The Los Angeles Homeless Containment Thread (restrictions, monthly, roommates)

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

[i]"Santa Ana has been overburdened with huge amounts of the homeless," Jorge Garcia, assistant to the city manager in Santa Ana, added...

Perhaps Santa Ana should evaluate itself to see what it did wrong to attract those "huge amounts of the homeless."

[PNW-type-gal]

Except that this isn't an isolated "California only" thing. It is happening across the US, particularly in temperate areas where housing prices have been rising. The boom in homelessness started with the last economic downturn (although certainly it's been steadily rising since the 80s).

You can turn it in to a partisan political complaint-fest (although that will get this thread moved to Politics and Other Controversies) but the end result is: how do we fix this problem? Can it be "fixed"?

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Except that this isn't an isolated "California only" thing. It is happening across the US, particularly in temperate areas where housing prices have been rising. The boom in homelessness started with the last economic downturn (although certainly it's been steadily rising since the 80s).

You can turn it in to a partisan political complaint-fest (although that will get this thread moved to Politics and Other Controversies) but the end result is: how do we fix this problem? Can it be "fixed"?

That question has been asked a million times and no one has an answer except more money. Even the money will not truly solve the problem. It is insufficient jobs for the area, lack of skills/training, high cost of renting/buying and life style that are the problem.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

Perhaps Santa Ana should evaluate itself to see what it did wrong to attract those "huge amounts of the homeless."

The political map of the 2016 election shows that Santa Ana voted solidly blue.
Coincidence? I think not .

California neighborhood election results: Did your precinct vote to elect Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? - Los Angeles Times

Wonder why we don’t hear about these massive homeless issues in Newport Beach or Yorba Linda ?

The OC county supervisors had to come in and clean up the mess.

[stoxdiamond]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Except that this isn't an isolated "California only" thing. It is happening across the US, particularly in temperate areas where housing prices have been rising. The boom in homelessness started with the last economic downturn (although certainly it's been steadily rising since the 80s).

You can turn it in to a partisan political complaint-fest (although that will get this thread moved to Politics and Other Controversies) but the end result is: how do we fix this problem? Can it be "fixed"?

I think to fix this problem, all three of the following need to be implemented.

1) Mass building of affordable housing in or near the city.
2) Mass investment into public transit from the affordable housing into city and job centers.
3) Increased wages so that those working in the city can afford to live in affordable housing.

1 and 2 would probably require a lot of public funds in the form of increased taxes. Would also probably be heavily opposed by NIMBYs.

3 would require some sort of minimum wage increase to match however much it costs to rent one of these newly build affordable housing units. Would greatly increase the cost of goods/services in the area.

So you'd pretty much have to have people in these cities agree on paying more taxes as well as paying more for goods/services. Chances of happening = never.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by expatCA

That question has been asked a million times and no one has an answer except more money. Even the money will not truly solve the problem. It is insufficient jobs for the area, lack of skills/training, high cost of renting/buying and life style that are the problem.

Not true. Solid examples have been shown that cost less than the shotgun approaches being funded now. Resistance to these solutions persists primarily because of our cultural addictions to the concepts of not giving anything not earned and requiring all flawed persons to become whole. Fine concepts. But totally unrealistic. There are lots of folks who just can’t compete at the cost of living levels required, or whose resources were insufficient to meet unexpected challenges or whose personal limitations exceed their strengths. And those realities are going to increase for a variety of reasons - including what you listed.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Except that this isn't an isolated "California only" thing. It is happening across the US, particularly in temperate areas where housing prices have been rising. The boom in homelessness started with the last economic downturn (although certainly it's been steadily rising since the 80s).

You can turn it in to a partisan political complaint-fest (although that will get this thread moved to Politics and Other Controversies) but the end result is: how do we fix this problem? Can it be "fixed"?

It seems to be happening all over the world, I just read Evicted by Matthew Desmond The author's suggests offering all poor people housing vouchers:

"the government should guarantee rental subsidies to all low-income families struggling to pay rent. With vouchers in hand, families could choose where they wanted to live — “as long as their housing was neither too expensive, big, and luxurious nor too shabby and run-down” — without the fear of falling into debt and, inevitably, facing eviction"

But is that really a good idea?

David Adler in Current Affairs argues that the British practice of giving out vouchers to almost everyone has increased evictions and raised rent

Far from narrowing the gap between rich and poor in Britain, Housing Benefit has — in many ways — done the opposite. First, Housing Benefit drives up demand in places like central London, where properties would otherwise be unaffordable to the vast majority of people. Vouchers in hand, renters can pursue high-rent properties — so long as they are not, to use Desmond’s phrase, “too big, expensive and luxurious.” With this rising demand, landlords can then raise their rents, knowing that the state will foot the bill. Often, this inflationary pressure — rather than preventing evictions — incentivizes them.

By driving up the value of local housing stock, Housing Benefit can also behave like a regressive tax on low-income renters. Homeowners reap huge windfall gains from house price inflation — the average house in London rose by £40,000 in value in 2015 alone. For these homeowners, the gains of house price inflation far outweigh the tax burden of housing benefit expenditure. So it is low-income renters that ultimately bear the cost of their vouchers — funding homeowners’ retirement along the way.

If there is an answer to this dilemma I certainly haven't found it in anything I've read, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is that if rent keeps going up and wages stay the same it will likely result in more homelessness, particularly homeless families & that will probably cost more to fix than expanding rental vouchers or anything else that we might do to try to slow this down.

[TCROX]

You sure love seeing them out there unsupervised doing whatever with free housing etc don't you
Man stabbed to death at North Hollywood park | abc7.com

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by TCROX

You sure love seeing them out there unsupervised doing whatever with free housing etc don't you
Man stabbed to death at North Hollywood park | abc7.com

Damn

I used to walk the path at that park there so that hits home .

There were quite a few homeless around there and a ton living in cars .
They would have generators .

Homeless would take over the benches and drink their malt liquor etc .

It’s a shame because it was a pretty nice large park besides that .

Saw a homeless lady relieving herself on a tree even though the park had bathrooms.

These killings by homeless are happening more and more now .

[jm1982]

Garcetti and his associates have blood on their hands .