Part 0: Prologue

The "city of shanties." The "home of the homeless." The "homeless capital" of America.

Los Angeles has earned several nicknames for one dubious distinction: It has the greatest number of chronically homeless people in the country.

They’re the people sleeping in Westwood storefronts, carrying all their worldly possessions in a barely full garbage bag or shopping cart.

There’s a complex web of policy that stretches from places like a small eight-bed shelter in a Westside church all the way up to Los Angeles City Hall. This op-ed is telling the story of why homelessness in Los Angeles has gotten so out of hand, the local advocates – some of whom have dedicated their lives to this issue – and the decisions that have driven the government’s bungling response.

Because beneath all the bureaucracy, the staff contracts, the waivers and the forms, there are real people who need help.

Like Bob.

Bob used to live on the streets of Westwood. Nicknamed “Gandalf” by locals for his long white beard, he had a mental illness that compelled him to keep two shopping carts with him at all times, filled to the brim with empty plastic bags.

Bob spent his days wandering the streets of Westwood, collecting plastic bags. He spent his nights in an encampment near the Westwood Presbyterian Church.

He lived like this for 25 years. Bob had money and a family who wanted him to come home. But for years, Bob refused them and the outreach workers who tried to engage him. The only way they could have helped him was if he voluntarily agreed to check into a shelter.

They used to joke: “We’re gonna throw one long party for Bob when we finally get him in a shelter.”

Bob died six months ago. He never went to a shelter. He died where he lived – on the streets.

This story came from Andrew Thomas, executive director of the Westwood Village Improvement Association, or the BID. It was shocking, but not surprising.

There is not a lot a nonprofit could have done to help Bob, someone who regularly refused the services and help offered to him. It’s indicative of larger problems with the response to the LA homelessness epidemic: an unclear policy approach to the issue and the limits of nonprofit organizations that simply lack the resources to directly impact the problem.

The only way homelessness will subside is through a large-scale effort to actually house homeless people for good.

“It’s terrible that Bob died on the streets,” Thomas said. He was visibly emotional for the first time during that interview. “It didn’t have to happen.”

Part I: A very brief history of homelessness in Los Angeles

Understanding homelessness in Los Angeles means understanding the roots of the problem and the way it has developed over the decades.

During the Great Depression, millions of Midwestern workers lost their jobs, homes and livelihoods. Some packed their things, abandoned their families and rode the railroads west to Los Angeles in search of a fresh start. The migrants, typically young men, eventually settled close to the railroad terminal near downtown Los Angeles. The area, newly christened “skid row,” began to develop a reputation as a slum.

The population of skid row grew after World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War as veterans settled there. By the 1960s, skid row was notorious as a haven for alcohol- and drug-addicted young men.

As the influx of increasingly poor veterans forced the neighborhood even further into destitution, local business interests grew skittish and demanded action. The city government began a policy precedent that had major repercussions in the following decades: cracking down on fire and safety code violations in the area. Landlords faced two options: either spend thousands to renovate their buildings or demolish them. They chose the latter.

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce estimates that up to 7,500 units – about half of the skid row housing stock – were demolished by the early 1970s.

At the same time, frostbitten Easterners were flocking to the Southland, lured by the siren’s song of sun, sand and surf – set to a Beach Boys melody, of course.

As Southern California’s population swelled, so did housing prices. Suddenly, people whose homes on skid row were demolished found themselves on the street – and with nowhere else to go but outward.

The problem festered during the 1980s as local hospitals shifted away from serving people with mental illnesses due to shrinking federal funding, forcing them out onto the streets to fend for themselves. By that point, Los Angeles was already known as the “homeless capital" of America. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley attempted to rectify the situation by accommodating the growing shantytowns in skid row, along the Los Angeles River and elsewhere in the city. He allowed homeless people to remain on the streets through temporary measures like approving a homeless campground and supporting temporary shelter funds. This weak response allowed homelessness to continue unabated into the 1990s.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, sections of the inner city began to gentrify as new luxury condos and lofts sprouted, putting more pressure on the local homeless population. William Bratton, former chief of the Los Angeles police, pursued a new “tough on homelessness” approach, which pulled down shantytowns at the expense of full jails and tensions between police and the local community. Although the crime rate did indeed fall, there weren’t enough investments made in housing for the people forced off the streets. Homelessness still persisted.

Even glitzy Westwood had its share of homelessness issues as the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center provided a steady influx of homeless veterans. A myriad of other factors, such as poor urban planning, the rise of Santa Monica as a shopping destination and the 1988 gang shooting of Karen Toshima, left Westwood in economic decline. As the storefronts and sidewalks emptied, more homeless people set up camp.

However, in the 2010s, a downtown renaissance attracted international investments, bringing the city’s economic inequality under close scrutiny. And now – if international headlines are to be believed – the world has begun paying attention to the LA homeless population.

For decades, the city government and local police considered two options. They could ignore the problem and shoo homeless people off sidewalks and into alleyways or behind buildings. Or they could arrest them.

Neither is a good option. Simply moving homeless individuals away from the street without addressing the core reasons of why they were there in the first place is akin to sweeping the problem under the rug. Likewise, police crackdowns may fill the jails and exacerbate law enforcement relations with the local community, but it essentially amounts to a Band-Aid solution. As long as housing remains scarce and unaffordable, as long as people go without sustainable wages and as long as people with mental illnesses can’t access the care they need, the problem will continue.

There’s been a long history of empty gestures and ineffective policies on the part of the city. But Los Angeles’ homeless population is increasing every year, and the world is now watching.

Something’s got to give.

Part II: A path to recovery

It’s common to encounter small shantytowns in the hustle and bustle of Westwood Village. After all, compared to other areas of the city, the Village is relatively safe and well-maintained – attractive qualities for someone living on the street. An annual court in February found 33 homeless individuals, vehicles and shelters in the area bordered by Santa Monica Boulevard and the 405 Freeway, up slightly from 27 last year.

Thomas is leading the local effort to reach out to these people. Thomas arrived in 2011 during the creation of Westwood's business improvement district, or BID, a nonprofit organization responsible for maintaining Westwood’s public spaces.

This BID operates like most other BIDs across the country: A fee is added to local property taxes, which the county government collects and directs back to the neighborhood BID.

Thomas says the BID wants to keep Westwood clean, safe and beautiful (it’s the BID’s official slogan). Typically, this involves cleaning up trash and graffiti as well as landscaping and maintenance.

But a big part of the neighborhood aesthetic is the local homeless population, and helping them goes a long way toward staying true to the BID’s slogan.

“This is the other big part of our operation – providing hospitality to people on the streets and trying to get them into shelters,” Thomas said.

It’s easier said than done. The contracted BID staff employ different strategies for each person they encounter. Their endgame is to build a trusting relationship with each person and eventually help them into a local shelter run by People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH, another nonprofit that collaborates with the BID.

The strategy can start with simply offering some food or a blanket. All the while, employees reinforce their message: Come with them, and find a place to stay.

The BID and PATH meticulously record each encounter with the person’s location, initials and services offered. It could take hundreds of interactions before someone finally agrees to go to a shelter. It happens rarely, but it does happen.

Thomas recalled a man named Ruben, who spent 10 years around Westwood. After thousands of attempts to connect with him, Ruben decided to check into a PATH shelter.

“It’s amazing to see him now,” Thomas said. “He spoke at our last annual meeting, and he just looks so different now. He’s got a job, and his entire life’s just turned around.”

The BID began contracting with PATH in February 2012. Since then, they have housed more than 30 people. It’s good, but it hasn’t transformed Westwood by any means.

What’s more, the local homeless population isn’t dropping. Despite the BID’s best efforts, the number of homeless people in Westwood has increased over the past year.

That can’t be pinned on PATH or the BID. They’re facing a constant influx of people from around Los Angeles, and PATH can only house a few hundred of them at a time.

The simple fact is that Los Angeles’ homelessness problem is Westwood’s homelessness problem. And it will persist in Westwood as long as it persists in the rest of the city.

Part III: Students take to the streets

There’s a board affixed to a wall in the lobby of the Luskin School of Public Affairs Building. Emblazoned on the Plexiglas front is a quote by anthropologist Margaret Mead that reads, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.”

No one reasonably expects small, student-run nonprofits to solve homelessness. But they can help initiate the social and cultural change that eventually will.

The new Bruin Shelter is one of these nonprofit student organizations. The graduate mechanical engineering student who helps run the shelter is clean and kempt, with a boyish face. He's also been living in his car for the past year.

Louis Tse is a co-founder of Bruin Shelter, which seeks to give homeless UCLA students a place to eat and rest. He says it’s difficult to quantify how many students face this situation because they value their privacy and don’t necessarily want their issues coming to light.

He and co-founder Luke Shaw, a fellow graduate mechanical engineering student, have been working to raise $25,000 to cover the annual operating cost of the shelter. Part of that money comes directly from Tse’s own bank account – he moved into his car in order to forgo the rent for his old Westwood apartment. Instead, the money goes toward Bruin Shelter.

Tse and Shaw were inspired by Harvard University’s Y2Y Harvard Square, which opened a shelter last year catering to young adults – the first of its kind. Shaw said young homeless people often face abuse at the hands of older shelter-seekers, who are often more hardened and street-smart than the former.

But serving homeless students is only part of Bruin Shelter’s goal. Tse envisions it as a platform to involve more students in social justice initiatives. Whether students volunteer at the shelter or not, he wants to instigate a cultural change to alter the prevalent perception of homeless people.

Bruin Shelter is just one of several student-run initiatives on campus designed to address homelessness. The Mobile Clinic Project at UCLA works to address health issues faced by homeless individuals, according to undergraduate coordinator Jimmy Zheng. The clinic distributes clothing, hygiene products and glasses, provides insurance counseling, physical therapy and more.

Like his Bruin Shelter peers, Zheng wants to engage the student body about the issue of homelessness.

“It’s easy to buy into the stigma against it, but the fact is that these are some of the most vulnerable people in society,” Zheng said. “All it takes is a stroke of bad luck.”

The Mobile Clinic Project runs outreach events and awareness fairs throughout the year to capture the student body’s attention.

Both Mobile Clinic Project and Bruin Shelter depend on a steady money flow from other organizations, including My Friend’s Place, a volunteer group, and Kaiser Permanente. They also depend on the university and the undergraduate student government to stay afloat.

There are many other initiatives on campus, but they all have something in common: Due to resource limitations, they’re small-scale operations that can’t make a big, direct impact on homelessness. Bruin Shelter expects to serve only six to eight students when it opens next year. Mobile Clinic Project simply provides health products and services to homeless individuals.

But that’s not the point. It’s unrealistic to expect any student nonprofit to drastically reduce the number of homeless people in a community. These efforts should be thought of as a means to an end – engaging the general public on homelessness and encouraging them to start paying attention and do something about it.

Part IV: The way home

Quite frankly, there isn't a lot that nonprofit organizations and private charities can do to directly end homelessness. It’s simply beyond their scope. So it’s up to the city, county and state governments to invest in measures to house the people on the streets.

Unfortunately, the local government’s response has been a joke.

After months of debating what should have been a no-brainer, Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a state of emergency for homelessness in early December. The declaration came with $12.4 million of emergency relief funds to keep homeless individuals out of harm’s way during the El Niño season.

But again, it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. The city council’s attempt to declare a shelter crisis and expand shelter capacity was a disaster. The council members debated about bylaws and bureaucracy instead of securing a concrete source of funding for housing. As the Los Angeles Times editorial board described it, the "whole process has been more of a turgid civics debate than an urgent response to a desperate situation.”

The city needs to rise above quick fixes and empty gestures if homelessness is to subside anytime soon. According to Toby Hur, a field education faculty member at the school of public affairs, government leaders cannot remain complicit in the problem by ignoring it – he lamented the police crackdowns and revolving shelter doors.

Most of all, both Hur and Thomas expressed disdain for “right to rest” laws. These kinds of laws, which became popular in the 1980s, affirm homeless people’s rights to engage in everyday activities (such as eating and sleeping) in public spaces like parks. It’s a well-intentioned effort, but it’s enabling and fails to actually make homeless people’s lives better, according to Thomas. It lets people remain on the street.

Even shelters are only a temporary solution. People can usually only stay for a month or two, and then it’s back on the streets.

By contrast, supportive housing is an effective and economical way to serve the homeless population while addressing their complex needs and situations. A 2004 study by the Lewin Group found that permanent housing for a homeless person in New York would cost $41.85 per day, compared to $54.42 for a shelter and $74 for prison.

Another big part of the equation is the system of state psychiatric hospitals, which care for people with mental illnesses.

It’s the best option for those with serious psychiatric disorders who ​find it difficult to access the resources they need from society​ to receive long-term shelter and care. Between 2009 and 2011, the state government cut $587.4 million from its mental health services budget, which funds institutions like psychiatric wards.

The cuts were part of a process called "deinstitutionalization," which sought to release patients from state psychiatric hospitals in order to better integrate them into society and save state money. However, as John Martin said in the Schizophrenia Digest, that experiment has been a massive failure which has left people with serious mental illnesses to fend for themselves.

The cuts need to be reversed if the state wants to get people with mental illnesses off the streets for good. Extra funding will go a long way toward improving the quality of care provided and oversight to prevent the abuse that can sometimes take place in state psychiatric hospitals.

The fate of these institutions depends on the support of the state and local governments, which need to plan for and fund supportive developments.

So yes, ending homelessness is far beyond the scope of what the BID, Bruin Shelter, Mobile Clinic Project or any other nonprofit could ever hope to achieve. But that doesn’t mean they don’t play vital roles. Every person housed temporarily or given supplies is a step in the right direction, but the true purpose of these nonprofits is to draw attention and get the locality involved in the issue. In this respect, the advocates may have finally reached a breakthrough.

Los Angeles’ by-now notorious reputation as the “homeless capital" of America has prompted the city to approve a plan with an estimated cost of $1.85 billion to build permanent supportive housing developments over the next decade. The California State Senate is also working to pass a proposal to dedicate $2 billion to construct new housing statewide, in a move that Los Angeles Times reporter Gale Holland described as “the most sweeping from the state in a generation” and the Daily Bruin's editorial board called “unequivocally, a good thing.”

This is good. This is progress. But there needs to be even greater investment in supportive housing if the government wants to make a substantive impact on homelessness.

And the local nonprofits still have work to do. They need to continue casting light on an issue that has crept under the radar for decades, because their efforts are starting to work.

“The local government and business response is far different now that it was 11 years ago,” Hur said. “People are finally starting to pay attention.”

I thought back to Thomas’ story about Bob, the man who spent 25 years on the streets of Westwood.

Thomas was right. It doesn’t have to happen.

Part V: Epilogue

I’ll admit, I had a pretty jarring bout of writer’s block when I started writing this article.

So, on a Friday at 8:41 p.m., I shut my laptop and slipped on my shoes and jacket. I was going for a walk. Reporter’s notebook in hand, I headed for the Westwood Recreation Center, just south of the Wilshire Federal Building. I thought maybe I could find some inspiration away from the noise and traffic of Westwood Village.

The park was quiet when I arrived. Two men were still playing tennis on one of the courts. Other than that, it was dead.

But tucked away in the shadows, away from the glaring lights of the park and the street, a cluster of shopping carts peeked out from behind the bushes. Some had blankets haphazardly thrown on top. Some had none.

I took a long walk through the park that night and observed. I scribbled some words in my notebook, trying to piece everything together. The chilly January air sharpened my thoughts.

Homelessness is one of the greatest challenges facing modern American cities. Yes, the local nonprofits contribute and sacrifice and serve. But due to resource limitations, they are drops in the bucket. The responsibility to end homelessness lies squarely on the shoulders of the government, because the government is the only entity capable of enacting social and policy changes that can effectively house 44,000 people countywide.

There may not be a convenient or politically expedient solution, but it’s important that the community understands the problem and its underlying causes, and advocates a large-scale response to it. It’s the only way that real, substantive action against homelessness can begin.

But there’s still a lot of progress that needs to be made before supportive housing becomes a simple solution.

At 10:40 p.m., I returned to my apartment, sat down at my desk, opened my laptop and deleted everything I had written. Staring at a fresh, blank screen, I began to type.