A more humane homeless approach?

When I talked to Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, I got the feeling that the city may be moving away from its punitive approach to homelessness and considering something more humane and practical.

Huizar, whose 14th District includes Skid Row and its almost 2,000 homeless, is co-chair of the council Homeless and Poverty Committee, sharing the duty with Councilman Marqueece-Harris Dawson. I was interested in the committee’s final report, which is expected to be released at its January 27 meeting.

Huizar said there would be “a fundamental change from where we have been in the past. This report goes in the direction of decriminalizing homelessness.”
Huizar referred to a city policy of sweeping the streets of homeless, along with their possessions, tents and tarpaulins and jailing those who won’t move on. Court decisions have halted the sweeps for the most part, leaving the city with its present policy of neglect.

He said he thought the committee would recommend a “housing first” approach. Housing first, supported by many homeless advocates, envisions placing the homeless in apartments or other housing and then providing them with counseling, substance abuse rehabilitation, care for physical and mental ailments and other services. That’s in contrast to the practice of getting the homeless to pledge sobriety and begin treatment before they are admitted to a shelter.

Housing, of course, remains the biggest obstacle in helping the homeless. It will take a combination of county, city, state and federal funds, along with private investment. And, it will require neighborhoods that won’t protest affordable housing nearby.

As Huizar noted, housing first also requires an intensive effort to reach out to homeless people and persuade them to buy into the program. The council homeless committee will recommend increased outreach teams. The teams of about four people are made up of social service workers from Los Angeles County health, social welfare, and rehabilitation departments. County workers run almost all homeless services, but the city has a hand with policing, street (and sidewalk) sweeping and refuse removal as well as and operating parks, where many homeless now live. Thus coordination between the county and city is essential.

Huizar said he “was shocked to see” there was so little city-county cooperation when Skid Row, along with the rest of downtown, was placed in his district in the last reapportionment. Actually, a pilot program conceived by then-Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky had pioneered the effort but nobody followed up on it. Huizar said his city-county-community program has already put a limited number of outreach workers in Skid Row. The homeless committee will recommend a big increase, putting 20 to 24 workers on the streets five days a week, This will require unprecedented cooperation between city and county departments, but Huizar said he was sure it would happen.

He said the committee would also recommend appointment of a homeless coordinator to oversee the city’s efforts and work with the county. Other recommendations will be for more storage facilities, where the homeless can store their possessions and more mobile showers and provisional housing until permanent housing is found.

Nobody says putting all this together will be easy. But the fact that these ideas are on the table may mean a future for the homeless that doesn’t include streets, tents and jail.