New head of L.A. agency brings a passion for justice

Rebecca Isaacs has her work cut out for her.

The Santa Monica lawyer took over this week as head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, an agency that coordinates programs and distributes as much as $60 million in public money annually.

The agency has been around for more than a decade, but has been roiled by financial and administrative turmoil over the last year after auditors discovered it had little cash on hand, was mishandling grant money and owed money to local aid groups. The criticism led to the resignation of top executives, including the executive director and chief financial officer.

Enter the 51-year-old Isaacs, who left her post as the head of the Inner City Law Center, a downtown legal housing advocacy group for the poor.

What about Los Angeles County makes it -- to paraphrase Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- the homeless capital of the country, where roughly 88,000 people live without shelter, many of them sleeping in the streets downtown?

Los Angeles is a mecca.... People have always come to Los Angeles searching for a new life. It’s a fabulous place to be: It’s got great weather, it’s got the beaches, it’s a progressive place, it’s a generous place, it’s a place that has a lot of social services.

People came from all over the country to get work; some of them fell on hard times.

So why is it so tough for some people to find a place to live?

Housing stock here is just so limited. There’s so many ways people can end up on the streets; people who lost a job, get sick. Getting back into housing with first and last month’s rent and deposit is really, really tough.

The housing crunch in Los Angeles is really, really very tough for people who have been homeless for a while or people who are ... on the edge.

How come so many homeless people end up on skid row, a 50-block area also known as Central City East?

I think the reason skid row could develop in such a concentrated way is that it’s geographically isolated. It’s an industrial zone, so that there really haven’t been the neighbors to complain.... You don’t necessarily have a reason to go walking through skid row on a daily basis.... The unprecedented rise in real estate prices, where everything looks like it could be converted to something that could be sold, really brought the scrutiny

As you have gentrification happening, you have people with expectations about their neighborhoods coming up against a community that has been struggling.... It’s the seeing of the conditions that makes people very unhappy. People have decided that the status quo is not OK.

Does skid row get a disproportionate share of attention and resources?

Certainly there’s homelessness in all parts of the county, some concentrated more than others.

There’s kind of a visibility about some of the places, Santa Monica, downtown, some of the other areas that it’s pretty pronounced, that it’s pretty shocking to people. That’s, I think, what gets the most attention.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a real need for regional centers, there isn’t a real need for services throughout the county. That’s going to be one of my big goals, is to get to know all the parts of the county.

Things have to be regionalized.

How do you combat NIMBYism, people who say they want the homeless problem solved, but just Not In My Backyard?

We’re going to be seeing some models [for homeless shelters] within communities that work. Identifying, for example, specific buildings that people agree to sell, so people are potentially scattered around in various areas. It’s going to be a process.

People don’t want to feel like their community is going to change markedly and become uncomfortable. Outreach and education is important because you really, really need to buy in. A lot of the housing’s not going to be different from the other housing in your community.

Why is the public perception of homeless people important?

It’s a status that is not for most people, it’s not a permanent status, and it shouldn’t be. There isn’t a status of homeless, per se. For me, there are people and some of them don’t have anywhere to live. Some of them haven’t gotten the treatment they need for various medical and mental health issues. But it’s not like an identity....

People are moved not by statistics, not by the vastness of a problem, but in the story of an individual that they can relate to.

Given the agency’s previous financial troubles, how will things change on your watch?

I think one of the big problems has been with the timing of the money coming in and the timing of the money going out ....

One of my first tasks is going to be to go in and see and really report out how feasible the structure is in terms of the way it’s currently funded. That all needs to be looked at holistically.

It’s hard to be without permanent leadership for a while. It’s hard to have negative scrutiny. Staffers haven’t had the voice of advocacy.

What’s your leadership style?

People want energetic leadership. They do want a place to look that they can have confidence that if they put resources in, they’re going to be targeted the right way.

I was interim executive director of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center through a year and a half of fiscal crisis. The hallmark of my style is to turn things around while being transparent and optimistic.

Why the current emphasis on ending homelessness, as opposed to other social problems that plague the region?

I see an incredible level of energy around housing and homelessness in Los Angeles, and an incredible recognition that what we’re doing now is not enough.... There are many social issues that are pressing. As long as you can keep a focus on improving housing, as long as we have that focus, we have to take advantage of it. The resources haven’t always been there, but they’re increasing. It’s like a chicken and egg thing: You get the momentum, you get the resources.

I think it’s an unusual moment, and I really want to seize the moment.

What draws you, an advocacy veteran raising an 11-year-old daughter with your partner, to this seemingly impossible task?

I have a passion for justice, helping people who are dispossessed, powerless, vulnerable; working on their empowerment, helping them have access to a better life.

I don’t see homeless people as a statistic. I see them as a lot of individual stories that need happy endings.