Los Angeles Confronts Homelessness Reputation

[groovedaddy]

LOS ANGELES — It was just past dusk in the upscale enclave of Brentwood as a homeless man, wrapped in a tattered gray blanket, stepped into a doorway to escape a light rain, watching the flow of people on their way to the high-end restaurants that lined the street.

Across town in Hollywood the next morning, homeless people were wandering up and down Sunset Boulevard, pushing shopping carts and slumped at bus stops. More homeless men and women could be found shuffling along the boardwalks of Venice and Santa Monica, while a few others were spotted near the heart of Beverly Hills, the very symbol of Los Angeles wealth.

And, as always, San Julian Street, the infamous center of Skid Row on the south edge of downtown Los Angeles, was teeming: a small city of people were making the street their home in a warm December sun, waiting for one of the many missions there to serve a meal.

At a time when cities across the country have made significant progress over the past decade in reducing the number of homeless, in no small part by building permanent housing, the problem seems intractable in the County of Los Angeles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/us/13homeless.html

[Speck Tater]

1. I noticed this about the piece...

Part of the impetus for this most recent flurry of attention is concern in the business and political communities that the epidemic is threatening to tarnish Los Angeles’s national image and undercut a campaign to promote tourism, ... “If you have a homeless problem, then your sense of security is diminished, and that makes people not want to come,”

The urgency seems to come from the fact that well-off tourists are uncomfortable around homeless people. The concern is for the image of the city and the comfort of the well-off, with no hint of any compassion for the homeless people themselves. Warms your heart, doesn't it?

[groovedaddy]

2. The World Equestrian Games were just held here in Lexington, KY in early fall. The city

arranged "temporary" housing for the homeless, who tend to congregate in a park near the main public library. It was clearly seen as an effort to "clean up" the city's image.

[tracy_winzer01]

3. agree

you are totally right!