2024 Homelessness Symposium—a gathering to share the successes and struggles regarding homelessness prevention and intervention in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES, September 17, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– The Salvation Army’s Homelessness Symposium is an educational forum that seeks to ignite conversation and action around the most pressing homelessness issues facing the Los Angeles community. It will feature keynotes, fireside chats, panels, and Q&As.
WHAT: 2024 Homelessness Symposium—a gathering to share the successes and struggles regarding homelessness prevention and intervention in Los Angeles
Collaboration, not competition. How NPOs must evolve.
Innovation: The need for fresh ideas.
Challenges facing city infrastructure.
Cura Personalis: The role of mental health in homelessness.
WHO:
Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalalkis
The Salvation Army LA Metro Board Members
Lt. Colonel Mike Dickinson, Divisional Commander of The Salvation Army Southern California Division
WHEN: Tuesday, September 17, 9am-3pm
WHERE: Gibson Dunn
333 South Grand Ave. 54th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90071
RSVP Required to Attend: 562.685.4131
INTERVIEWS & PHOTO OPS:
Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalalkis (by pre-arranged appointment)
Lt. Colonel Mike Dickinson, Divisional Commander of The Salvation Army Southern California Division
Major Lisa Barnes, Divisional Secretary for Los Angeles Metro of The Salvation Army
Andrew Jameson, The Salvation Army LA Metro Advisory Board Chairman; Managing Partner of Path Content Group (PCG)
The Salvation Army will be hosting the 2024 Homelessness Symposium, which will be held Tuesday, September 17th at the offices of Gibson Dunn in downtown Los Angeles. Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalakis, and other leading voices in the public and private sectors will once again come together around this important conversation, providing attendees valuable insights into the homelessness crisis facing the greater Los Angeles community.
The confirmed speakers to date include: California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, Deputy Mayor of Homelessness & Community Health for the City of Los Angeles, Dr. Etsemaye Agonafer, USC Professor and Director of Social Work, Dr. Carl Castro, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) former Chair, Wendy Greuel, former Mayor of the City of Glendale, Ardy Kassakian, Director of Homelessness Policy Research Institute, Benjamin Henwood, Los Angeles Police Department Homelessness Commander, Giselle Espinoza, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP Partner, Theane Evangelis, plus 14 additional thought-leaders from the public and private sectors in the areas of homelessness, mental health, and social work.
“As we experience an ever-worsening homelessness crisis, we find ourselves at an inflection point for our state, our city, and our community,” said Andrew Jameson, Chair of The Salvation Army’s Los Angeles Metropolitan Advisory Board. “There is perhaps no better time for The Salvation Army, as a leading voice in addressing this epidemic, to host the 2024 Symposium. Hopefully, we can showcase helpful, engaging and even transformative conversations among key stakeholders in our public and private sectors as we continue to confront this challenging issue.”
Major Lisa Barnes, The Salvation Army’s Los Angeles Metro Coordinator, adds “As a major provider of homeless services in Los Angeles, The Salvation Army recognizes the need for collaboration to tackle this growing humanitarian crisis. That is why we, once again, are bringing together some of the most influential thought leaders in the public and private sectors to discuss the growing problems of homelessness, but more importantly, consider the “cura personalis” as we seek to transform one life at a time.”
The Salvation Army’s Homelessness Symposium is an educational forum that seeks to ignite conversation and action around the most pressing homelessness issues facing the Los Angeles community. It will feature keynotes, fireside chats, panels, and Q&As.
ONSITE CONTACT: Melinda Lankford, Communications & Marketing Director
To RSVP, for more information on this event, and to arrange interviews, please contact Melinda Lankford, Communications and Marketing Director for The Salvation Army Southern California Division at: Melinda.Lankford@usw.salvationarmy.org 562.685.4131
About The Salvation Army:The Salvation Army has been supporting those in need without discrimination since 1880 in the United States. Today, more than 30 million Americans receive assistance from The Salvation Army each year through a broad array of social services including food for the hungry, relief for disaster victims, and shelter for the homeless. The Salvation Army has been serving Los Angeles County for over 140 years and provides up to 1700 shelter beds in LA County each night.
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — Saturday morning New Life Community Gospel Church welcomed residents to the first LGBTQ+ friendly food pantry in the area.
It’s a partnership with Messengers of Hope Mission, a nonprofit that provides food in their mobile unit to residents across Pasco County.
What You Need To Know
Messengers of Hope Mission is a nonprofit organization that helps feed the hungry in Pasco County with their mobile food pantry
The nonprofit partnered with New Life Community Gospel Church for an LGBTQ+ food pantry
Church leaders want to create a space where residents feel safe and loved to get food they need
The initiative will take place every second Saturday of the month
For the church’s Associate Pastor Randy Meadows, it is a chance to connect with residents in his community.
“We have a lot of LGBTQ people that don’t feel safe to come to certain areas for whatever reason so we just wanted to make sure that they knew that they had a place to come that we could give them the food that they needed,” he said.
It’s that reassurance of safety and support why Stephanie Stuart went to the pantry Saturday.
“I do visit other pantries and they’re very sweet people at the church, but it’s always in the back of my mind I wonder if they’d be that sweet if they knew the whole truth,” she said.
Having support from church leaders is a sense of relief for Stuart, who has struggled to make ends meet being an entertainer in the area.
Leaving with a cart full of food but also love, she is grateful for the variety the pantry provides.
“I got girl scout cookies, thin mint, but yea, this is going to help me for probably the next two weeks,” said Stuart.
For Meadows, seeing the smiles in his community is how he knows they’re making a difference.
“Jesus said to John, feed my sheep and that’s what we’re trying to do is feed the sheep for the lord and whoever goes through this parking lot I want to love on them,” he said.
This pantry will be held every second Saturday of the month.
MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis is making changes in the way it handles homeless encampments.
An ordinance proposes more transparency when it comes to tracking locations and resources being offered to people living there.
Encampments are popping up all over and when they are closed it costs the city thousands of dollars and the impact on the lives of people living there cannot be measured.
“I’m appalled to live in a city where my tax dollars pay for bulldozers evicting and re-traumatizing the same group of residents over and over again and that we don’t have the transparency the oversight and the accountability we need to show that any of this is working,” Elizabeth Anderson said.
The City Council’s Public Health and Safety Committee heard testimony on a proposed ordinance focusing on transparency, accountability and oversight for encampment removals.
“I’ve been out here I think two-and-a-half, almost three years,” April said.
April calls these encampments home. She says she needs more than talk.
“All we hear is just everyone saying this and that and they are trying to help but basically, they are just kicking us out and where are we going to go next,” April said.
Councilmember Andrea Jenkins is putting together an encampment and unhoused community think tank.
“I totally understand this person and so, consequently, we’re going to be saying what are immediate actions we can take now and what are some long-term actions we can take to be more sustainable,” Jenkins said.
Members with lived experiences and stakeholders will meet three times and have a facilitated conversation.
“If they put in more action than just say the year, I think it will help. Because out here it’s hard. It’s scary sometimes. We just need a direction on where to go, you know, other than just you got to pack up you got to go,” April said.
April is optimistic and just hopes it happens fast to keep this growing problem from getting worse.
“Help us instead of trying to kick us out show us something that you do care about the people,” April said.
An amended version of the ordinance passed focuses on the cost of removing encampments and tracking the outcome of those displaced.
Reg Chapman joined WCCO-TV in May of 2009. He came to WCCO from WNBC-TV in New York City where he covered an array of stories for the station including the Coney Island plane crash, the crane collapse on the city’s east side, 50 shots fired at motorist Sean Bell by New York Police, and a lacrosse team assault at Fairfield High School in Connecticut.
BOSTON — Some migrant children innocently played outside of Gov. Maura Healey’s office Thursday afternoon, while others clung to their mothers in the thick of a boisterous rally calling on the governor to repeal her controversial shelter policy that activists say is forcing homeless individuals to sleep on the streets.
Through a multilingual blend of songs, chants and speeches, more than 50 migrants and homelessness prevention activists urged Healey to reverse a rule that limits family stays in overflow sites to five business days.
After that, families are barred from staying at more traditional emergency assistance family shelters for at least six months, under a rule that took effect last month as the Healey administration deals with soaring costs associated with sheltering newly arriving migrant families and Bay Staters who are experiencing homelessness.
“We understand that there aren’t unlimited funds, but we ask the governor and state officials to sit down and talk to families on the front lines, to talk to the faith communities, to talk with the providers and advocates because we can do better,” Kelly Turley, associate director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, said at the rally, as she invoked the state’s right-to-shelter law.
“We can do better by families and children,” Turley continued. “We’ve done it for over 40 years, and we can keep doing it.”
Constituent services staffers for Healey stood outside the executive suite, which was cordoned off, during the rally. Healey was in Lowell Thursday morning for a child care event, and has a meeting scheduled at the Statehouse later in the afternoon.
Spokespeople for Healey did not immediately respond to News Service questions about the rally, including whether the governor is willing to revise the five-day policy.
Ronel Remy, an organizer with City Life/Vida Urbana, led the crowd in chants such as “Gov. Healey, feel the heat; keep the children off the streets” and “Gov. Healey, be humane; don’t leave people in the rain.”
Participants held up posters that read, “Putting children on the street is not a solution,” “Keep Families Housed!” and “5 NIGHTS then homeless Not O.K.,” among other messages. They delivered a letter for Healey, and after the demonstration fanned out throughout the building to give copies to other lawmakers, including House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka.
The letter asks Healey and the Legislature to “take immediate action to reverse the Administration’s new policy to restrict access to Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelters and and overflow shelters (“Temporary Respite Centers.”).
It adds, “Five days is not enough time for families to find housing or alternative temporary options, and the six-month bar on accessing shelter is leaving children and families in extremely precarious situations.”
Pastor Don Nanstad, of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in East Boston, said most of the Haitian migrants at the rally are currently staying at the church. He said pews have been pushed aside to make sleeping space for 14 families, or roughly 40 individuals.
“There’s more of them sheltered in the church than we have members of this tiny church,” Nanstad said. “Gov. Healey, she has to feel a lot of pressure at this moment with dollars for the budget, but that is not to be compared with the pressure that all of these people face every day.”
Wesley Jean, a Haitian migrant who brought his six-year-old daughter to the rally, said he’s been staying at the church after learning about the temporary aid from friends. Jean said he’s waiting on the state to process his applications for more stable shelter options, with his situation made more urgent by his pregnant wife.
“I feel like I’ve been treated like an animal,” Jean said through Remy translating. “I have my wife who’s expecting. She’s throwing up in the streets, in train station(s), and I have my daughter sleeping in the street with me. That’s not the kind of life I want for them.”
Nanstad called the shelter crisis an “emergency for the governor.”
“And when there’s an emergency, that is the time to see what mettle, what courage and backbone you have in your leader,” he said.
Turley said there will be more demonstrations at the State House and throughout Massachusetts ahead of Election Day in November.
“We want the governor and the Legislature to know that we’re not here against you — we’re here to work with you,” Turley said.
“We are calling on the state to use the resources that are available to do the right thing, ensure that children and families are not sleeping in cars, train stations, bus stations, in hospital emergency rooms, in other places not meant for human habitation.”
Orlando city officials indefinitely paused a plan Tuesday night to invest $7.5 million in a new homeless shelter, a spokesperson for the city confirmed, just hours after initially announcing the idea.
“After speaking with several community members, Mayor Dyer decided to remove the item from the agenda,” Andrea Otero, public information officer for the city, told Orlando Weekly over email. “We plan to continue gathering feedback from residents and determining the best ways to address the homelessness crisis.”
According to reporting from Spectrum News 13, an initial meeting Tuesday night to discuss the initiative was met with a wave of negative feedback from residents of the area where the proposed open-access shelter would have been established. The city announced earlier that day that they had narrowed down a location they felt was fitting for what they had in mind: a 21,000-square-foot facility at 2140 W. Washington St., just a couple of miles west of downtown in District 5.
Neighborhood residents, however, reportedly pleaded for the city to consider investing in a shelter location somewhere else, due to what they see as an over-concentration of homeless services and programs already established in their area.
“Why is it that some of these entities can go in other neighborhoods and mess their neighborhoods up? How would you feel if you come home, and somebody got your water hose on and drinking out of it, or taking a shower?” asked resident Tracy Anderson.
Shan Rose, the newly elected interim commissioner for District 5, acknowledged residents’ frustration. “These are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters who are often homeless and that’s the reason why we have to come together,” said Rose. “District 5 unfortunately has the bigger burden of social services and so residents are saying no more here and that’s what we heard tonight.”
Martha Are, head of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida nonprofit who attended the meeting Tuesday night, conceded that residents had “legitimate concerns” and stressed that new shelters are needed across the tri-county region, not just in District 5.
“Every county needs additional [shelter] capacity, and simultaneously, we have to create more housing opportunities for our citizens,” Are told Orlando Weekly, adding that homelessness has become a growing problem along major corridors.
“When we have more people becoming homeless, but we don’t increase our shelter capacity — the shelters are full,” Are stressed. “There’s no place for people to go, and therefore they’re out there, unsheltered. They’re out on the streets, and that dynamic is going to continue unless we add some shelter bed capacity.”
A point-in-time homelessness count in Central Florida — covering Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties — conducted by Are’s nonprofit and volunteers earlier this year identified a 105 percent increase in the number of people in the region who are unsheltered, and are left to find shelter on the streets and sidewalks or in the woods. An estimated 1.3 million low-income families in Florida are severely cost-burdened, meaning at least 50 percent of their household’s monthly income is going toward rent and utilities.
Existing shelters in the Orlando region are full, said Are. “Most of the existing shelters have been around for more than 25 years. We haven’t seen new shelters since then.”
Orlando’s decade-long struggle navigating the issue of homelessness was exacerbated during the pandemic, as local rents skyrocketed, the housing market tightened, and the region saw an influx of residents who could afford housing that longtime locals had been priced out of. “It’s our neighbors, it’s our mothers, it’s our grandmothers” who are on the streets, said Are. “You know? It’s children, brothers.”
The city of Orlando’s proposed $7.5 million investment in a new shelter — placed on pause this week — would come from the city’s Accelerate Orlando fund, a pool of federal funding the city received from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The city earmarked $58 million in funds total for Accelerate Orlando, a plan created specifically to address the city’s affordable housing crisis.
Millions of dollars from that fund have already been approved for projects like a hotel conversion off Colonial Drive, mixed-income affordable housing development, investments in local homeless service organizations (including the HSN) and financial assistance for low-income residents to help cover housing repairs or down payment costs.
The idea of this new proposal was to establish what’s known as an “open access” shelter: a shelter that would be operational 24/7, with a low bar to entry, offering basic helpful services like employment assistance, healthcare and counseling to help people find feasible housing options.
Local housing advocates, including Are, stress that not only are local individuals and families struggling with a lack of housing, but also access to viable job opportunities, affordable childcare, and treatment for mental health and substance use problems that can be exacerbated by the experience of homelessness.
“The best operated shelters for communities that they are in are the ones that are open 24/7, where you have staff who are working with people during the day to help them with their employment options, to help them access the healthcare services, mental health services that they need,” said Are. Those programs “can get better outcomes” she explained, “and they are less disruptive to a community because you don’t have people walking around.”
She also acknowledged that some people who are homeless aren’t always willing to go to a shelter due to a bad prior experience with a shelter, or because existing shelters aren’t accommodating for people with pets, for unmarried couples, or for people who lost or had their valid forms of identification stolen.
“There’s a lot about how a shelter gets structured that can make a difference in how effective it is for populations that have pretty valid reasons for not going into other facilities,” Are said.
The problem extends beyond the Orlando metro area. The Sunshine State at large has become increasingly unaffordable, particularly for those who are low-income or who live on a fixed income from disability or Social Security payments.
A new Florida law, approved by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this year, could even further strain existing resources in communities. The law, originally pitched by an out-of-state think tank called the Cicero Institute, bans cities and counties from letting homeless people camp on public property and, effective Jan. 1, will allow individuals and businesses to sue a local government that fails to enforce the ban (while allowing a five-day period to cure).
“They’re now forcing us to do something about it, but they’re not giving us the funding,” Orange County commissioner Emily Bonilla said of the state, during a county meeting earlier this summer in June.
Other local leaders have tried to remain optimistic. “I feel pretty confident that we’re not in the business of incarcerating people for being poor, for being homeless or housing insecure,” said fellow county commissioner Mike Scott, during a legislative briefing on the bill in March. “I think even, notwithstanding this bill, I think we can meet the challenges to be able to serve those who are struggling with homelessness.”
KPIX has been marking Overdose Awareness Week by looking at a city that has shared a very similar experience as San Francisco. Fentanyl actually arrived in Vancouver before San Francisco. The results have been devastating for both cities. There are several different approaches British Columbia has tried to save lives, things like opening safe consumption sites and providing a regulated supply of drugs for some users.
In San Francisco, there was an unofficial safe-use site in operation for a little while. The Tenderloin Linkage Center was opened in early 2022, operated by contractors for the city. It was originally announced as a connection point to services. It ultimately became a defacto safe consumption site for users, generating some controversy and pushback from neighbors. Mayor London Breed decided to close it down at the end of that year.
That short-lived experiment raised some questions: Should safe-use sites be part of the city’s portfolio? What other things is the city trying to get people linked up with help? And how might the upcoming election alter the city’s approach?
“I did not see a way out until they showed up,” said Michael in his Tenderloin hotel. “I didn’t think I could do it by myself. I didn’t care if I did it by myself.”
He is talking about his help he has received from his psychiatric clinical pharmacist, Damian Peterson. He’s making a house call to deliver this medically assisted drug treatment. Michael says this has been a key part of his journey off the street, into stability, and working towards recovery.
“They helped me taper that off,” Michael says. “And then kind of balance me out. Suboxone, and whatnot. It’s played a major major benefit to my life.”
Tiki is another patient, and like many fentanyl users she says she can’t imagine escaping that drug without something like methadone to reduce withdrawal symptoms.
“No way to do it on my own.” she explained. “But also, the support is very important.”
San Francisco has been increasing efforts to take this kind of help directly to people instead of expecting them to visit a clinic whenever it’s time for their medication.
“I think it definitely makes sense. Like when somebody has so many other things going on in life that’s making it chaotic and unpredictable,” Peterson explained between deliveries. “It’s really hard to focus on this goal of making it to an appointment.”
And after years of climbing overdose numbers, in a city desperate for some good news, some is finally emerging.
“Comparatively, we have 72 more people alive compared to last year,” said San Francisco Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax. “So I think it’s really important to put a human face on that.”
City health officials say they’re not sure why, but overdose numbers are falling. Deaths so far this year are down 15% from the same period last year.
“I think we can’t point to any one specific thing. frankly, within the department, or in a broader sense that we can say, or pinpoint and say, ‘This is the reason,’” Colfax said of the decline.
“Because I want to make it easier, just as easy to get treatment as it is to go out there and buy dope,” Mayor London Breed recently said outside city hall.
“But we do have some concerns with state law that could lead to not only the arrest of people who are implementing safe consumption sites,” Breed said at a recent debate. “But potentially the disbarment of lawyers in the city attorney’s office.”
“Harm reduction, which safe injection sites fall under, is a small part of the solution,” Mark Farrell said at a recent campaign stop. “But right now, it’s the central part of what we do. Almost the only thing we do as a city government. And the answer is it’s failing.”
The drug crisis, and its intersection with homelessness, is a prominent topic in the race for mayor. There is one theme among the challengers. Former Mayor Mark Farrell is suggesting one giant emergency center.
“Really massive additional shelter capacity,” Farrell said. “One place where people can come, but have services connected with that.”
“For me, a safe injection site, a safe consumption site, around fentanyl does not make sense at this point,” Daniel Lurie told KPX.
Lurie has also stressed building out more shelter capacity.
“What is on the table is making sure that we get people off the streets that are using, into care on demand,” he said. “Or, mandating treatment. Which we are able to do now with SB 43, but we need to build the beds.”
“Look, there is no one right answer,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin. “Harm reduction is part of the answer. Abstinence is part of the answer. Treatment is part of the answer.”
Peskin has suggested a regional approach with Santa Clara and Alameda Counties.
“And work jointly to stand up a facility, to repurpose under utilized, unutilized state buildings that have been sitting around for years,” he said. “And stand those up as massive drug treatment centers.”
“We want we want to stop the overdose crisis. We’ve got to get people off of the streets in independence where they can have a medically trained professional,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safai.
Safai, an early advocate for sober housing, also points to the general need for more.
“We need sober living,” he said. “We need to expand the number of mental health and drug treatment beds.”
So it’s a universal call for more treatment capacity. That will require resources. Then there are the questions about how to best connect people to help, and should more people be compelled into it.
“I wish I could sit down with them and say, ‘Go here, go here, go here,’” Michael said of those on the streets.
He says the treatment he’s receiving has changed his life. And as for how to get more people connected to that help, he says a lot of users just don’t know where to start.
“I just wish they were educated more,” he explained. “There are a lot of intelligent people out there, but they don’t know what to do.”
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, call the national helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
Wilson Walker joined KPIX 5 in July 2007. After 10 years producing newscasts, Wilson became a Multimedia Journalist (MMJ) in 2012, meaning he shoots, writes and edits all of his own stories.
Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said from her vantage point, the sweeps aren’t helping anything.
“It’s really just moving people across the street and back, across the street and back, and not being successful in putting large numbers of people into shelter and housing. And that’s really what you want, you want to get people off the streets,” said Friedenbach.
KPIX met Friedenbach at the intersection of Leavenworth and Turk in the Tenderloin. It’s a place she said since the city started the sweeps, city officials and police are at the block at least once a week to kick people out.
“Every four days. So, this corner of this block right here, and there never has been a lot of encampments there. There was maybe a tent or two, but they come here every four days and push everyone out,” said Friedenbach.
City officials including the mayor have said the sweeps are meant to maintain health and safety on city streets.
Officials conducting the sweeps do offer services to those living in the tents, but the city has said repeatedly that a majority deny those services, giving the city no choice but to kick them out or even arrest them if they refuse to leave.
Friedenbach has long been an advocate for the unhoused, so it’s no surprise she’s against this policy. She claims the sweeps are not just not working they’re actually making the issue of homelessness worse.
“It just is going to mean that they’re going to get fines and fees that they can’t pay. It’s going to mean that they’re going to get cited for things that they have no other choice but to be out here, and so it’s just not a way to get, there’s never been a ticket that has lead somebody off the streets,” said Friedenbach.
She said what she wants to see is a concerted effort to convert some of the vacant downtown buildings into housing for the homeless.
It’s a policy she believes will actually help both clean up the streets and get people back on their feet.
“A tent is a piece of fabric, who’s inside that tent is a human being,” said Friedenbach.
Michael Webb and James Peters, best friends since third grade, sit on their e-bikes and lean against the brick wall of a vacant storefront.
They glare at the Capitol Hill King Soopers where, they say, workers just kicked them out.
“I’m too depressed to talk,” Peters says.
The whole ordeal started at 6:07 a.m., the day before, on a Monday. Peters had put all of his change — all the money he has in this world — into the store’s Coinstar machine.
The machine printed out a receipt, and he took it to the counter to collect his $111.
“But it was 6:07 a.m., and they don’t cash the vouchers until 8 a.m.,” Peters says.
He had a court appointment in Aurora that morning, so he left the store and came back on Tuesday with Webb. But when they arrived, a worker explained that they were too late. They should have come back on Monday — receipts need to be redeemed the day they’re printed.
The men felt the store was robbing them of $111 they desperately needed, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Peters’ temper boiled, and the store employees kicked him out for good.
Staff at the store declined to comment on this story.
“They robbed my brother,” says Webb, who called Coinstar on behalf of his friend. “I was on hold forever, but when they answered this super nice woman gave me a code and just made sure the transaction was right.”
Since Peters had been 86’d from the store, Webb went into King Soopers with the receipt and the code. Six people, he says, surrounded him to kick him out. He ignored them and walked to the counter.
“The poor man working there was going, ‘Oh my God, this guy’s back,’” Webb says. “But I gave him the code, and we got the money.”
The $111 was in their hands again. To them, it was a fortune. And it was so little at the same time.
“How is this all the money I’ve got in the world,” wonders Peters.
Not that long ago, Peters was thriving. Now, he’s crashed.
Peters is a master tiler and the owner of Trinity Tiling. For 19 years, he’s done custom tiling jobs for Denver homeowners.
Owning his own business, he made more money than he needed.
“Two, three years ago, I was renting a house out in Aurora in Southshore — $3,300 a month,” he says. “And that was chump change to me at the time — like easy. I had 10 grand for first and last month’s rent and a deposit. I was living like a baller, as they would say, and now I find myself all the way at the bottom.”
When he had the money, he spent it furiously. Then, he split with his wife. The pandemic and inflation disrupted the construction industry. Customers quit calling for tiling jobs.
These days, his business hardly earns a dime.
“I bill at $125, and with that, I can barely afford overhead to live in my parents’ basement for free,” Peters says.
His has his belongings locked in a storage unit. A rodent has the full run of the place.
Michael Webb and James Peters stand outside King Soopers in Capitol Hill on August, 20, 2024. Kyle Harris/Denverite
“It’s in there eating through the golf club bags and eating the seat off my dirt bikes and my boots for my wakeboards and bindings and snowboard boots,” Peters says. “It’s all just trashed.”
For that kind of storage, he pays $400 a month — a bill he’s not been able to afford.
“I’m so broke right now because I haven’t had work,” Peters says. “I can’t even get into my storage unit right now. So it’s like, all my s*** is in the hands of God — me getting money before the first of next month. Is all my s*** going to be gone? Or am I going to live to die another day with that deal?”
Over the years, he’s struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and he recently relapsed after five years of sobriety.
“I don’t even eat anymore,” he says. “I don’t work out anymore. I don’t do s***. Literally, I’m giving up on life. That’s how bad it’s been. I’m still alive, unfortunately, but I almost accomplished my mission the other day with an overdose. But my baby’s mama called 911, and they came and got me and took me to the hospital.”
For the third time in his life, he kicked fentanyl cold turkey, sweating and suffering in his bed alone.
Webb, too, has struggled with addiction, though his housing situation has been improving.
When he was 12 years old, he says, he accidentally burned down a post office.
“That pretty much screwed my life up from the get-go,” he says. “Drugs and alcohol happened very early after that.”
He’s lived all over Colorado, from Parker to Castle Rock to Loveland to Fort Collins. But Denver felt most like home, and all his life, he’s wanted to live downtown.
“I always wanted to live downtown, until I was homeless downtown, and that’s not how I wanted to live down here,” he says.
When he was 25 years old, he lived outside under an overhang at the Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality, a church at 13th Avenue and Williams Street.
During the day, he would hide his belongings in a nearby bush while he worked in construction cleanup for $50 a day at Ready Labor. At night, he’d drink at the Satire. Then he’d go back to the church to sleep, hoping his belongings would still be there. Often, they weren’t.
Now 38, he’s finally getting his life back together. He’s spent multiple stints in hardscrabble rehabs. He’s relapsed and suffered through withdrawals that led to brutal seizures. He found some stability in the Denver Rescue Mission’s New Life Program, where he stayed sober, kept a job and eventually earned a car upon graduating.
And he recently lived for nine months in a safe-occupancy site, where he slept in a heated tent with a refrigerator. Sure, he was still homeless, but at least he managed to find some stability.
Through government subsidies, he got a RadPower e-bike. Tired of driving, he sold his car and enjoyed cruising through the city. Then he crashed into a fire hydrant going 18 miles an hour and broke his leg — a tibial plateau fracture. He received 50 staples in his leg and needed to use a wheelchair.
In the spring, Webb connected with a volunteer at the Saint Francis Center who helped him find a studio at the Colburn Hotel and Apartments, the housing above the classic Denver dive Charlie Brown’s.
For the first time in his adult life, Webb is living near downtown, in a home in Capitol Hill. Peters moved his belongings in for him. Webb used crutches to get to his fourth-floor apartment. Without Peters, he doesn’t know how he would have pulled off the move.
“Man, he’s done a lot for me,” Webb says. “If I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t be around. I’d be gone. Not gone from Denver, gone from the world. It’s good to have a friend, a brother.”
Webb says Denver has programs that helped him out along the way.
“When I first became homeless, when I was 25, I really dug into resources and really researched,” Webb says.
There are many homeless people who go without food, and as he sees it, that’s entirely unnecessary.
“There’s all kinds of places that give out food and stuff,” he says.
Medicaid saved him when he had to go into treatment for his alcoholism and when he broke his leg on his bike.
“If you’re homeless, you can get Medicaid,” Webb says. “And Medicaid is the best insurance that you can possibly have. I’ve had Medicaid. It’s saved my a** multiple times through alcoholism. I’ve been to treatment centers. Medicaid has saved my butt with medical stuff.”
Webb says the investment in his health is ultimately good for society.
“I’ve done a lot of work through my years,” he says. “I feel like I’ve worked enough to feel like I’m not ripping off the taxpayer. I pay taxes every year, so, I’m damned grateful for it … Denver’s been pretty terrible, but pretty good to me, honestly. Like, when it comes down to it, Denver’s been wonderful to me. I mean, I’m lucky to be where I’m at.”
But Medicaid hasn’t worked for Peters. His prior income has disqualified him from having the coverage.
Peters broke his leg in a motorcycle accident five years back.
It took him a year, walking on his broken leg, to finally seek treatment.
The doctors asked him, “How did you do that?”
“Drugs,” he replied.
He felt like he didn’t have any other choice and says he couldn’t afford “millions of dollars in medical debt.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Webb says.
Michael Webb and James Peters, friends since third grade, stand by their e-bikes in Capitol Hill, August, 20, 2024. Kyle Harris/Denverite
“I have two abscessed teeth,” Peters says. “And I can’t get approved for Medicaid because of my taxes in prior years.”
He reaches into the pocket of his cargo short looking for his Orajel, and realizes it’s missing. He can barely open his mouth.
“This guy’s worked his whole life, hard work,” Webb says. “He’s the hardest worker … It sucks. His teeth are blowing up, and he can’t get them fixed right now. There’s a lot wrong with this place. It’s hard to keep happy. It’s hard to smile all the time. It’s hard to be nice.”
But being nice matters to both men. It’s something they see less and less of in Denver since the pandemic.
As they speak about how the city’s becoming tense, a man at a bus stop down the street screams at a woman in her car. He’s mad she’s blocking a bus that’s nowhere in sight.
Even though Peters acknowledges the woman is parked illegally, he is appalled by the man’s behavior.
“Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt,” Peters says. “Be nice, too. You don’t know what they’re going through. They could be going through something 10 times worse than what you’re going through. They could have lost a parent this week and a parent last week. You don’t know. Be nice. Everyone doesn’t have to be so high-strung.”
Peters is strong. He knows how to defend himself and has saved Webb from the sort of scraps people struggling with addiction find themselves in all too often.
But, these days, Peters avoids confrontations. Even with the King Soopers workers who refused to give them their money, he and Webb helped each other stay grounded, he says. They worked to keep their cool as best they could, even as they felt robbed.
“Everyone looks at you like you want to fight,” Peters says. “It’s like, ‘I’ve got no interest in fighting. I want to buy donuts for my daughter and go back home.’”
Homelessness increased by 10 percent in the metro Denver area this year, according to Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s annual Point-in-Time count data.
The Point-in-Time count aims to capture the number of people experiencing homelessness in the metro area by counting people both on the street and in shelters during a single day in January each year. This year’s count, released on Wednesday, was done between sundown on Jan. 22 and sundown on Jan. 23.
The count includes Denver and its surrounding counties, while similar efforts take place nationwide in coordination with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
It’s an imperfect science, with weather and methodology changes affecting data year to year. But the information helps local and national nonprofits and government agencies respond to Denver’s homelessness crisis.
This year, volunteers counted 9,977 people experiencing homelessness in the metro area, compared to 9,065 people during the 2023 count.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
Homelessness has been rising for years. Between 2022 and 2023, the overall number of people counted increased by 31.7 percent.
“Behind every data point lies the reality of individuals and families facing the hardship of homelessness,” said Rebecca Mayer, interim executive director at Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative in a statement Wednesday. “It’s crucial to remember that our unhoused neighbors deserve the stability and security of a safe place to call home.”
The entire Denver metro saw an increase in the number of people using shelters.
The growth in homelessness this year was largely driven by a 12 percent increase in people using shelters, according to Metro Denver Homeless Initiative.
“While fewer people are experiencing homelessness for the first time, the number of chronically homeless individuals rose by 16 (percent),” wrote Metro Denver Homeless Initiative in a statement Wednesday.
For Cathy Alderman, Chief Communications and Public Policy Officer for Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the growth in chronic homelessness speaks to the state of Denver’s housing market.
“That just means that they’re staying in the cycle of homelessness longer, and that screams that, we know we have a housing crisis in Denver, but it’s probably even worse than we think,” she said.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
The count also found that the number of families experiencing homelessness has “grown significantly” by about 49 percent, from 2,101 families in 2023 to 3,136 families experiencing homelessness in the metro area this year.
“That’s one of the most troubling things about the report,” Alderman said. “We know that homelessness has an even more detrimental impact on kids.”
What about Denver homelessness specifically?
The overall number of people experiencing homelessness in Denver rose by about 12 percent, from 5,818 people in 2023 to 6,539 people in 2024.
While unsheltered homelessness rose in the metro area at large, the number of unsheltered people sleeping outdoors in Denver dropped by about 10.5 percent, from 1,423 people to 1,273 people.
Data Source: Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative
That’s after Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration spent more than $100 million opening non-congregate hotel shelters and micro-communities to bring people sleeping on the streets indoors.
In a statement Wednesday, Johnston attributed the rise in people living in shelters to those efforts, which closed more than a dozen encampments and moved more than 1,000 people indoors, often to non-congregate shelters.
Denver’s figures also do not include the 4,300 new immigrants to Denver who were staying in Denver’s temporary migrant shelters that night, just a few weeks after new immigrant arrivals peaked in early January.
Mayor Mike Johnston is touting the results as a win for the city.
He spent much of his campaign and early days in office promising to bring 1,000 people indoors by the end of 2023.
In a statement Wednesday, one success he pointed to an 82.5 percent drop in unsheltered family homelessness — from 103 to 18.
But the overall number of families experiencing homelessness in Denver grew by about 58 percent.
Johnston also touted the decrease in tents across the city, including a 23 percent drop in people living in tents and cars. According to the Mayor’s office, Denver has about 117 tents currently up in the city, versus the 242 tents counted in January.
Meanwhile, the number of people staying in shelters grew compared to 2023.
“We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it,” Johnson said. “In just six months we were able to achieve transformational reduction in unsheltered homelessness while building an infrastructure that will allow us to attack this issue for years to come. Denverites should be proud to live in a city that responds to homelessness with compassion.”
Cole Chandler, Johnston’s senior advisor for homelessness resolution, said he thinks the city’s efforts to bring people out of unsheltered homelessness are working. He attributes the overall growth in homelessness to Denver’s persistent housing crisis.
“I think we’re getting better at helping get people out of homelessness. We’re getting more effective at that,” he said. “We’re doing a better job, and yet people are still falling into homelessness. And so I think that just underscores the affordable housing crisis that we’re in the midst of.”
The overall rise in Denver homelessness is coupled with record-breaking eviction numbers.
Denver is currently on track to break eviction records, with more than 9,000 filings already this year. The city also broke eviction records last year, and residents quickly maxed out local rental assistance funds.
Johnston hopes his proposed sales tax will help prevent new homelessness in the long term. The .5 percent sales tax, which needs approval from City Council and then Denver voters, would generate $100 million per year to fund affordable housing.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to include comment from Alderman and Chandler.
The Homeless Empowerment Program’s Back to School Bash helps families in its shelter prepare for new year
About 70 children who reside at the HEP shelter selected new backpacks and filled them with school supplies
Other services at the bash included haircuts from SalonCentric and sports physicals from BayCare
About 70 children who reside at HEP selected new backpacks and filled them with school supplies. The Back to School Bash provided families with everything from folders and notebooks to pencils and lunchboxes. The children even got to select their own items at a pop-up store full of socks and more.
“It really helps out a lot, so I’m very grateful and blessed,” said Honor Edwards, who attended with her two children. “Me and my husband lost our jobs, we lost our condo, we lost cars, we lost everything, so we were homeless for five years.”
Edwards says she’s grateful she connected with HEP and its programs, thankful her children are all set for the new school year.
“It really helps out a lot, so I’m very grateful and blessed,” said Edwards.
“We know that when kids go back to school without the supplies that they need, they’re already being set up for an educational disadvantage,” said Ashely Lowery, HEP President and CEO. “But it also sets them up for social issues and emotional issues as well, so we’re hoping just by giving them everything they need at the beginning of the year that they’ll be able to put their best food forward and start the year in a way that will set them up for success.”
A National Retail Federation survey reports families will spend about $900 sending their kids back to school.
“That’s a big number for any family and then when you start looking at low-income families and families that are living within homeless shelter systems that becomes even more of a burden,” said Lowery. “So, we’re very happy to be able to relieve that for the families that we serve through all of the partners that are donating goods and services today.”
Services from those partners included haircuts from the SalonCentric salon on campus, sports physicals from BayCare and the pop-up store featuring Odd Sox socks.
Jasmine Richardson had been struggling with methamphetamine and fentanyl addiction for more than a decade, but she got sober after completing a six-month program at the Teen Project’s Freehab center on Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley.
That was right around Thanksgiving last year, and it was the first time the 33-year-old had been clean in years. Still, she wasn’t ready to leave the Freehab just yet; homeless since 2020, she wanted to spend at least a year in the 74-bed rehab facility before finding temporary housing. Then she hoped to move her teenage son up to L.A. to live with her, and to pursue her dream of becoming a veterinarian tech.
All of that was cut short Dec. 4, when the Los Angeles City Fire Department shut down the facility over what it said were building and fire code violations, officials said. The group of 43 women, whose ranks included survivors of human trafficking, substance abuse and homelessness, had a few hours to pack up their belongings and find a new place to stay.
Richardson’s mother, Janet Dooley, picked her up from Freehab and brought her back to Dooley’s home in Huntington Beach. Eight days later, Dooley found her daughter dead from an overdose of meth and fentanyl.
Jasmine Richardson when she was attending middle school in Montana in the 2000s.
(Janet Dooley)
“I believe that if the place hadn’t closed,” Dooley said, “she’d still be alive today.”
More than six months after the closure, questions about why it was forced to shut down are at the forefront of a lawsuit filed by the Teen Project, the nonprofit that operated the Freehab, against A&E Development Co., the facility’s landlord. The nonprofit alleges that A&E breached its lease and failed to maintain conditions that adhered to building codes, regulations, permits and ordinances, resulting in the rehab’s shutdown.
The organization is seeking at least $5 million in damages.
On a GoFundMe page created to raise money for a new treatment facility, the Teen Project blamed its landlord’s “refusal to ensure building’s upkeep” and the Fire Department’s “unwillingness to compromise, and exerting their power, even if it cost our girls their lives.”
According to safety violation notices from the L.A. City Fire Department obtained by The Times, the Freehab had been ordered multiple times since at least September to get a fire permit to operate a residential care facility, hire fire watch personnel, install automatic fire sprinklers throughout the building and obtain a valid permit for the fire door connecting the Freehab and the adjacent building.
The organization was notified via both email and mailed letters addressed to the Sun Valley facility, according to the notices.
The alleged safety issues apparently go back even further. According to Fox 11, LAFD Assistant Fire Chief Kristine Larson told the Freehab’s staff in December: “In 2020, this building was required to have sprinklers, and it does not have sprinklers; therefore, it is unsafe to be occupied for overnight use.”
Lauri Burns, executive officer of the Teen Project, said via email that she found out about the alleged violations a week before the closure.
“They said they weren’t shutting us down and they would give us ample time to fix things, and then they returned one week later and shut us down without notice,” Burns added.
Burns said after learning about the violations, the Freehab complied with nearly all of the requirements and paid around $7,000 a week to have a fire watch on-site at all hours. She said they weren’t able to install sprinklers because that process would take at least a month and require permits and inspections.
Case manager Priscilla Nunez helps put together items in the dining area of the new Teen Project facility in April in Van Nuys.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In its Jan. 31 lawsuit, the Teen Project alleges that A&E failed to address rat and maggot infestations at the Freehab, ignored unauthorized trailers and homelessness in the Freehab’s shared parking lot and didn’t repay the Teen Project for replacing HVAC systems and other amenities.
Because of A&E’s “inability to provide a useable/safe space to lease for its intended purpose,” the lawsuit states, the Freehab was forced to shut down.
“The residents under The Teen Project’s care were traumatically displaced from their safety net, and horrifically resulted in the relapse and death of a young woman only a few days later,” according to the lawsuit.
In court papers, A&E disavowed responsibility for the shuttering of the Freehab, saying “the facts and the law are clear that the A&E is not responsible for ensuring the Premises could be used as a rehab facility.” A&E argued that the Teen Project “voluntarily vacated” the Freehab after the Fire Department and the California Department of Health Care Services revoked permits to operate the rehab facility.
After the Freehab’s shutdown, A&E said, it received a notice from the Teen Project demanding that A&E bring the Freehab up to code. But according to A&E, the lease required it to fix problems only if they were raised within six months of the start of the lease. The Teen Project terminated its lease on Jan. 19 after the conditions to operate the Freehab weren’t met.
The LAFD said in a Dec. 5 statement after the Freehab’s closure that the agency “will continue to provide guidance to the building owner and lessee regarding required compliance with the fire violations and change-of-use permits to ensure the safety and security of the tenants and the property.”
“The California Department of Health Care Services is responsible for ensuring this type of facility is in compliance with the fire code and questions regarding the status of this facility’s license to operate should be directed to them,” according to the statement. “They are also responsible for rehousing any displaced residents.”
LAFD spokesperson Karla Tovar said that a fire code change in 2020 required sprinklers in the type of building that housed the Freehab. The alleged violations were found during a fire inspection and “much research was done with many other agencies before the facility was closed,” she said.
In response to the Teen Project’s allegation that LAFD’s actions somehow contributed to the overdose death of one of the Freehab’s clients, Tovar said in an emailed statement:
“The LAFD is committed to preserving life, protecting property, and safeguarding our communities. Ensuring that buildings operate according to fire and life safety regulations is a matter we take seriously for residents, patrons, employees, and owners.”
A spokesperson from the California Department of Health Care Services confirmed that the Freehab was deemed noncompliant with the fire code. The agency said it was able to get 32 of the 43 women into other treatment centers across L.A. However, Richardson told them she wanted to go home to be with her son, her mother said.
The Teen Project, whose name was born out of “teenagers exiting foster care to homelessness and trafficking,” according to Burns, opened a new facility in June called the Van Nuys Sanctuary. At least 10 of the women who stayed at the Freehab reached out and asked if they could get a spot at the new center, according to Teen Project program director Melissa Coons.
“They have a safe place to be and we really try to make this place look like a home versus an institution,” she said. “We’re really excited to get back to helping the girls in the community.”
Richardson’s problems began in middle school, when she became depressed and started self-medicating with marijuana, Dooley said. It snowballed after she turned 18, when her father died and she later turned to meth. Richardson, her ex-boyfriend and her son lived with Dooley until well into the pandemic, when Dooley said she had to evict them.
Yesenia Sanchez was in the Teen Project program for substance abuse and now works as a cook at the new facility.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“Things got worse and worse, and I had to get them out because I couldn’t live like that,” Dooley added.
After the Freehab closed, Richardson didn’t know what to do. According to her mother, she thought about going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. She texted employees from the Teen Project to see if she could get into temporary housing.
On Dec. 11, Dooley dropped Richardson off near the courthouse to handle a legal matter but didn’t hear from her for a few hours. Richardson came home late and said she had been with friends. Dooley got up for work around 3 a.m., and when she came home five hours later, she discovered that Richardson had overdosed.
“Jasmine was incredibly upset and scared” when the Freehab closed, Coons said. “Originally, she wanted to stay with us for a year, and she never really wavered from that.”
Tom Wolf, a recovering fentanyl and heroin addict who founded the Pacific Alliance for Prevention and Recovery, said that structure and routine are especially important in early recovery. Significant emotional events, such as a death in the family, job loss or a breakup can result in relapse.
“These folks were displaced, and even if they were offered shelter or housing in another program, they were displaced from friendships, the support systems and the structure of that specific program,” he said. “If you take all of those things away at once from someone after years of homelessness, it would be easy to go back onto the street and buy fentanyl for $5 and relapse.”
Yesenia Sanchez, 31, struggled with addiction to alcohol, but she has been sober for more than two years after completing the Freehab’s six-month program. She started out as an intern in the kitchen before becoming a full-time cook at the facility.
She wasn’t working the day the Freehab was forced to shut down, but once she heard about the closure, she scrambled to help the women find other places to stay. Some of them, she said, had to go back to living on the streets.
“That was really hard because those were the girls we were helping every day, and we just didn’t have enough time,” she said.
Casey Anderson, another former Freehab client, relapsed almost immediately after the facility closed down. Anderson first started abusing Ritalin as a teenager before getting addicted to meth. She was homeless for more than a year and slept in various parks in Lancaster before deciding she needed to get help.
Casey Anderson outside her sponsor’s home in Simi Valley.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Anderson started living at the Freehab in June 2023 and was two weeks away from completing her program when the facility closed.
“It was heartbreaking,” she said. “We all felt safe. We all felt like we had a place to go and then all of a sudden, it was taken from us.”
Anderson didn’t think she would need to go into another program after the Freehab’s closure. Instead, she reverted to living with her parents in Lancaster and quickly got hooked on drugs again. In early April, she contacted one of the program directors from the Teen Project to get on the waiting list for the new Van Nuys facility, where she moved June 6. There were eight women in the program as of June 25.
She is sober again and is hoping to get back to pursuing her dream of becoming a preschool teacher. In the meantime, she recently got a job working as a registered alcohol and drug technician.
“I thought I was ready to leave, but I wasn’t,” Anderson said. “I only had two weeks left, but it turns out I actually needed more. I probably would’ve known that if we had more time to work on it.”
A week into what Mayor London Breed has called a “very aggressive” effort to clear homeless encampments across San Francisco, a key question looms: Where will the people living in those tents go?
Outreach workers, backed by law enforcement officers, have fanned out in recent days in targeted efforts to clear some of San Francisco’s most visible encampments, confiscating personal belongings and telling the owners it’s time to pack up and go.
They’ve cleared unsanctioned tent cities under freeways and a stretch of sidewalk in the drug-plagued Tenderloin with the aim of forcing people off the streets. On Monday, city workers visited a longtime encampment lining the sidewalks outside San Francisco’s only DMV office that had been cleared more than a dozen times this year only to resurrect days later.
By Monday night, the sidewalks were clean.
Breed’s efforts are buoyed by a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that authorized local communities to more forcefully restrict homeless encampments on sidewalks and other public property.
In response, Breed said that San Francisco, a city that’s become a favorite right-wing punching bag for its sprawling homelessness crisis, would launch a more determined initiative to clear encampments. The time had come, she said, to address “this issue differently than we have before.”
Despite a years-long effort to move people into shelter or housing, street encampments remain a visible problem in San Francisco.
(Tayfun Coskun / Getty Images)
An estimated 8,300 people are living homeless in San Francisco, about half of them sleeping in parks and on sidewalks in makeshift shelters. Despite a years-long effort to move people into temporary shelter or permanent housing, tent encampments remain a glaring problem, often accompanied by trash, theft and open drug use.
For years, Breed and other city officials said their hands were tied by decisions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that deemed it cruel and unusual punishment to penalize someone for sleeping on the streets if no legal shelter was available. Now, bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling, city personnel can take a tougher stance if people refuse help.
But San Francisco, along with many other West Coast cities looking to crack down on encampments, still hasn’t figured out where people are supposed to go once their tents are dismantled: The city’s shelters — with roughly 3,600 beds — are at 94% of capacity, according to the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
“Unfortunately, San Francisco does not have enough shelter or housing for every person experiencing homelessness, but we do have some beds available each day to support the work of the outreach teams, and we continue to grow our system,” Emily Cohen, the department’s spokesperson, wrote in an email.
Jeff Cretan, the mayor’s spokesperson, said the city doesn’t necessarily expect a huge influx of new people in shelters. After years of attempts to move people inside, those still living on the streets tend to be the most resistant to accepting offers of shelter, often because they’re struggling with mental illness and substance-use disorders.
In the first three days of this week’s encampment sweeps, only about 10% of the people offered shelter have accepted it, Cretan said.
Instead, Breed — in the thick of a difficult reelection bid — is turning to strategies other than more shelter beds. She said the city may issue criminal penalties for people who repeatedly refuse shelter. But the prospect of local jails processing hundreds more homeless people also raises capacity issues.
On Thursday, Breed put weight behind another approach. She issued an executive directive requiring outreach workers to offer homeless people who aren’t from San Francisco free transportation out of town — to cities where they have family, friends or other connections. Cretan said the city would cover the cost of bus, plane or train fares.
The city has had a similar program in effect for years, but it lost traction during the pandemic. Under the new directive, workers are to press the relocation option before offering any other city services, including housing and shelter.
According to the city’s 2024 annual point-in-time homeless survey, about 40% of people living on the streets said they were not from San Francisco.
“This directive will ensure that relocation services will be the first response to our homelessness and substance-use crises, allowing individuals the choice to reunite with support networks before accessing other city services or facing the consequences of refusing care,” Breed wrote in the directive.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed faces a difficult reelection bid, with homeless numbers a burning issue. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, right, is among her challengers.
(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)
Breed’s hard-line approach has drawn sharp criticism from homeless advocates, who argue that clearing tents does not address the poverty and addiction that cause homelessness — and who say her efforts are politically motivated.
“Policies to address homelessness must be humane, lawful and effective — not implemented just because someone’s job is on the line,” said Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and one of Breed’s mayoral challengers.
Peskin instead called for bolstering rent control and protections against eviction, and for the city to expand shelter and affordable housing options.
Since Breed took office, the city has increased shelter capacity from about 2,500 beds to nearly 4,000, the mayor’s office said, and permanent supportive housing slots to about 14,000. Cohen, with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, cited those efforts as the reason the number of people living on city streets is at “the lowest level in at least 10 years.”
Cretan said the relocation offers and threat of criminal penalties are just a starting point as the city figures out what strategies will work.
“The mayor really wants to make clear [that] you have to accept shelter. But, clearly, it’s not going to be everyone says yes,” Cretan said. “It’s not like you snap your fingers and everything changes overnight.”
Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the coalition on homelessness, said San Francisco officials haven’t wasted any time sweeping homeless encampments across the city, and she’s not happy about it.
“What we have seen is much more aggressive treatment of homeless people. We’ve seen arrests, we’ve seen illegal confiscation of their property,” said Friedenbach.
On July 25, the governor announced his executive order requiring state agencies to clear encampments on state land.
That order also encouraged cities to do the same. On Monday, almost 72 hours later, the amount of time required to give notice of the sweeps, sweeps in San Francisco started happening.
“They’ve done the Haight, around the DMV, they’ve done an area south of Market, they did an area here in the mission near Folsom and 16th-ish,” said Friedenbach.
KPIX went down to the DMV to check it out, and the encampment that had been there for months, if not years was gone. All that was left was the notice warning of the sweep stapled to a nearby tree.
Friedenbach said she’s worried the people being kicked out have nowhere to go.
“It’s just kind of this forced march from place to place to place and because it’s being done in such a harsh manner you know people get really upset and they’re further destabilized. They lose all their survival gear. They’re of course very devastated by that,” said Friedenbach.
The city claims it has no other choice. They said over 2/3rds of the homeless refuse shelter or services.
Under these new rules, the city is still offering shelter to those being swept but if people refuse, the city doesn’t have to re-offer shelter the next time that person is kicked out of an encampment.
Friedenbach said she doesn’t believe that approach will solve anything.
“None of those actions have decreased homelessness. In fact study show that these kind of operations exacerbate homelessness and make it worse,” said Friedenbach.
For now though, the city is sticking to the approach. They’ve scheduled about three encampment sweeps each day this week and plan to also target smaller encampments on a daily basis.
An early morning fire Tuesday at least partially destroyed a temporary encampment at Lee Gerner Park in Novato.
Novato police said they responded around 3:30 a.m. to a report of a fire near Novato Creek at the park.
Police said the fire spread quickly, burning several tents, the perimeter fence, and a large tree in the center of the camp.
Residents were evacuated safely and no injuries were reported. Police said firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, preventing it from spreading to nearby businesses.
Police said investigators are treating the fire as arson. Anyone with information about the fire can contact police at (415) 897-4361.
Only as little as 72% of the $20 billion housing bond will be spent to actually build affordable housing for extremely low-income, very low-income, and low-income households. Ten percent can be spent on grants for “transportation, schools, and parks.” Notably, only 80% of the proceeds of the bond issue need to be spent in the county funding the bonds. Thus, Contra Costa County residents could end up paying for parks in San Mateo County.
The decision to place the bond on the ballot was made by the MTC, which includes unelected, unaccountable officials and is therefore like taxation without representation. We can and must do better.
In his critique of Kamala Harris, Bret Stephens mentions high staff turnover during her time as vice president and the fact that she failed the bar exam on the first try.
Regarding turnover, he should have started by looking at the mile-long list of senior and mid-level Trump people who quit or were fired.
As for the bar exam, Harris is in good company. Others who took the exam more than once include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Michele Obama, John F, Kennedy Jr., and former California Governors Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson.
He also claims she has been a bad campaigner. He’s entitled to his opinion, but her first speech in Milwaukee looked pretty impressive to me, in contrast to Donald Trump’s 93-minute meandering speech at the Republican convention.
It is now obvious that the cost of this heat — both in dollars and in human lives — far outstrips the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. Are we going to follow Ben Franklin’s advice: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Or John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight”? We need to get serious, folks.
The scary truth is most Californians are only a few bad breaks away from homelessness. The unlucky blow may come from a wildfire or, worse, an unexpected medical bill. Insurers profit most off denying coverage, that is, if you were fortunate enough to have health insurance in the first place.
Capitalism turns housing into a scarce commodity and then blames people who lack it. Rather than treating the unhoused as untouchable, we should give them security and more chances. It is the Christian thing to do and a humane imperative.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to sweep away homeless encampments is cruel. It does nothing to solve the systemic problems that cause homelessness in the first place. And by treating other people like trash, the Ggovernor has proven he’s garbage.
Alan Marling Livermore
Harris win is best hope for multiracial society
I was one of 50,000 Black men on a call for Kamala Harris, a day after 44,000 Black women got together. I haven’t seen this level of excitement since Barack Obama in 2008. Black women and men being this energized is how we will win the fight for a multiracial democracy.
The California Donor Table has moved over $60 million to progressive community organizations and candidates. With skyrocketing support from voters of color, we will win the presidency, retain the Senate and win eight contested California House districts to take back the House
Kamala was born at the same Oakland hospital as my son. In 2020, hundreds of us danced in front of her former Berkeley apartment to celebrate her victory. And boy will we party if, natch, when she wins the presidency.
A letter writer complained that the Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimundo now prevents federal administrative agencies from “resolving statutory ambiguities.” But that is exactly how it should be. That’s what courts do.
While agencies may have certain “expertise,” they are not courts. Courts have the expertise to resolve ambiguities in the law; agencies don’t. I don’t want an agency expert to interpret a legal ambiguity; that is not the job of a federal bureaucrat. That expert might be a conservative or liberal who lets his or her worldviews influence a decision.
If an agency finds an ambiguity in the law, have them go to Congress to clarify the issue. That is the job of our representatives.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks.
Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.”
The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said.
The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening.
“They are not getting the services to the people at the time that those people either need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were evident at a filthy encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers distributing water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She gave out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition provides hot food and services. A small dog bolted out of a tent, frantically barking, while a disheveled man wearing a jacket on a blistering hot day shuffled by a stained mattress.
At the end of the visit Reyes began typing notes into her mobile phone, which would later be retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually copied again into a federal database.
“Anytime you move it from one medium to another, you can have data loss. We know we are not always getting the full picture,” Reyes said. The “victims are the people the system is supposed to serve.”
The technology has sputtered while the homeless population has soared. Some ask how can you combat a problem without reliable data to know what the scope is? An annual tally of homeless people in the city recently found a slight decline in the population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data, and tents and encampments can be seen just about everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pinpointed shortcomings with technology as among the obstacles she faces in homelessness programs and has described the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the plane while flying it.”
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases on the homeless people they interview, including notes taken on paper. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it becomes quickly outdated with the lag time between interviews and when it’s entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, was designed as a desktop application, making it difficult to operate on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because what the case managers do by necessity is they take notes, either on their phones or on scrap pieces of paper or they just try to remember it, and they don’t typically input it until they get back to their desk” hours, days, a week or even longer afterward, Miller said.
Every organization that coordinates services for homeless people uses an HMIS program to comply with data collection and reporting standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at L.A.-based People Assisting the Homeless, a major service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not talk to the HMIS system.
“Once you’re manually double-entering things, it opens the door for all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors are the difference between somebody having shelter and not.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analytics for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates homeless housing and services in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database of 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology upgrades.
For case managers, “just seeing … the general bed availability is challenging,” Kuhn said.
Among other changes is a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and developing a way to measure if timely data is being entered by case workers, Kuhn said.
It’s not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can create delays in collecting data. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority aims for data to be entered in the system within 72 hours, but that benchmark is not always met.
In hopes of filling the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They are constructing a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Since homeless people are transient and difficult to locate for follow-up services, one feature would create a map of places where an individual had been encountered, allowing case managers to narrow the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is linking them with a homeless person in real time. So, a data profile would show services the individual received in the past, medical issues and make it easy to contact health workers, if needed.
As a secondary benefit — if enough agencies and providers agree to participate — the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations, spotlighting where homeless people are moving around the county, or concentrations of where homeless people have gathered.
One key goal for the prototypes: ease of use even for workers with scant digital literacy. Information entered into the app would be immediately unloaded to the database, eliminating the need for redundant reentries while keeping information up to date.
Time is often critical. Once a shelter bed is located, there is a 48-hour window for the spot to be claimed, which Reyes says happens only about half the time. The technology is so inadequate, the coalition sometimes doesn’t learn a spot is open until it has expired.
She has been impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is in testing, and believes it would cut down on the number of people who miss the housing window, as well as create more reliability for people trying to obtain services.
“I’m hoping Better Angels helps us put the human back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
For the last seven years, Jha’asryel-Akquil Bishop has called city shelters their home.
Bishop lost their housing just one month after they immigrated to the United States from Guyana in 2016. They were living in Brooklyn with their uncle until they began experiencing domestic violence, which they said “forced me to move out.”
Despite the huge need for queer-designated shelters, there are only a handful of them out of hundreds of city shelters. In New York City, LGBTQ+ people make up only 4.5% of the general population, but comprise nearly 40% of the city’s homeless adults, according to New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services—and the population is three times more likely to be physically threatened, abused, and carry emotional trauma than others who are homeless. Of the queer-designated shelters in the city, most are limited to services for youth under age 24.
Marsha’s House, however, is an exception: located in Belmont in the Bronx, the shelter has an age limit of 30. But the shelter also comes with a slew of concerns, like broken facilities that go unfixed (despite required annual inspections), a layout that can contribute to emotional distress, especially for those who have experienced trauma, and staff who may be unfamiliar with LGBTQ+ issues, according to state reports and incident reports filed by residents that Fortune obtained through Freedom of Information requests.
Queer homeless residents are often traumatized, and require different resources than others
LGBTQ+ homeless people are disproportionately affected by sexual or violent assaults, which in many cases lead to mental illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidality, and more. These risks can be greater for youth and young adults, like Bishop.
“I’m someone who’s experienced sexual violence and abuse, and so thinking about sharing a room with someone else who I don’t know and in a shelter setting, I did not sleep at night,” Bishop said. “I had chronic pain because I had trouble sleeping. I got placed on medication for sleep because I had trouble sleeping.”
Sunny Nagpaul
A recent study found homeless queer youth had been sexually assaulted at three times the rate of non-LGBTQ+ homeless youth, and almost half of queer youth reported sexual abuse by an adult caretaker, compared to about 20% of non-LGBTQ+ youth.
According to a national study that analyzed mental illness in more than 400 homeless youth, 41% of those who identify as queer reported depression, compared to 28% of non-queer youth, and were also much more likely to report suicidal ideation and attempted suicide.
Marsha’s House, an 81-bed shelter that opened in 2017, is currently the city’s only adult shelter designated for sexual minorities—but Bishop believes “if Marsha’s House had an improved facility, it could become more accessible” to a population with a big need, but few resources for support.
Those who are queer and homeless, they said, “oftentimes are also victims of sexual violence and do need the privacy of a single room.”
At Marsha’s House, Bishop said they’ve witnessed their peers having manic episodes, bouts of psychosis, and mental distress. They said there are six single-person rooms usually reserved for people who have gotten a transitional surgery or when another room or bed needs repair.
Bishop believes the rooms could offer a few days of mental peace to residents who may need them—but they’re hard to access. The city’s department of homeless services, rather than shelter staff, determines who can stay in them. “I think it is a very disadvantageous situation at the shelter,” Bishop said, adding, “when you’re recovering from discrimination and violence, oftentimes it’s hard to rest or sleep when there are other people around you. People may need those rooms to reset themselves, and that’s not an option available to them.”
Other structural elements of the shelter, which is five stories tall but does not have an elevator, also prevent those who have physical disabilities from living there.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services, or DHS, did not confirm Fortune’s inquiry on how many single-occupancy rooms are in the shelter or how residents can be eligible for them. A DHS spokesperson told Fortune the agency has been strengthening its trauma-informed support for LGBTQ+ populations for the last several years, including more training courses for staff since 2015.
Residents describe staff who are ‘nasty and rude and talks down to people’
Another challenge at Marsha’s House, Bishop told Fortune, includes staff members speaking rudely or yelling at residents. Bishop described such interactions as “tense.”
“Folks have had issues with staff to their gender identity and feeling discriminated or feeling unsafe,” they said.
Between December 2019 to April 2020, and June to December 2022, residents filed at least 10 complaints against staff behavior, according to residents’ grievance reports Fortune obtained through Freedom of Information requests, and is the second most frequent complaint from residents, those reports show.
The complainants, whose names have been redacted from the reports, said ‘‘the staff is very rude and need to be changed and trained,” are “nasty and rude and talks down to people,” and talk “negatively and disrespectfully” about residents.
Another complainant said staff have called residents derogatory names. When the resident spoke to the director, they wrote, they “felt dismissed and no disciplinary action was taken against the staff member.”
Such interactions, it seems, have now shaped the shelter’s reputation. Maddox Guerilla, a senior consultant at housing-advocacy group Point Source Youth, also used to be homeless and heard about staff troubles at the shelter. “I don’t think the staff at Marsha’s House are being trained in queer issues,” Guerilla told Fortune, “because I hear people all the time saying, ‘they don’t respect me by my name,’ or ‘they’re harassing me, misgendering me, they don’t treat trans people right.’”
A DHS spokesperson told Fortune all shelter staff receive a full-day training course in LGBTQ+ specific issues, and any additional training each shelter provider may offer, and that staff are expected to lead with care and compassion when engaging with clients. The spokesperson also said the agency has robust accountability mechanisms in place to address inappropriate staff behavior, but did not elaborate on what those measures are.
To be sure, queer homeless residents often face discrimination at shelters, and find themselves in positions where they may be too vulnerable or unstable to speak up for themselves. One transgender woman, Mariah Lopez, however, has sued the city several times for discrimination against her. Her most recent lawsuit was against Marsha’s House, which she sued because she says she was denied entry to the shelter with her service dog, Chica, who helps her manage her post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders.
Her lawsuit led to changes. Following her case, in 2021 the city’s department of homeless services pledged to create another shelter specifically for transgender and non gender-conforming clients, and to reserve 30 beds across Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens that will include single-stalled toilets, showers, and private bathrooms with doors that can lock, where possible. The city, however, is behind on those plans.
Unsanitary conditions remain unfixed for years
Queer populations still face challenges that other homeless people face, like infestations, mold, and broken things.
Marsha’s House, the only queer-designated shelter for adults in the city, has been the center of several lawsuits for abuse and neglect.
Sunny Nagpaul
At Marsha’s House, the most common complaints were about heat or hot water in the building, according to the residents’ reports, which reveal that showers have had issues with uncontrollable burning hot water since 2020.
The showers in the shelter, Bishop said, operate by pressing a button rather than a dial, and often the temperature of the water is so hot, they’ve developed rashes, dry skin, and even breathing problems.
“If the temperature of the water is too hot or the room gets too humid, I usually lose my breath or faint,” Bishop said.
According to the residents’ reports, the most hot-water complaints were filed in March and April of 2020. The complaints in the report said “the water literally burns people’s skin,” and cited “water which is extremely hot in the shower.” One client said he mentioned this to staff, “but nothing has been done.”
Bishop was also recently diagnosed with an intestinal parasite, and the bathrooms are so dirty that they worry it will spread. “You go there and you see feces from the person that used it before,” they said. Last year, one resident reported “there is a person or persons leaving poop smear all over in a lot of the restrooms. Directors know about this, this is still happening.” Other complaints cited mold and bug infestations.
A DHS spokesperson told Fortune that when the agency is made aware of conditions that adversely impact residents’ quality of life, it works closely with shelter operators and landlords to rectify the situation in a timely manner.
New York’s homeless crisis is growing
More than 200,600 migrants have arrived in New York since the spring of 2022, and more than 65,600 people remain in the city’s care, according to city data. Up to 1,500 migrants live in temporary emergency shelters outside the city.
In 2016, the New York State Comptroller began a series of audit reports on shelter conditions, with new versions released every four years. The goal was to reveal the gaps in shelter regulations, which allow broken things to go unfixed for years.
The most recent 2020 report found over 60% of the city’s 80 shelters had significant health and safety risks. Peter Caroll, the lead author of the audit report, told Fortune the biggest issues include mold, vermin, and bug infestations, and that while his team was doing surveys, it was clear that “nobody really knew the scope of the population or the problem.”
Sunny Nagpaul
He described how the inspection process works: OTDA, the main regulating entity of shelters state-wide, inspects shelters annually, and then works with shelters or property owners to address violations. If a violation requires more than one month to fix, the shelter should submit a “corrective action plan” to OTDA. But according to the report, that’s one of the steps causing confusion. In five shelters where corrective action plans stated issues like bathtub mold and broken toilets were fixed, Caroll’s audit team returned to see the find the same broken conditions.
“We found that in most cases, the conditions didn’t get better, they got worse,” Carroll said.
The most promising solution for broken facilities, he said, may be more money or at least awareness of financial support that is already siphoned off for shelters. In the state’s yearly budget, $1 million is available through grants to shelters and shelter providers through OTDA for emergency repairs.
“It could bring up to $150,000 per facility, each year,” Carroll said, adding that many shelters his team visited said there wasn’t enough money to address the health risks. “This grant would be a way to close that gap.”
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks.
Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.”
The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said.
The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening.
“They are not getting the services to the people at the time that those people either need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were evident at a filthy encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers distributing water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She gave out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition provides hot food and services. A small dog bolted out of a tent, frantically barking, while a disheveled man wearing a jacket on a blistering hot day shuffled by a stained mattress.
At the end of the visit Reyes began typing notes into her mobile phone, which would later be retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually copied again into a federal database.
“Anytime you move it from one medium to another, you can have data loss. We know we are not always getting the full picture,” Reyes said. The “victims are the people the system is supposed to serve.”
The technology has sputtered while the homeless population has soared. Some ask how can you combat a problem without reliable data to know what the scope is? An annual tally of homeless people in the city recently found a slight decline in the population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data, and tents and encampments can be seen just about everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pinpointed shortcomings with technology as among the obstacles she faces in homelessness programs and has described the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the plane while flying it.”
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases on the homeless people they interview, including notes taken on paper. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it becomes quickly outdated with the lag time between interviews and when it’s entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, was designed as a desktop application, making it difficult to operate on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because what the case managers do by necessity is they take notes, either on their phones or on scrap pieces of paper or they just try to remember it, and they don’t typically input it until they get back to their desk” hours, days, a week or even longer afterward, Miller said.
Every organization that coordinates services for homeless people uses an HMIS program to comply with data collection and reporting standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at L.A.-based People Assisting the Homeless, a major service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not talk to the HMIS system.
“Once you’re manually double-entering things, it opens the door for all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors are the difference between somebody having shelter and not.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analytics for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates homeless housing and services in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database of 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology upgrades.
For case managers, “just seeing … the general bed availability is challenging,” Kuhn said.
Among other changes is a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and developing a way to measure if timely data is being entered by case workers, Kuhn said.
It’s not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can create delays in collecting data. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority aims for data to be entered in the system within 72 hours, but that benchmark is not always met.
In hopes of filling the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They are constructing a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Since homeless people are transient and difficult to locate for follow-up services, one feature would create a map of places where an individual had been encountered, allowing case managers to narrow the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is linking them with a homeless person in real time. So, a data profile would show services the individual received in the past, medical issues and make it easy to contact health workers, if needed.
As a secondary benefit — if enough agencies and providers agree to participate — the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations, spotlighting where homeless people are moving around the county, or concentrations of where homeless people have gathered.
One key goal for the prototypes: ease of use even for workers with scant digital literacy. Information entered into the app would be immediately unloaded to the database, eliminating the need for redundant reentries while keeping information up to date.
Time is often critical. Once a shelter bed is located, there is a 48-hour window for the spot to be claimed, which Reyes says happens only about half the time. The technology is so inadequate, the coalition sometimes doesn’t learn a spot is open until it has expired.
She has been impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is in testing, and believes it would cut down on the number of people who miss the housing window, as well as create more reliability for people trying to obtain services.
“I’m hoping Better Angels helps us put the human back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks.
Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.”
The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said.
The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening.
“They are not getting the services to the people at the time that those people either need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were evident at a filthy encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers distributing water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She gave out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition provides hot food and services. A small dog bolted out of a tent, frantically barking, while a disheveled man wearing a jacket on a blistering hot day shuffled by a stained mattress.
At the end of the visit Reyes began typing notes into her mobile phone, which would later be retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually copied again into a federal database.
“Anytime you move it from one medium to another, you can have data loss. We know we are not always getting the full picture,” Reyes said. The “victims are the people the system is supposed to serve.”
The technology has sputtered while the homeless population has soared. Some ask how can you combat a problem without reliable data to know what the scope is? An annual tally of homeless people in the city recently found a slight decline in the population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data, and tents and encampments can be seen just about everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pinpointed shortcomings with technology as among the obstacles she faces in homelessness programs and has described the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the plane while flying it.”
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases on the homeless people they interview, including notes taken on paper. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it becomes quickly outdated with the lag time between interviews and when it’s entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, was designed as a desktop application, making it difficult to operate on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because what the case managers do by necessity is they take notes, either on their phones or on scrap pieces of paper or they just try to remember it, and they don’t typically input it until they get back to their desk” hours, days, a week or even longer afterward, Miller said.
Every organization that coordinates services for homeless people uses an HMIS program to comply with data collection and reporting standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at L.A.-based People Assisting the Homeless, a major service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not talk to the HMIS system.
“Once you’re manually double-entering things, it opens the door for all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors are the difference between somebody having shelter and not.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analytics for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates homeless housing and services in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database of 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology upgrades.
For case managers, “just seeing … the general bed availability is challenging,” Kuhn said.
Among other changes is a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and developing a way to measure if timely data is being entered by case workers, Kuhn said.
It’s not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can create delays in collecting data. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority aims for data to be entered in the system within 72 hours, but that benchmark is not always met.
In hopes of filling the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They are constructing a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Since homeless people are transient and difficult to locate for follow-up services, one feature would create a map of places where an individual had been encountered, allowing case managers to narrow the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is linking them with a homeless person in real time. So, a data profile would show services the individual received in the past, medical issues and make it easy to contact health workers, if needed.
As a secondary benefit — if enough agencies and providers agree to participate — the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations, spotlighting where homeless people are moving around the county, or concentrations of where homeless people have gathered.
One key goal for the prototypes: ease of use even for workers with scant digital literacy. Information entered into the app would be immediately unloaded to the database, eliminating the need for redundant reentries while keeping information up to date.
Time is often critical. Once a shelter bed is located, there is a 48-hour window for the spot to be claimed, which Reyes says happens only about half the time. The technology is so inadequate, the coalition sometimes doesn’t learn a spot is open until it has expired.
She has been impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is in testing, and believes it would cut down on the number of people who miss the housing window, as well as create more reliability for people trying to obtain services.
“I’m hoping Better Angels helps us put the human back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued an executive order calling on state officials to begin taking down homeless encampments, buoyed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled such “anti-camping” ordinances did not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. What do you think?
“It’s too bad the government isn’t allowed to make buildings or give people money.”
Mark Zeitz, Frosting Specialist
The Onion Film Standard: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
“Take that, most vulnerable people imaginable.”
Anne Krygowski, Freezer Scraper
“It’s not cruel and unusual punishment if the victims aren’t considered people.”
