I met Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin last week outside of his West Los Angeles office for a tour of homeless housing in his 11th District.

No council member takes more heat on the homeless issue than Bonin, whose district extends from around the Pacific Palisades through Brentwood, Mar Vista, Del Rey and Venice. Venice, in particular, is a hothouse of homeless controversy. Homeless live on the beach and sidewalks, infuriating the owners and tenants of increasingly upscale homes.

I had written in LA Observed how Councilman Jose Huizar had been working to facilitate construction of homeless housing outside the Skid Row part of his district. I noted there were no plans to build such housing in rich Brentwood or upscale Mar Vista.

I had a point, Bonin emailed, but was incomplete. My column, Bonin said, "is certainly missing a lot of stuff on the Westside." He said, "The cost of land has made building homeless or permanent supportive housing prohibitively difficult in parts of the city, especially mine, so I have been a very big advocate of using city owned properties for homeless and affordable housing." We agreed he'd drive me around the districts and show me some projects.

We looked at the old West LA animal shelter at Missouri and Bundy; a big city parking lot in Venice and an abandoned maintenance yard where housing has been proposed but neighbors object. Residents also worry about the loss of parking spaces in Venice but Bonin said the spaces would be replaced in the proposed new development.

He concedes that his efforts, like those of other councilmembers and Mayor Eric Garcetti, have fallen short.

"There is no emergency-like response, " he said as we looked at the Missouri and Bundy site. "There is no FEMA-like response, " he said, referring to the federal relief agency which steps in with aid for disasters such as hurricanes. "Yet it is a FEMA-like emergency that requires a FEMA-like response." The last homeless census showed more than 34,000 in the city of Los Angeles, part of the 57,000-plus in the entire county, a 23 percent increase from the year before.

The site at Missouri and Bundy offered hope. A total of 81 units for the working poor and homeless are expected to be built. The neighbors are pretty much on board, and permits are being expedited because the site is on a "transit corridor," near the Bundy metro station. But construction won't start until 2019. "We need to put the financing together," Bonin said.

That's a matter that bugs Angelenos who voted for a $1.2 billion bond, Measure HHH, to build housing for the homeless. A ponderous regulatory bureaucracy stands between the money and actual construction. In addition, a provision in the controversial tax bill in Congress threatens to eliminate some of the federal aid needed to put together the public-private packages that will finance this and similar projects.

Meanwhile the number of homeless continues to grow. "There is much more of a demand than there is supply," Bonin said. I saw this Sunday, as my wife Nancy and I walked to the market. Three large tents had gone up on Olympic Boulevard, under the 405 Freeway. More encampments are in other places along the freeway. Bonin was right when he said this is an emergency.

From the Space To Lead report.

Los Angeles, both forgetful and ignorant of its past, is constantly worrying about the future. The past, however, shapes the future, and that was the theme of a report released Thursday, Space To Lead: A Century of Civic Leadership In Los Angeles.

The report was done by Future of Cities: Los Angeles," an organization founded and headed by civic and political activist Donna Bojarsky. I went to its unveiling, well attended by academics, politicians and others who worry about LA. It was held appropriately at La Plaza de Cultura Y Artes “ near where Los Angeles had been created by Spain.

The report noted the good and the bad. "If necessity is the mother of invention, the diffuse power structure of Los Angeles has necessitated an experimental aesthetic and sense of innovation often revered," the report said. "Yet there is a danger in such reverence because Los Angeles has a history of erasing or forgetting the past in pursuit of the reinvention of civic identity unmoored from historical precedents or ties. The destruction of Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill are the best-known examples of this amnesia."

By chance--or through my own stupidity--I got a good view of the immensity of the task facing the futurists. I had made the usual male mistake of not reading directions. So I got off Metro at Seventh Street and walked to what I thought was the address, 501 Main Street. I ended up at Fifth and South Main, the gateway to Skid Row. I looked at the directions. The address was Fifth and North Main.

As I walked the 10 blocks to my destination, I saw the immense amount of work confronting those trying to build a better L.A. The revived downtown, increasingly beloved by millennials, is a few blocks south, in the Staples Center area. But I was on a neglected, uninviting portion of Main Street. The Los Angeles Theater, once one of America's great movie palaces, was gated. The single room occupancy hotels looked grim. Sad looking homeless people walked the streets.

Once I reached the "Space to Lead" event, I heard some of the speakers talk of the earlier L.A. when rich white male bosses build the old downtown but also created the conditions that led to its demise. The complex causes of homelessness--mental illness, substance abuse, racism, unaffordable rents and more--are rooted in the past of a city run by those who pretty much didn't look beyond their country clubs and mansions.

"A diverse city but not an inclusive city," Bojarsky said of today’s Los Angeles.

Hopefully, the city will blend its past with the far-different present. One of the speakers was Los Angeles City Councilman David Ryu, a Korean American, who noted he was elected by a coalition of voters. City Councilman Bob Blumenfeld said his family "is a coalition." His wife is African America and they are raising their kids as Jews.

The report is useful, as was the gathering celebrating its release. It doesn't have definite answers but gives perspective to today's problems. "History matters, " said William Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Get off a train at a London underground station or similar facilities in many of the world's big cities and you can stop for coffee, pick up your laundry or shop in a small market for something to take home for dinner.

With Metro expanding at a fairly rapid clip, why can't we do that here? Banks, ATMs, retail and restaurants would produce revenue for the huge system of trains and buses and be a great convenience for riders. About the only commercial development I've seen are condos across the street from a couple of light rail stations.

I asked Phil Washington, Metro's CEO, about this when he spoke Monday at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, which is arranged by public affairs consultant Emma Schafer.

"We would like to look at those things," Washington replied. He said he'd like to see some companies make proposals to Metro for such enterprises in the stations.

After lunch, one of his aides told me that the Century City station of the Purple Line Wilshire subway may be the first to offer rider-friendly commercial enterprises. More stations, above and below ground, will be built in the future and they could also have shops and stores.

As usual, Washington was full of ideas. In fact, he has established a department to sift through unsolicited ideas to expand Metro's imagination and vision. As it expands, Metro will have a tremendous impact on Los Angeles and its environs. Metro, Washington said, has authority over much land around its stations, and is developing housing there, 35 percent of which will be classified as affordable.

With all these plans, Metro should provide a place for a quick cup of coffee and a bagel for a commuter scurrying off to work.

What's interesting about the first batch of homeless housing to be built by last year's $1.2 billion bond is that it is scattered around Los Angeles instead of being concentrated in Skid Row. A total 615 units of apartments will rise in neighborhoods from South Los Angeles, to an area near pricey Hancock Park to the Sunland area of the San Fernando Valley.

I was sent the list of projects by Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar. I'd asked him about the housing recently at a Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum luncheon organized by public affairs consultant Emma Schafer, who also runs the web site Emma's Memos.

In my question, I made it clear I shared the exasperation of those who'd voted for the bonds about the growing number of homeless encampments felt by many of those who voted for the bonds. What good were the bonds when homelessness has increased in Los Angeles by 20 percent in the last year to 34,189? The number of homeless living in encampments and motor vehicles has gone up comparably.

I asked Councilman Huizar exactly when we could expect to see him, Mayor Eric Garcetti and other public officials preside at the opening of one of the new apartment houses. He replied by having his staff send me the list of projects, which had been approved by the council and signed by the mayor last summer.

I have been writing about the homeless for years. The locations of the project jumped out at me. Most were not in Skid Row.

One was at 1136 N. McCadden Place, near Highland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, in an area not far from Hancock Park. In this area, homes sell for $2 million to $3 million. The 26 units will be rented to homeless between 18 and 24, among the fastest growing homeless population. Across the street will be services designed for LGBT people, including counseling, classes and job-hunting advice.

That fits the criteria of the most popular method of handling the homeless---"housing first," getting them into housing and at the same time treated in nearby facilities.

A total of 62 units will be provided by a development at 3730 S. Vermont Ave., not far from USC. A total of 122 units will go up near Hollywood. A project in the northeast San Fernando Valley's Sun Valley will have 44 new units. Significantly, none on the initial list are in Brentwood, Mar Vista or other affluent parts of the Westside.

Completion dates range from next October to mid 2020.

Skid Row will get the biggest single batch of the 615--more than 240 units. But much more is being built elsewhere. Just looking at the numbers, it looks as though city homeless housing policy is changing for the better. Still, 615 units for a homeless population of 34,189 is just a proverbial drop in the bucket.