Homelessness drops in Glendale, latest count shows
Homelessness in Glendale has dropped by 35%, attributed to the lack of an annual winter shelter and an increase in housing for extremely poor residents.
The biannual homeless count by the city of Glendale last winter found 208 individuals living on the streets, compared to 318 people in 2013. Of those, 122 were individuals, and 86 were members of homeless families.
The count, however, was conducted when the city typically would organize an 80-bed winter shelter, which was absent during the winter of 2014-15. People who would have come from neighboring towns to use the overnight shelter didn’t show up, according to the report.
The report shows 44 in the most recent count were children under 18, 26 were identified as having substance-abuse problems and six were veterans, according to the findings.
The findings show that homeless numbers are “status quo” in Glendale, said Natalie Komuro, executive director of Ascencia, the largest homeless services provider in Glendale.
“It’s not getting worse … but we’ve had no shortage of people coming into our lobby for help,” she said.
She said five homeless people have died on the streets of Glendale so far this year, while five perished in all of 2014.
Sixty-nine people were categorized as chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been living without shelter for more than a year, the report stated.
That stat is a 42% decline from the 2013 count.
Most of the drop has to do with the city converting 18 transitional housing units to permanent housing, which removed the homeless label from 56 people, according to the report.
Ivet Samvelyan, a community services manager with the city, said there’s been a paradigm shift at the federal level to get chronically homeless people into permanent housing, including those coping with substance abuse.
“As a result the city coordinates with landlords in the community, identifies the clients in outreach and are placed in permanent housing, then all the services are brought to the clients while they’re in housing,” Samvelyan said during the Monday meeting of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission.
Those services range from case management to drug rehab referrals.
That approach is more appealing to the chronically homeless, who often don’t want to live under the rules of transitional housing, Komuro said.
Substance abusers may even use less if they at least have a roof over their head, she said.
“When we move [the homeless] into housing they become more settled, they become more calm, they don’t need to use or self medicate to the degree that they were when they were on the streets,” Komuro said.
Ascencia owns a 40-bed shelter, a nine-unit apartment building and leases about 20 apartments for permanent housing from landlords throughout the community.
Others are leased by the city and there are about 90 total.
Samvelyan said she will apply for more permanent housing funding in November and that landlords may need some more invectives to give up apartments.
Ascencia staffers do case management for everyone in the housing units, from their own to those owned by the city of Glendale, Komuro said.
But getting landlords on board is one of the toughest challenges at the moment, she added.
Komuro said she hopes there may be some good news in terms of funding from the city of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced on Tuesday he would commit $100 million to combat homelessness. Komuro said that some individuals and families that seek help in Glendale do come from L.A.
“If we’re going to serve the people of Los Angeles, we need them to pay us to do that work,” she said. “We can’t subsidize it anymore.”
And while five homeless people have died on the streets of Glendale this year, one died in housing, Komuro said.
A death is sometimes how a housing unit becomes available, but a dying homeless person having a roof over their head makes all the difference, she added.
“They are dying, but they are dying with dignity,” Komuro said.
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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com
Twitter: @ArinMikailian
