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Thank you for stating this. So many people who write about homelessness don't even want to engage with the actual report findings from the agencies that manage
by mdorazio 5y ago
Thank you for stating this. So many people who write about homelessness don't even want to engage with the actual report findings from the agencies that manage homelessness. For example, here's the key takeaway from LA's 2020 homeless count [1]:
> In addition to the enduring impact of systemic racism, an inadequate housing supply, and income inequality drive inflows to homelessness. Homelessness starts rising when median rents in a region exceed 22% of median income and rises even more sharply at 32%; in Los Angeles, the median rent is 46.7% or nearly half of median income.
Beyond the above, about 22% of our homeless population in CA came from outside the state (see the full presentation). If you actually want to tackle homelessness in CA, the solutions have been known for years, we just don't have the collective willpower to do any of them. 1) make other states actually deal with their own homeless problems instead of just exporting them to CA, 2) fix the absolute insanity of the housing market, 3) implement an actual social safety net so that people losing their job or priced out of their homes don't immediately land on the street. THEN we can talk about things like drug abuse, mental health management, etc.
[1] https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=726-2020-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count-results https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=726-2020-greater-los-ange...
- DoreenMichele 5y agoYes, there is a known and direct connection between the availability of affordable housing -- which I mean in the most literal fashion possible of "market rate housing that a poor person can afford on their budget" -- and homelessness. We have torn down a million SROs and largely zoned out of existence the ability to create a lot of standard historical housing forms, currently known in some circles as Missing Middle Housing. And then we act like we just cannot understand why people are sleeping in the streets. It's such a mystery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy There are other factors, but I desperately wish we would remedy the known dearth of affordable housing stock across the country.