Los Angeles Community Action Network
May 31, 2018
"To be uncounted is to be unseen – to be left out of funding, planning and implementing programs to combat homelessness." -Economic Roundtable
In a few hours, the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) will release its annual homeless count numbers. Angelenos anxiously await the outcome because after City and County voters approved $4.75 billion for housing and services to deal with the issue, it seems as if the numbers are going up. There has been a stream of whispers and leaks over the past few weeks from political insiders suggesting that the numbers are down. This assertion has fallen flat. Been ridiculed. The strategic leaking has created DEEP profound suspicion that City and County government care more about damage control than houseless Angelenos.
Those doing work in the trenches, staring directly at the crisis, have always felt the homeless count never represented the real number of those battling houselessness. On the ground experience would suggest an undercount, year in and year out. Routine questions and concerns about the methods and data used to arrive at a highly political conclusion would go unanswered and unacknowledged by those responsible. The community consensus: if you don't care about getting the count right you can't care about the people you serve.
In November 2017, following years of community-based acrimony, the Economic Roundtable released a report, Who Counts, assessing the accuracy of LAHSA counts. Rather than looking at annual snapshots, the assessment would analyze data over a 10-year period (2007-2017) searching for inconsistencies within street counts and other data. The findings merely confirmed what community had alleged for years, "there are indications that the Homeless Counts have underestimated the number of people who are homeless."
November 2017 was a busy month as LA CAN would also release its one-year report card and assessment on Proposition HHH implementation, titled All Show and No Substance, highlighting City Hall ’s trajectory that went from barely passing to a failing grade.
Six months after the release of LA CAN’s November 2017 white paper — which was grounded in an empirical study of voter opinion, law enforcement activities, HHH oversight committee meetings, reports from various city departments and media coverage — the homeless crisis continues to spin out of control despite the addition of $1.2 billion for homeless housing. Moreover, it appears that the media and some local elected officials would find agreement with our findings and frustrations:
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In February, two city councilmen frustrated at the “scant evidence of progress” in “providing alternatives to sidewalk encampments,” urged the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority to prepare a plan to shelter everyone on the streets by December.
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Also in February, a Los Angeles Times editorial board series called the city’s response to the homeless crisis a “national disgrace.”
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The first new public bathrooms on skid row in more than a decade shut down in late March for a planned expansion and have yet to reopen.
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In April, Mayor Garcetti committed $20 million for emergency homeless shelters. But as LA CAN pointed out in recent analysis of the mayor’s plan, it provides $29 million for stepped-up law enforcement in council districts that agree to place the shelters, a thinly veiled bribe.
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In May, the HHH bond program citizens oversight committee reported that the measures goal of adding 10,000 units of supportive housing in a decade has nosedived to 6,000.
Given what we know and the brief backdrop provided in this piece deep suspicion is not an unwarranted feeling. If in fact, LAHSA releases numbers that show a decrease in homelessness demand all of the data - not just the sound-bites. What's the total amount spent to permanently house people? How many units have been built? How many people have you actually housed? Of the number of people housed, how many are Black, the undeniable face of homelessness in Los Angeles? How many are families? How many are women?
The only way to end homelessness is to provide a home. There are no shortcuts.
For interviews or additional information please contact Pete White at (213) 434-1594 or petew at cangress.org