Angeles have failed miserably at resolving the homelessness crisis.

Many heartfelt attempts by many heartfelt politicians have failed residents, who continue to face tents and trash that block sidewalks, and who fear violence by people wandering down the street.

Is it fair that the overwhelming majority of us are subjected to this? Which heartfelt politicians are looking out for us?

I recall seeing a picture of a temporary but full-service Quonset hut “city” set up for returning World War II veterans in Griffith Park. They, with their families, were housed there as they waited for affordable homes to be built to accommodate them. Once homes were available, they all moved on.

Why can’t this arrangement be duplicated for all homeless people in the L.A. area? Since this project would provide housing and services, enhanced laws against vagrancy and camping would need to be passed and enforced.

Unfortunately, this would require our current bleeding-heart politicians to step aside and for voters to support more pragmatic officials.

Buz Wolf, Big Bear Lake, Calif.

To the editor: Homelessness will remain intractable until our nation addresses economic inequality. We need moral outrage.

Here in L.A., we construct tiny-home villages with 64 square feet of living space and estates in Bel-Air with 30,000.

I commend the mayor’s efforts, but this kind of discrepancy in living conditions has led to revolutions and land reform. Let’s figure this out before it gets bloody.

Lisa Dieckmann, Los Angeles

To the editor: As rents and house prices go up, take note — someone is raking in all that money. That’s where our government leaders should focus their attention.

As long as real estate investors are asking for higher profits, rents will keep going up, and more people will find themselves unable to afford shelter. It’s the typical corporate strategy: Plunder the environment to gain all the riches, and let the public pay for the aftermath.

We need to end the eviction of people from their homes so landlords and developers can build something more expensive and reap greater profits. Let’s regulate the profits that real estate investors can make.

We get daily information about encampments and the plight of neighborhoods and how much the public is paying to house people. We see it for ourselves. Tell us more about the other end of the scale, where the riches pile up.

Sarah Starr, Los Angeles

To the editor: Many years after recovering from homelessness and building a great life, I started working on the streets, first in San Francisco and now in Los Angeles, bringing essentials such as hygiene, laundry, haircuts and clothing to people who had lost their homes.

My return from homelessness happened when I was surrounded by a community that shared my experiences and stayed with me through every mistake I made, building resilience that made it possible for me to thrive.

Community is the one thing that I know works; it has worked in my life, and it has worked for millions of others. It’s the inspiration for everything I do today. Community is the only way we will end homelessness in L.A.

Hundreds of thousands of Angelenos are one paycheck or illness away from being unhoused. According to L.A. County officials, more than 220 people here lose their homes every day. The path back to housing for the hardest-hit has become more deadly and more treacherous.

The agencies tasked with helping these people are overwhelmed. Big agencies can’t do this; they never could.

It will take us, the millions of Angelenos who share this beautiful place, the community groups, faith communities and neighbors, to rise up and say we will no longer accept this suffering. We know the answer is us, but can we set aside our differences and unite to end this?

Paul Asplund, Pasadena

To the editor: So many studies blame the lack of affordable housing — and all housing — as the primary contributor to homelessness. I live in an area of single-family homes and know that zoning protecting this kind of neighborhood must end.

It’s not a choice between skyscrapers and single-family homes. There are many alternatives — look at what Santa Monica is doing with mixed-use, mid-rise residential buildings.

Additionally, we need quality care and sufficient funding for drug and mental health programs. This is a complicated problem that needs a multi-pronged approach and time to solve.

Karin Costello, Santa Monica

To the editor: What drives homelessness? In a nutshell, housing policies that reward real estate investors and developers; the scarcity of transitional housing for institutionalized individuals; consistently low wages; increasing numbers of seniors on low fixed incomes; a dearth of “affordable” housing; and the resulting mental health, substance use and medical challenges.

This is not just my opinion; it’s what the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative study found last year.

In L.A., Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative aims to bring individuals living in encampments into hotel and motel rooms. However, because of the scarcity of low-income permanent housing (and permanent supportive housing), these people end up living in temporary shelters for years. Temporary shelters have become a revolving door, moving individuals in and out.

Local agencies are not able to provide services and housing to the increasing number of individuals living on the street. So unhoused individuals become chronically homeless and have a much harder time adapting to societal expectations.

Once individuals become unhoused, it is difficult for them to find housing again. Their mental health suffers as a result of the trauma of becoming homeless, and they may begin using substances to help them cope.

The need for “affordable” housing has been proposed for decades. On the surface, Bass’ effort to significantly streamline construction for affordable housing seems like a good idea.

But Bass’ initiative does not provide subsidized housing, prevent displacement of low-income tenants or provide actual “affordable” housing. Rather, it caters to the myth that building housing for people at 80% of local median income will magically lower rents throughout the city.

Thus, Bass’ streamlining effort is another failed housing policy that will not appreciably help to increase housing production for homeless and low-income individuals.

Jane Demian, Los Angeles

To the editor: The number of people experiencing homelessness has gone up in Los Angeles, and the city is becoming a very different place from the one in which I grew up.

As a lifelong resident of South Los Angeles, I wish city and county leaders knew how the different initiatives passed by voters have been perceived by residents. We are tired of voting on ballot measures that have seemingly little to no impact.

The only thing I have seen improve the situation is the Inside Safe program, which combines the knowledge of service providers with the authority of government officials to actually get people the help they need.

For years on my way to work, I passed an encampment under the 405 Freeway on Venice Boulevard that grew despite the various ballot measures passed to fund housing and services.

Inside Safe is the only program that truly got people into housing, connected them to services and ensured the area would not become repopulated.

Alyssa Melina, South Los Angeles

To the editor: With the average debt in this country greater than $100,000 per person (across credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and student loans), and with more than half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, society is facing an unsustainable problem where those “financially challenged” will never pay off their continuously increasing debt.

Thus, with the loss of just one paycheck, there are many millions of people on the verge of joining the growing homeless population.

The question is not how to reduce the number of homeless, but what is the forecasted growth rate in the homeless population?

Ronald Stein, Irvine