As kind of a follow up post to Chris's post on homelessness in L.A., it was reported today that the Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of Greater Los Angeles is trying to implement a plan they call "Home for Good." The proposal proposes to build housing for 12,000 of the chronically unemployed in Los Angeles for about $235 million dollars a year. This proposal was based on several other plans that were successfully implemented in other cities like San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta. Currently, it is estimated that there are 48,000 people that are homeless in LA plus 6,000 homeless veterans. In fact, almost a quarter of all homeless people are in fact veterans.
Part of the incentive in enforcing this plan, are the business and political communities who are concerned the homeless epidemic will tarnish L.A.'s national image and tourism campaign.
In terms of implementing the plan, the drafters of the plan claim that no new money will be needed to finance it. Richard Bloom, mayor of Santa Monica, is so confident in the plan that he believes "it’s not going to require a tremendous amount of political will to make it happen”, claiming he's "seen what happens in other cities, like New York City, Denver and Boston.”
Do you guys think this plan will work out? Five years is an awfully small amount of time to fix such large problem. Also, kind of as a side note, what do you think should be done about the large population of homeless veterans? A large reason why many are homeless is because they don't receive proper treatment for mental and physical injuries they get in war.
6 comments:
I think this will definitely help. I don't think it will completely eliminate homelessness, 5 years is too short of a time. I also think that the veterans should definitely be treated better. They served for our country so they should be treated with respect. The least that we could do for them is make sure they have somewhere to live. I didn't know that such a big majority of the homeless population is homeless. I find that really sad.
Although i dont know how this is supposed to work even without the need for "new money", i am in favor of an idea to help out the large amount of homeless people there are in Los Angeles. Even if it seems like a small portion of people recieving new housing, its the incentive that counts and ideas like this should have happened sooner.
It's also very depressing that roughly 6,000 homeless veterans are still living on the streets. People come back from wars with a completely altered mindset, and are often times unable to recupriate from the effects of the fighting. I think that the Army should be held responsible for the well-being of soldiers after a war, and the last place these brave people should en up on, is the streets...
The fact that there is such a large population of homeless veterans is just sad. I agree with Erica. They suffered mental and physical injuries for our security; now that they're back, it's our responsibility to take care of them. As for the overall plan, five years is definitely not time to completely eradicate homelessness. However, Los Angeles is taking a step in the right direction; homelessness is a major issue that needs to be addressed.
I recently visited LA in the past month; and while walking the streets of the Hollywood area, there were countless homeless people- even more so then when i was there in the summer. In a city where thousands of tourists are present everyday, it's completely necessary to address the homeless issue. 5 years seems kind of impossible to house 12,000 people; plus in the five years they will take to make these houses, there will be an even larger amount of homeless people. Either way this is a good plan to discourage homeless people living in the streets- but not to eradicate the problem. We need more jobs and psychiatric help for the war veterans to even get close to eradicating the homeless.
The title in and of itself is pretty laughable. In no way shape or form will LA be able to completely eliminate homelessness in the major city with the most prevalent divide between the rich and poor. This plan will definitely help, especially if it has been proven to be effective in other cities. However, with the state already over 100 billion in debt, is it really practically or responsible to divvy out another quarter of a billion dollars for a project that merely promises to put a dent in a seemingly unshakable homelessness epidemic.
I don't understand how the city woud enact anything without using new money..? but I think any aid that can be given to homeless people is positive. but there is a side not to this...12,000 people are just going to be given housing?..sounds like the construction of a bunch of project houses. the main problem is not homelessness, because the average person never becomes homeless, the problem is that the vast majority of these people are at some level mentally unstable. i feel that this money would be better spent on rehabilitation centers for veterans and mental hospitals for the mentally unstable.
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