The most recent Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count estimates that 36,300 people are experiencing homelessness on any given night in the city of Los Angeles. Those numbers are up 16 percent from the year before—a daunting statistic for a city that is home to the largest unsheltered population in the country.
Thanks to the passage of Measures H and HHH, the city has more tools than ever to tackle the crisis, and there are finally some signs that efforts to house LA’s most vulnerable residents might be working. In May 2018, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced A Bridge Home, an effort to build emergency shelters in each council district.
To help monitor the city’s progress, the United Way launched the Everyone In campaign, where Angelenos can advocate for new housing solutions in their neighborhoods, and urge elected officials to address the problem. Councilmembers each made a pledge to create 222 new supportive housing units in their districts, and loosened restrictions to speed up their delivery. A total of 8,625 new units are currently in the pipeline.
The bigger challenge in LA is that although the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is housing more people than ever, more Angelenos are falling into homelessness because LA’s booming economy is leaving behind some of the region’s lowest paid workers. “Minimum wage has moved much more slowly than rents,” said former Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority director Peter Lynn in June 2019. “Those folks are under tremendous pressure.”
As the weather turns colder, it puts the health and safety of LA’s unhoused residents at risk. We asked experts and local homelessness advocates what Angelenos can do to help. Their answers and solutions are below.
1. Sign up for the Homeless Count
“The annual Homeless Count doesn’t just give us an accurate picture of how many people we can help, it gives us the information we need to find and fund real, supportive solutions,” says Elise Buik, CEO of United Way of Greater Los Angeles. “We need everyone in to get everyone into homes and the Homeless Count volunteers are key to achieving that goal.”
With reporting centers all over the county, you can sign up for a location near you on January 21, 22, and 23. Beyond helping the city learn where to target its efforts, it’s a good way to get to know your neighbors and serve your community.
2. Build an ADU to house someone
After the state relaxed local ordinances that make it easier for homeowners to build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) or granny shack on their properties, applications skyrocketed. LA’s planning department estimates that ADUs make up one-fifth of all new housing permits.
In 2019, another batch of ADU bills passed the state legislature, clearing even more hurdles for property owners to add additional residential units. “The power should go to the homeowner, not the government, if they want to help with the housing crisis,” State Sen. Bob Wieckowski told Curbed. “We should let them chip in.”
Now LA County has launched a pilot program where qualifying homeowners can receive up to $75,000 in funding—as well as a streamlined permitting process—to construct ADUs if they rent the units to formerly homeless individuals. The Backyard Homes Project is a similar ADU program for the city of Los Angeles that offers project management and financing. The prefab company Cover built a new tool so homeowners can see what size ADU is allowed on their property.
Don’t have the resources to build an ADU? If you have access to a parking lot at your work or church, you can have it converted to safe parking, providing a secure place for people who reside in their vehicles to sleep at night.
3. Donate in-kind goods
Many local homeless organizations accept donations, both monetary and in-kind. “Unrestricted general funds go directly to the women we serve, and donating is a quick, simple way to make a big impact,” says Ana Velouise of the Downtown Women’s Center. But the center needs in-kind goods, too.
“We’re always in need of clean socks and underwear, sleeping bags, and travel-sized toiletries,” says Velouise.
Check out the center’s Amazon wish list for an quick way to purchase additional items that can be shipped directly to the center. Most missions and shelters have similar lists to make donating easy.
Neighborhood outreach groups also accept donations. Ktown for All collects blankets, sleeping bags, tents, and tarps. More people die of hypothermia on LA’s streets than in New York City.
4. Advocate for affordable housing and renters’ rights
Voters have approved several ballot measures to give money to more homelessness solutions, but there are still roadblocks in the way. Your participation in public meetings could help sway lawmakers to change city policies.
“It is crucial for residents who support [building] more homes to turn out to hearings and to contact decision makers about proposed housing developments,” says Mark Vallianatos of Abundant Housing, which publishes a weekly action alert newsletter. “Otherwise only NIMBY voices will be heard.”
Currently there are groups working to block the opening of shelters and other homelessness facilities. Find out where shelters are being proposed in your council district, and contact your councilmember to find out how to show your support for these projects.
The League of Women Voters holds training sessions to facilitate potentially difficult discussions about housing and homelessness, including how to grow community support for bridge housing and supportive housing projects.
The best way to prevent homelessness is by helping renters stay in their homes. Know your rights, including the city’s new right to counsel program, get immediate help from the Housing Rights Center, and join the many efforts to stop evictions and demand stronger tenant protections.
5. Volunteer
Many Angelenos have made serving food at a shelter or kitchen part of their holiday season traditions. Mayor Garcetti’s office has put together a guide for how to find volunteer opportunities near you.
But homeless organizations also need year-round support, including a wide range of ongoing, lesser-known skills like tutoring, resume-editing, and child care.
Many Skid Row shelters, including the Downtown Women’s Center and Los Angeles Mission have new volunteer orientations every month. You can even sign up for “group serve” events where you’ll volunteer as a team with friends or coworkers. Or check out opportunities on Volunteer Match, which are located all over the city.
There are also new neighborhood coalitions that have formed to address the crisis locally, like SELAH, which serves Silver Lake, Echo Park and Atwater Village, Ktown for All in Koreatown, Midtown Los Angeles Homeless Coalition in Mid-City, and SPA6, which serves South LA. The Services not Sweeps coalition is working to provide basic public health needs like showers and toilets on streets. Your neighborhood council may also have a committee focused on homelessness.
6. Take a walking tour of Skid Row
With almost 60,000 residents, LA’s homeless community could be its own city. Thinking about it that way can help Angelenos cope with the crisis, says Adam Murray, executive director of Inner City Law Center.
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Murray vividly describes the demographics of “Homeless City,” which includes about 5,000 local children. Inner City Law Center offers a real-life way to understand the scope of homelessness in LA with walking tours through Skid Row, led by local residents.
“If we stop for a moment and consider what is around us, we see what will make Homeless City a smaller and healthier place: more affordable housing, higher incomes, more healthcare and social services and earlier interventions,” Murray writes.
The monthly walking tours take place at 10 a.m. on Fridays. Sign up for details.
7. Just say “hello”
“It sounds simple and that you may not be making a difference, but when you make eye contact with someone who is often ignored, someone who has been struggling to maintain their dignity, you are telling them that in that moment you see them,” says Jackie Vorhauer of Skid Row Housing Trust, which provides permanent supportive housing for 2,000 people in 26 buildings throughout LA County.
“They are not invisible. So say hello. It may help them hang on to tomorrow when an opportunity for housing presents itself,” says Vorhauer.
Want to hear more? Everyone In is hosting local storytelling nights featuring Angelenos who have experienced homelessness. Sign up to get information about the next event.
Comments
8. none of the above.
By jahpskat on 01.22.18 1:42pm
If they really wanted to make the Skid Row walking tour exciting it would take place at 10pm instead of 10am.
By DJCRoy on 01.22.18 8:47pm
The real problem is we have saturated our cities with liberal politicians, ACLU lawyers combined with left leaning Judges and naive millennials (useful idiots) that don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. When this shit-storm of (fake) liberalism is compounded over 10-30 years we end up with a massively empowered ACLU mafia, that legally supports the city council and the terrible decisions they keep making. We have 50,000+ thousand of "vagrants" fighting to live in the geographic 5% of the State while the remaining 95% is underutilized—which could be used for guess what, Homeless Housing if they really gave a shit about it.
We could build a massive compound for them at a fraction of the cost out in the OPEN DESERT where land is dirt cheap and with the money saved we could hire hundreds of mental health professionals, psychiatrists and job trainers to help get those, able and sane, back on their own feet again. What is inhuman is the current condition of having this people living on our streets that are filthy and where they can do what ever they hell they want and have access to all the drugs at anytime of the day. That is unsympathetic and more importantly unsustainable to the fucking 10th degree.
By LeBasque on 01.23.18 2:35pm
Bring your Ferrari
By caseym54 on 01.26.18 7:43pm
Please, please, please do a profile, including a 6-month follow up, of the homeowner who builds a shed in their backyard to house a "formerly" drug addled insane person. Disqusted is that going to be you? Someone needs to pitch that to HGTV asap (although unfortunately the show title "Rehab Addict" is already taken). Btw "Accessory Dwelling Unit" has to be the funniest government euphemism I’ve heard in 2018. The insanity of progressivism knows no bounds.
By DJCRoy on 01.22.18 1:57pm
Sorry, pal, I already have an occupied ADU on each of my three properties. Though it is something I would definitely consider on a future property depending on how much control the owner has over the screening process and whether special provisions were offered for eviction above and beyond LA’s existing crappy rent control laws. Would I help a down-and-out person who is homeless due to a medical bankruptcy? Absolutely. Would I house a meth addict? Unlikely. The homeless are not a monolith, and if anyone wants to go the paid ADU route, depending on the terms, let them give it a shot – it’s their property.
By disqusted on 01.22.18 4:42pm
It’s their property so let them spend their money to build a mini-ghetto for whatever sad sack, excuse making, liberal victim group member they want. Get your hands out of my damn pocket with these silly, taxpayer funded boondoggle pilot programs.
By DJCRoy on 01.22.18 4:49pm
he’s been exposed as a fraud, see the information in my other post.
By jahpskat on 01.22.18 11:16pm
sure you do, the adu programme was just approved 15 august 2017 and will be rolled out in the next 18 months: http://planning.lacounty.gov/secondunitpilot
but you already have three occupied units!
you’re been rumbled.
By jahpskat on 01.22.18 11:14pm
Those units are in another city where ADU additions have not only been legal but encouraged by the local legislature over the past decade, to great success. My LA unit is an existing multi-unit property, and why would any smart owner put in an additional unit subject to LA’s shitty rent control laws, but nice try with the debunking. Does your mom’s basement where you live count as a formal ADU? Did she even bother to put in an egress window for you? Or is that why you’re always so angry?
By disqusted on 01.23.18 11:17am
there are only three cities anywhere near central la which have codified accessory dwelling units: burbank, glendale and pasadena. i just went over their requirements, they’re all HIGHLY restrictive, mandate an insanely low lot cover, parking requirements, etc. furthermore, these can only be constructed on single family lots.
it seems improbable someone would have such tremendous luck/success… with not one but three! in fact, between 2003 and 2018, less than 400 coo were issued for adu throughout los angeles county.
"… an occupied ADU on each of my three properties." – disqusted.
your use of "my three properties" sure sounds like you’re talking about an entire portfolio. of sfh? really? you call yourself a "real estate investor"?
"… but since I don’t own a car and just walk or use transit for my lifestyle …" – disqusted.
really? you’re a single family "real estate investor" and don’t own a vehicle? in los angeles? i have a bridge to sell you.
no wonder you’re constantly acusing others of bullshitting on here, project much? fuck off you fraud.
By jahpskat on 01.23.18 1:46pm
The properties with ADUs are not in California, dipshit, hence the part about "another city where they have been both legal and encouraged," which encompasses a number of other major cities in the good old U.S. of A. LOL, you pretend to be "worldly" and then can only think of LA area examples of ADUs? God help you.
And I live in highly walkable Hollywood. Got used to the car-free lifestyle spending years in Chicago and specifically picked where I live in LA in order to make minimal use of the car I initially bought – eventually managed to make it unnecessary for my lifestyle, and I’m very happy about it. I don’t sit in traffic, I get more exercise, and I’m less stressed. Give it a try sometime, it might make you into a less shitty person.
I have never wanted to delve into the commercial side of real estate investing, the SFH in good school districts approach has worked fine enough for me, and will provide a comfortable retirement for myself and my family once the tenants finish paying down my mortgages. Meanwhile, you’ll continue to be a raging, grumpy shitburger until the day you die, so enjoy that.
By disqusted on 01.24.18 12:17pm
you’ve been outed as a fraud. the only "major city" which has been doing adu for over a decade is portland, oregon. who bothers wasting time with that low rent garbage (and holding HOUSES until "retirement")? that’s the realm of lumpenproletariats.
it was always clear from your posts you’re an envious, lower middle class twat. the fact that you operate in a tertiary shithole like oregon further solidifies your position at the bottom of the totem pole. that’s not a game for men, that’s for bored housewives.
fuck off.
By GhettoUrchin on 01.24.18 1:40pm
Trolling from your mom’s basement with two accounts now, spewing your endless garbage and pretending you have an investment beyond the microwave that cooks your daily Hot Pockets. Lord help me the day I ever stop laughing at you and how sad your life must be to sit here endlessly commenting a site about a city you claim to not even live in anymore. Could anything be more pathetic?
By disqusted on 01.24.18 7:36pm
You have GOT to be kidding.
By umineko on 01.22.18 2:17pm
I think it’s much better to volunteer, donate directly to the homeless organizations etc. rather than handing homeless people cash from your car window. that way you have some control over what that money is spent on. helping someone is giving them clothes, food etc not letting them buy drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc. that just keeps the cycle going
By LAoneWay on 01.22.18 3:50pm
INSANE. This is horrible advice.
Interacting with mentally unstable people on the street is NOT SAFE ADVICE.
We all are paying to solve this – WE don’t need to DO MORE. It’s NOT our jobs to do the City’s work for them. Their job is to REMOVE homeless encampments and get vagrants off of our streets, lots, parks, sidewalks, and into shelters or treatment as needed. (Yes that means forcibly removing them in many cases.) Nobody has a "right" to flounder in public spaces creating health hazards, danger, and nuisance. We pay enough already. We do enough already.
The criminal negligence of the City of Los Angeles is GUILTY for the way Skirball fire was started. Encampment of careless vagrants with open flames in DANGEROUSLY DRY AREAS. Any law-abiding citizen would have been curtailed. But regarding vagrants, NOTHING IS DONE.
Some nerve, Curbed. Why don’t you DO MORE? I assume you are inviting the homeless to crash in YOUR offices? YOUR parking lots? Ridiculous.
By j123kay on 01.22.18 4:04pm
Hear, hear! Well said my friend.
By DJCRoy on 01.22.18 4:05pm
exactly. when i first read that adviced i cringed. to me, it seemed like tremendous legal liability.
remember that girl a couple years ago who was murdered on the walk of fame? she refused to give a bum some money and was stabbed to death.
By jahpskat on 01.22.18 10:50pm
After two years of nurturing and feeding a homeless lady in the Echo Park area, my neighbor was finally mugged by said homeless lady’s friends… at homeless lady’s request.
By astroland on 01.23.18 3:08pm
Wow, so I see in my absence of about a month or so, the far right conservative commentators have taken over the comment sections. Long gone are the days of moderate views or multiple views from either side being presented here.
Anyway, my question for you guys is, what is YOUR solution to the Homeless Issue? The whole Republican/Conservative Reagan approach of the 1980s of De-federalizing / disintegrating Federal Mental Health facilities and pushing the cost onto States, is failing TERRIBLY. Why?? Because we all know Republican/Conservative States (like Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, ect) lacked the funding or desire to house these ppl, and thus encouraged them to go to "Blue Liberal Bleeding Heart States & Cities". As a result, Liberal States/Cities, especially those in warm climates (IE LOS ANGELES) became epicenters for a Nation wide issue.
Many of our homeless are from out of City/State. So since Liberals are soooo stupid and terrible at solving the issue, Please let us all know what the Right answer is? (Really wondering if someone is going to have the gaul to claim we should do nothing, or to just push them out of the city, many of whom are Veterans whom Conservatives are adamant about protecting (which is something we should be doing for those who protected this country)
By USCTrojan90 on 01.22.18 4:08pm
Blah blah blah blah.
My solution: break up the encampments, make it illegal to live on the street, offer a one way ticket to Slab City. If they don’t want help, place them in a mental ward.
By LAwastheplace on 01.22.18 4:13pm
Welcome back Trojan. Your unique brand of illogical, nonsensical, lefty claptrap was missed.
1. Freeze and or cut the salaries and benefits for the criminal and immoral public-sector union employees raping this state’s treasury.
2. Take a small portion of the money saved to build treatment centers for the mentally insane and drug addicted street dwellers (return the remaining balance saved to the taxpayers in the form of lower rates).
3. Reform laws to make the forced institutionalization of the obviously insane, especially those physically living on the street, easier.
4. Stop providing bums with tents, food, public urinals etc. and strictly enforce loitering laws.
5. Forcibly institutionalize the aforementioned batshit crazy and give the remaining homeless an option, treatment or jail.
- DJCRoy for California Governor 2018
By DJCRoy on 01.22.18 4:26pm
Many of them are veterans?? Why, because their cardboard sign told you so?
By losfeliz85 on 01.22.18 4:59pm
Don’t bother with Trojan, he will eventually crawl back into his cave and fester in his pit of liberal disillusionment. He’s a lost soul that has hear, read and seen the truth but still DENIES IT, a real pity.
By LeBasque on 01.22.18 7:59pm