Waiting For Elysium

Photo by Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

To drive the streets of Echo Park or along the 101 Freeway or shop along the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica is to enter the realm of the ghosts, the real-life zombies of Los Angeles.  They gather here because the weather is right for sleeping rough and anyways, there are no points farther west than the pier at Santa Monica.  It is the end of the line where all the movie magic falls off the continent into the sea.  No one notices the irony of a human being with little in this world to comfort him camped out in a dirty, torn and frayed tent, a slop bucket and some tarps nearby, all within shouting distance of where La La Land was filmed, that mythical, colorful tribute to Hollywood where a rising star simply must hold fast to her dreams and it will all turn out okay.  These tent camps are our Hoovervilles, the historical harbingers of the Great Depression.

According to Mayor Eric Garcetti in his Open Letter to Angelenos About Homelessness, there are 129,972 people living on the streets statewide.  In Los Angeles city proper and L.A. County the number stands at 49,521.  Those numbers seem low to me.  There are encampments under nearly every freeway overpass, in vacant lots, in parks, and most dangerously, in flood control channels and the Sepulveda Basin.  The numbers are a double-digit increase over last year, that much is certain, and the numbers are confirmed by Garcetti himself in his letter.

These poor people, simply by trying to survive, demonstrate the consequences of the homeless problem in Los Angeles.  Last month, a fire broke out in the Sepulveda Basin that forced the people camped there to abandon belongings and flee the flames.  Residences and businesses were threatened.

In December of 2017, a camp cooking fire ignited a blaze that burned uncomfortably close to homes, museums, businesses and schools, including the college where I teach which had to be evacuated even though the flames were burning away from campus.  Lessons from previous fires have taught us not to take wind direction for granted since Santa Ana winds can turn a fire around in an instant.

Vermin infestation, physical illnesses like measles and rabies, and mental illnesses abound; quality health care, another human right like shelter, is spotty at best for these souls tormented with demons left over from war, traumas and abuse.  The problem is clearly growing and all of us are responsible to do something about it.

Mayor Garcetti is trying.  Over the last year, he says, 21,000 homeless were provided housing across the county.  The current city budget allocates $460 million for measures to help people find transitional shelter leading, we hope, to permanent housing.  But rents are sky high here, and no one seems to want a homeless housing unit in their neighborhood.  Just ask the folks in Koreatown and Sherman Oaks.  Both communities have been vigorously debating plans for affordable housing with residents not wanting to encourage the blight and crime that might accompany the homeless as they relocate to their neighborhoods.

Voters across the city approved Proposition HHH in 2016, which provides funding for supportive housing for those who are homeless or at risk for homelessness.  This has led to 109 homeless housing developments promising 7,400 new units that will be available for occupancy.  This is on top of the 16,525 units created in 2018.  But Garcetti says that people are becoming homeless faster than housing can be provided.

Why is this happening?  Here in Los Angeles, there is a housing shortage, rampant income inequality and a sky-rocketing poverty level.  Even those earning wages are struggling with the cost of rent, utilities, medical care and food.  L.A. is becoming a tough, or even near impossible city to live in and raise a family.  Young people are burdened with exploding student loan debt and the economy is rocky at best, and as we heard this week, we may be headed for a recession right around the time of the next presidential election.

Garcetti’s solution, while he pushes for more affordable housing, is to try to help people living on the streets with more portable showers, bathrooms, and storage units.  He also promises sanitation teams that will go in and clean up the mess of so many people living without facilities in our streets and alleys.  However, the tensions rise when LAPD and other city personnel confiscate carts and belongings of people and dispose of them.  If someone is arrested for a crime, even something as non-threatening as simple vagrancy, he or she often loses all possessions.  Tents and blankets and food—all of it is transported to the landfill while the homeless person is taken off to jail or for medical treatment.  Many times, those life supporting possessions took months to accumulate from patient foraging in dumpsters and trash heaps across the city.  Several of the missions and support groups on Skid Row, like the Catholic Worker, offer their clients storage areas for carts and belongings while they wash up, eat a good meal, and line up for assistance.

Garcetti is marshaling funding to address the problem.  Sacramento sent $86 million for an emergency fund last year.  California also contributed $81 million to the city and county effort to assist people with getting off the street and into safe housing.  But a lot of this crisis falls on Los Angeles residents.  It is far too easy to look right through these people as we walk in our neighborhoods and shopping malls.  It is devastating human misery hiding in plain sight.  Once these units are built, we must welcome them in our neighborhoods.  This is a moral and ethical crisis that cannot be hidden away behind some Hollywood façade.  It is here and now and real, and human beings are suffering.  It is on us to do something about it.

Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images