'We hurt those already hurting': why Los Angeles is failing on homelessness

[Jilly_in_VA]

Last month, the top official charged with addressing homelessness in Los Angeles announced her surprise departure, offering a scathing message on her way out: the crisis is “a monster of our own making”, she wrote in her resignation letter. “Those in power who possess the ability to change the lives of more than 60,000 unhoused Angelenos must be willing to do so.”

Heidi Marston’s public comments about her decision to leave the Los Angeles homeless services authority (Lahsa) offer a rare look from an insider at the systemic problems that have prevented major metropolitan regions like LA from adopting the rapid, large-scale and humane response that the emergency demands.

Marston’s exit comes as Los Angeles is home to an estimated 66,000 unhoused people and accounts for 20% of all Americans living outside. More than five unhoused Angelenos are dying every day. Local residents are falling into homelessness faster than the unhoused are moving indoors. Large tent communities are growing on city streets and in parks.

The crisis in LA and in California has reached record proportions, but severe inequality is a growing problem in many US metropolitan regions. LA’s broken system, experts say, mirrors the failures of cities across America to help their most vulnerable residents.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/16/homelessness-los-angeles-lahsa-heidi-marston