Homeless
The homeless people on the streets of Venice have soared over the last year. It is disturbing on so many levels. Los Angeles, including other areas of California, have a massive housing crisis. On one hand, there are people moving into areas that have been gentrified over the past decade and then on the other hand these areas are packed with tents and mobile homes filled with people without roofs above their head.
This isn’t good for anyone. This past week I opened up the garage to a homeless man standing there with a filled shopped cart of his wares. I was alone and I told him he had to move so I could pull out. He nodded and basically set up shop next door because when I returned he had his things sitting there. What if he was out of his mind and struck at me?
In the evening we walked down Abbott Kinney for dinner. We were waiting for a table so we walked the entire strip back and forth. In NYC, you mostly seem singular homeless people but for some reason in LA there are more groups. Walking by a group of four homeless people sitting on the street as you walk by looking at you is uncomfortable. There were several groups along the strip.
I don’t know if it is just pure lack of housing, lack of Federal funding, rising rents or less social programs but the long-tail of this is housing prices begin to come down, stores start to close, and eventually something bad happens. Many ideas have been thrown out there that could be debated that they are against the civil rights of the people on the street but how about the people who are living in the homes, paying their rent, putting money into the economy and want to feel safe?
There has to be a better way? It as if the local city Government has lost the plot. You can’t grow economies without taking care of the people who get left behind. In the end, we all get left behind.
Comments (Archived):
That puzzles me as well. San Francisco and Vancouver also have had a surge in homeless populations and it is sad to see it so visibly on the streets.When I see homeless people in those nice places, I’m always reminded of the famous song words from Charles Aznavour – “La misère est moins pénible au soleil.” Translation: Misery is less painful in sunny places.
But it’s still misery. I agree if I had to pick better to live outdoors when it’s not 7 degrees but the country is in awful shape and someone, somehow needs to get over the fact that because the S&P is in good shape the rest of the country is. As of this Sunday are two shops left open on our block in NYC. I can see one is not going to be around too much longer, then down to one. And this is Madison Ave. It’s nuts. I just bought lunch for all the TSA workers in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK since they are not getting paid. That’s really not my responsibility, but I am happy to do as I can’t stand to see suffering esepcially people who are working hard and for our benefit. Vancouver, LA, NYC, doesn’t matter, we are too focused on all the wrong things and we have a dictator in power. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Sorry that happened to you Joanne, must have been quite scary.
definitely freaked me out.
How about questioning why they are living hand to mouth and with a secure government job can’t float for several weeks w/o a pay check. I do realize that there are people that for whatever reason are living hand to mouth. But honest it’s a bit ridiculous for someone with a government job of all things (‘can’t get layed off did you know that??) to not have enough money if they don’t get paid so that they need a soup kitchen.This doesn’t mean that I think the government shutdown is good either. But the reality is it’s just plain stupid for people to not live without any safety net in the bank. I think the general consensus is that you should have a certain amount of money set aside for emergencies whatever they are. I do understand there are exceptions but that is not how it’s being portrayed.Btw they will get paid just not now but will be paid later. You can bank on that. Nobody is working now that won’t get a paycheck later.And even the ones that are not working (furloughed) will be paid:https://www.washingtonpost….
You know I don’t want to cause a scene here on our friend Joanne’s page but you just sent me into orbit with that remark. But the reality is it’s just plain stupid for people to not live without any safety net in the bank.Are you comepletly in your own world or do you not pay attention to how this counrtry is structured?”TSA (Transportation Security Administration) TSA OFFICER salaries – 7 salaries reportedNew York City, NY Area$17/hrUS Department of Homeland Security TSA OFFICER salaries – 3 salaries reportedNew York City, NY Area$40,000/yrSo lets starts with $17 hour – that is a mere 2 bucks more than the new minimum wage in New York. It’s less than my housekeeper makes. Top end 40K a year after taxes, So we are talking what 30 K takehome maybe. Can you live on 30K a year? Can you live on 30K a year and sock enough away for a rainy day? if so I would love to see it. From the sounds of it’s a lot less than your property taxes.These guys have families, often they are helping support a relative and often they can’t move as they have parents and family nearby, who may watch their kids, who may be sick or have learning disabilites. Not all people get the luck in this world.And it’s not cheap to move. And it’s not easy to always find a job. Most people cannot just uproot their lives. So, on 30k a year after taxes, and less likely if you count contributions random fees that are likely taken out of their pay. You expect them to have a nest egg? You are picking on them for not having a nest egg? I am speechless. Most of America does not have an nest egg.https://www.cbsnews.com/new…We are the blessed ones, and every day we don’t remember that and do what we can to help others is a wasted day as far as I am concerned.And on a final note why should the effing govt be shutdown so the orange idiot can build a wall that won’t work and we don’t need? And while they might get back pay, they could lose their houses, cars and god knows what else in the meantime. They have no idea how long this will last and when their pay will come. And it’s a domino effect, the guys who own the bldgs don’t get their rent, they count on that to pay their mortages and the utilities and on and on. We are an ecco system, all attached unlike what we are told by our present resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Aveune.
Yup–I spend a lot of time in Venice when I’m there which is frequently and there are literally cities of homeless.And each and every time I am confronted by my lack of imagination in trying to combat it. Sure I know it is endemic of a strata of inequality cross our country but the reality of the symptoms, these people on the street is overwhelming and it is beyond my scope how to address these top down bottoms up.I have not found anyone who is thinking of this problem in terms that seem to strike a direction for change.If there is, I am all ears to understand and spark my thinking.
One place to start is thinking about local zoning ordinances. Thinking about new ways to foster group and multi-generational family living would help. The tiny house movement has it’s finger on the pulse of this issue but has run into a lot of roadblocks in local ordinances. There is extreme disparity in income in some places and even hard-working people with decent jobs cannot afford housing.
100%
I’ll check them out,Ignorant on this except it is in my face when on the West Side of LA.
Yes, it’s amazing how many progressive things get stalled by local ordinances.
Most people who are high or even middle income do not want lower income housing where they live. They want it somewhere else. The problem is that is not something that people are willing to embrace. Look at all the uproar over even things like the ‘poor door’. That’s when a developer builds a high class building (in NYC) and then sets aside some lottery units in order to get his approvals. And then what happens? The people who win the lottery actually complain that they don’t get to take advantage of all the high end facilities in the building. As if it’s not good enough to just live in a brand new and safe building at a low cost (after winning the lottery) you also should be able to get exactly the same amenities as those paying for the building. It’s never good enough is the point.
A lot of low and middle class income housing went out the window when Bloomberg redlined the city and said bring us all your billioniares. Living in NY is hard when you actually make a decent amount of money – LA too. A lot of money poured into the city and the prices skyrocketed. Tech is patially to blame for this, not that it’s blame. My last house in LA I sold for 900K – 20 years ago. This year it sold for 14mil. Makes no sense at all. Venice was cheap 30 years ago and it’s only gone up up up since. Look at Brooklyn, look at Harlem. People just keep getting pushed out and there is nowhere for them to go. And there is so little medical care for those with mental diseases and PTSD and Vets who come back are left to fend for themselves.We are more and more a country for the rich. And I don’t want to sound like a Trump supporter as I hate him with all my heart, but NYC is being destroyed block by block. You cannot be a global economny or a multi -cultural large city if you don’t take care of those with less or make some allotments. But we don’t do that, we just take more and more away and now it’s housing for not only the poor, but the lower middle class as well. And then we go, wow, so much homelessness. No one wants to be poor, no one wants to be homeless. People act like it’s a choice. You can live here under a tarp near the 405 or in the flats of Beverly Hills. Many pick the streets over shelters as shelters are so dangerous. I feel awful for the homeless and I feel awful Joanne is put in a postion of having someone trespass on her property. I feel awful about most of what is taking place in this country at the moment.
As someone who grew up in a lower middle class immigrant home, you are so right.The dream worked.It no longer does.
No…Not at all. Bye Bye dream. I can’t tell you how many cab drivers have told me of late, they wish they had stayed in their homelands, Many with auhtoritarian regimes and low income scales. But at least it was a life.
I refuse to let pessimism get me down.Being depressed is a state of acceptance and I just won’t go there.
And, and my other big pet peeve, not that I don’t have enough as it is, (I’m on a plane with a lot of time) how does someone lower middle class come here and make a living now? Where are the bakers, the cobblers, the leather repiar shops, the small buisnesses where people could build a life and pass on the next rung of the ladder to their kids? All gone. . My pharmacy closed this week. 36 years in the same spot. Rent too high. Someone like your family or my grandfather who came here dirt poor from Poland and made a success of himself, can’t happen today, not to the lower middle class. Sure if you are a great coder or engineer, but those guys are better going elsewhere now thanks to Trump.
Yup–The other difference is of course the value system.We were brought up to never be a burden, take care of our community and our family and find happiness.That was their quotient of success.And they were successful and amazingly happy working multiple jobs, public schools for the kids and a car camping trip for a week or two in the summer at best.That variant of success as well because of the economic walls seems gone as well.When I owned a juice business i came to realize this as many in the food biz are working poor and that is truly a killer of dreams.
At a nearby town’s park, they just invested a great deal of money in a new gazebo with lighting and underground electrical supply. I call it the new homeless shelter, half joking, half serious. The cost of living here in the Northeast (and, obviously California and Vancouver and other places) is so high that even people earning decent incomes cannot afford housing. My Mom, who is retired and on a limited income, had to start taking in boarders to afford the taxes on her house that she has owned since the 1960’s. It’s actually illegal for her to do so, according to local ordinance. Oddly enough, I keep thinking that my Mom is on to something. We need to change local P&Z laws so that there can be more group housing. Where my Mom lives it is also illegal to have multi-family dwellings — you have to apply for a variance and then all the other residents fight it, with the opinion that it will lower the value of the property. It’s nonsensical. There is a waterfront vacant lot near where my Mom lives that has been empty for about ten years. Every year the property owner applies for a variance to put in a multi-use building which includes mixed commercial and residential space, including town-house style, duplex housing and the residents fight it. Then the lot just sits there empty year after year. This particular town also has extremely high residential property taxes but the residents also fight new commercial property development. I actually had an opportunity to buy a house there on the water and passed because I saw a town stuck in a downward spiral of making poor decisions in zoning.
Susan wouldn’t it make sense for your mother to sell her home, take the equity, and then simply rent a small apartment? Rather than become a landlord?My point is when circumstances change (for whatever reason) you need to maybe do something different. I talked my mom into selling the home we grew up in. It just didn’t make sense for her to stay there with the maintenance etc. The taxes weren’t even the issue (they were actually reasonable).Fwiw I live in an area where the property tax (as I have said) is about 3.6% of the property value. So a million dollar home is $36k per year in property taxes. Curious how that compares with where you (or your mother) is.
Rents here in Connecticut are extremely high, among the highest in the nation. For example, the average cost to rent a 2-bedroom apartment is $1,295.00 a month, or, 48.1% of the average household income in CT. (My rent is $1,850.00 for a 2-bedroom, 5 room duplex in Bridgeport. My apartment in a neighboring suburb would easily go for close to double what I’m paying.)My Dad, who is disabled with an extremely limited income, lives in a small two room apartment in senior housing (about 400 SF), which is subsidized. It took him just over 12 year to secure one — he was on a waiting list to get on a waiting list (the ten year waiting list was maxed out so he was on a secondary waiting list to get onto the ten year waiting list).Here’s some info on the CT housing market (there’s a chart in here that shows the top 10, including CA and NY) – https://ctmirror.org/2018/0…
Forgot to mention that the average rent cited above is about $350 more per month than what my Mom pays in property taxes. Also, to realistically get a rent as low as that average rent cited above, she’d have to move into a not so desirable neighborhood in Bridgeport or she’d have to move to a rural area where she has no community/social network.
Assuming your mom has equity in her house what about a reverse mortgage:https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Her financial advisor advised against it.
Hah well you know I never take anything like that without poking around. Because of course I am curious as to why he would say that.So I do a simple search and I find this:https://www.housingwire.com…https://www.housingwire.com…Of course I don’t know why he told your mom that but it’s like anything else and you have to consider both the financial advisor, their motives, and also their knowledge and how it impacts them personally (fiduciary or not).Once again this is what you said which got our conversation started:My Mom, who is retired and on a limited income, had to start taking in boarders to afford the taxes on her house that she has owned since the 1960’s.
Also, the point is that my Mom wants to take in boarders as her solution. It’s mutually beneficial — her last boarder was someone who had been in jail for over ten years and was working on his re-entry (after being in a one year group re-entry program) into everyday life. He had a part-time job (arranged by his re-entry program) which was enough to pay a small monthly fee and he also did things like shovel the snow, helped my Mom with groceries, etc. (Unfortunately, he passed away so my Mom is looking for a new boarder now.) Overall, it’s mutually beneficial because my Mom provided a support structure for him and she was compensated for it and he helped my Mom with small everyday things that are a bit difficult given her physical condition (she is disabled, but not as badly as my Dad.)Seems extraordinarily silly that it’s illegal to have a boarder. Her neighbor’s house is a one-family rental with a very high turnover rate which is perfectly legal but someone who lives in their own house can’t rent part of their house to others. Nor is it legal to add in-law apartments. My point is that local planning and zoning ordinances are often obstacles to solving problems in our culture, such as housing and aging at home, etc.Also, I think that programs to help reduce recidivism also could be created to solve housing and other problems. Granted, not everyone wants to live with people who have been in jail. My Mom is ideally suited for it after a career in community nursing in Bridgeport. She has insights and professional experience in dealing with people in poverty or poor-opportunity circumstances. I think real opportunities to change housing and poverty circumstances could be solved by thinking about new ways to match people up with mentors, housing, and work situations. The ordinances her town make it very difficult to do so.
Well first let me say that you should 100% install outdoor security cameras at any and all of your homes. I actually have full coverage at my office (front and back) and it’s in a good neighborhood and there are no homeless etc. I found it well worth the cost. I can see anyone and everyone prior to existing the business. I don’t mean some cheap solution on Amazon either that you install yourself. I mean a professional system that allows you to monitor things fully and is maintained by a professional. My system was a few thousand dollars. I liked it so much I added cameras to it.That said this is honestly more of a mental health issue than anything. Btw if you are homeless and in survival mode it actually makes a great deal of sense to be somewhere where you feel it is safe rather than in a ‘bad’ neighborhood, right?It’s not a housing issue either. There is housing that is affordable just not in NYC or Venice Beach or many ‘nice’ places in LA or elsewhere.As an example my mother (91 years old) rents out a place that she owns in Atlantic City to a man on social security. He pays her $600 per month for a motel converted studio right on the beach. There is plenty of low cost housing just not in prime spots. And there is government money that pays for that housing as well. And actually it’s a safe place they just built a college next door and there are students now there and all sorts of activity.Location location location (see picture). $600 per month gets you this (and yes there is the ocean over that dune and a boardwalk as well…; https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Thanks for all your blog posts Gotham Gal and for the discussion. We’re not tackling homelessness directly– but the startup I founded is using technology in a creative way to create more affordable housing in urban areas through intergenerational homesharing. We definitely need more innovators in the space. http://www.nesterly.io If you’re interested in learning more we were featured in Curbed today: https://www.curbed.com/2019…
Very cool and congrats on Curbed!
Thanks Gotham Gal! I’m looking forward to meeting you at Grand Central Tech in early Feb.
#globalhotbutton, I won’t get started on us here in SA but I do so appreciate this discussion and the idea’s shared. Thank you
Global Hot Button for sure.
Last year I spent one week in Los Angeles and I didn’t like that. Anyway, after taking a few long walks, I noticed that there weren’t a lot of people in that situation, maybe hundreds at the most.After Los Angeles I went to Tokyo… Good luck finding a homeless person there.
Joanne, I’m out here in Santa Monica and am also concerned about the homeless people all around. I read about these parking lots ( 4 of them right now, adding 13 more) where people who live in their cars, can park. https://www.safeparkingla.org
That’s crazy!!