Imperial Valley News

Los Angeles, California - Although the number of homeless people in Los Angeles, County fell by 15,000 in the past two years, nearly 142,000 people were still homeless at some point last year - more than in any other urban area in the United States. About 80 percent lived on the street, in alleys, encampments, overpasses or doorways, making Los Angeles a leader in this area, too. Philadelphia and New York shelter 90 percent of their homeless population.

“The Report Card on the State of Homelessness in Los Angeles County” by the Inter-University Consortium Against Homelessness reviewed nine areas and found governments’ actions lacking in nearly every category.

Affordable housing, homeless civil liberties and regional fair share were all given failing grades. Permanent supportive housing and workforce opportunities were tagged with a D and a D- respectively.

The city of Los Angeles only built 8 percent of the affordable housing units it planned to provide, despite the creation of a multimillion-dollar affordable housing trust fund. Since 2001, the city actually lost more than 11,000 affordable units.

The city placed 50 additional officers in Skid Row to combine aggressive policing with social services. The service component quickly fell from sight, as more than 18,000 Skid Row residents were cited or arrested in a 10-month period under the new ordinance, most often for petty offenses such as littering or crosswalk violations.

The jobs that are being created offer below that what the city considers a livable wage.

Emergency, transitional and permanent supportive housing are in short supply. For every bed that is available in permanent supportive housing - which provides health care, drug treatment, mental health services and counseling - there are 11 people who want it.

Individual welfare payments remain at $221 a month or $2,652 a year - far below the poverty line of $10,400.

More than 18 months ago, the consortium released “A Reality-Based Approach to Ending Homelessness in Los Angeles,” in which it laid out a road map to alleviate homelessness, modeled around plans that have found great success in cities of New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

The consortium has continued to monitor the city, county and region’s high-profile attempt to solve this humanitarian crisis.

The Report Card was created by academics from USC, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Loyola Marymount University and Occidental College with support from the Economic Roundtable.

City and county officials and selected social service and housing organizations were given preliminary and final drafts of the Report Card so that they might provide additional information, suggestions and corrections.

It wasn’t all bad news, the consortium concluded.

Leadership and collaboration - as the city and county started working together and sharing resources, mainly through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority - was given a positive grade of a B-.

“While there are good signs that homelessness is declining, the number of total homeless men, women and children remains unacceptably high,” the report found.

To read the complete report, visit www.usc.edu/sustainablecities.