Housing Homeless Families: Why L.A. Lags Behind

A homeless mother sends her teenage son to a home for runaways, because the shelter that will accept her and her 3-year-old daughter does not have room for the boy. A homeless father agrees to place his three daughters in foster care, then searches for a shelter that will allow him to leave each evening to kiss his children good night. After being robbed, a homeless couple with a 1-year-old cannot find a shelter that will house the family together.

These families, divided by homelessness, symbolize a growing social division in Los Angeles. Like them, we, as a city, face a dilemma. Shall we house everyone or risk becoming a house divided?

As families become part of the problem, our image of the homeless must change. It cannot be limited to the single adult afflicted with alcoholism or other illnesses. The homeless are the people who serve our food, who make our clothes, who answer phones in our offices. And the homeless are their children: 20,000 in California alone, as many as 10,000 in Los Angeles, as Lanie Jones reported in The Times last Tuesday.

Homelessness is not just an individual tragedy. According to city statistics, more than 236,000 low-income Los Angeles families pay more than they can afford for housing. Statewide there are 790,000 more low-income families than there are affordable housing units. The problem is the shortage of low-cost housing, and the problem is growing.

What kind of city will Los Angeles be in the year 2000 if we fail to provide needed housing? A city segregated into regions of affluence and poverty, like Rio de Janeiro? A city of gated communities and wandering groups of homeless, like the millions of street children in Brazil? Will we see children sleeping on street corners, forced to survive through panhandling and petty theft?

Trends in Southern California suggest that the housing crisis has only begun. The following conditions contribute to this rapidly escalating problem:

--More than 30,000 low-cost units may be lost as private apartment owners upgrade their buildings to meet the city’s earthquake-safety ordinance. As a result, low-income tenants will face either increased rents to cover the cost of improvements or demolition of their homes.

--Another 30,000 units may become unaffordable to low-income families and seniors as federal rent restrictions on privately owned, government-subsidized housing expire.

--Spurred by low interest rates, demolition of local apartment units has more than doubled over the last three years. These affordable units are being replaced with high-cost rentals or condominiums.

--While scarce affordable housing stock is diminishing, shifting local employment patterns are greatly increasing the demand for low-cost units. In Los Angeles, high-paying industrial jobs are being replaced by work in the service sector. Consequently, an increasing number of families are now trying to survive on earnings at or near minimum wage.

Families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Earlier this month the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that families accounted for more than a third of the homeless in major U.S. cities, and that approximately two-thirds of these families were headed by a single adult. In Los Angeles, a typical homeless family is led by a very-low-income single mother in her late 20s or early 30s.

Many longtime homeowners would be surprised to know that the least expensive family units in the city rent for $400 per month. This means a single parent, earning minimum wage, will have to spend almost 70% of income on rent, leaving less than $180 a month to feed, clothe and provide essential family health care.

Housing families with very low incomes in public shelters is only a stopgap. Shelters are not set up to provide long-term housing. Production of permanent housing, however, is costly.

The Reagan Administration, in its relentless efforts to cut federal supports, has tried to shift financial responsibility for housing low-income families to state and local governments. Since 1981, the federal housing budget has been reduced by 70%, but there has been no corresponding increase in support from the state or the city. In Los Angeles, production of low-income housing has almost ceased.

Despite federal cutbacks, aggressive housing programs have emerged in other parts of the country. States, municipalities, corporations and foundations are making substantial commitments to produce affordable housing. Increasingly, public agencies and private corporations rely on nonprofit organizations to develop and manage quality, low-cost housing.

Nonprofit development corporations are able to act as “public-interest entrepreneurs” by combining the creativity of the private sector with the social objectives of government. They are preserving affordable units in gentrifying communities and transforming blight in areas where poverty has become concentrated. In breaking down the geographic barriers between economic groups, cities are being created that all economic groups can call home. For example:

--The Massachusetts Legislature is enacting legislation to provide more than $400 million for affordable units. Housing developed and owned by nonprofit corporations has priority for funding.

--Since 1985, the Chicago Equity Fund has grown to more than $11 million through investment by 20 corporations based in the city. This money has been used in joint-ventures with nonprofit corporations and has generated more than $45 million in low-income housing.

--By combining 1% loans from New York City with equity investment of $25 million from local corporations, nonprofits will be able to meet a city goal of 1,000 affordable units this year.

Why hasn’t this happened in Los Angeles?

The public perception is still that affordable housing means “housing projects,” in the worst sense of the word. Our public officials have looked for “safe” ways to spend scarce community-development dollars, such as “economic development” programs that provide run-down commercial strips with new facades.

Political leaders must instead dispel any fears of “projects” by pointing to nonprofit developments that are beautifully designed, well-managed and occupied by responsible residents.

In Los Angeles, no corporate leader has emerged as our local housing advocate. New York has David Rockefeller, Chicago has Lawrence Fuller, Baltimore has James Rouse. The San Francisco business community formed the Bay Area Council, which has raised several million dollars for nonprofit housing.

There is a pool of talented nonprofit development corporations here, despite inadequate support from the public and private sectors. These organizations are capable of initiating, this year alone, 1,000 new units that would be permanently affordable to very low-income families. If New York can do it, so can Los Angeles.

Please , we do not need more “housing needs assessments” to be buried in City Hall file cabinets. Anyone living here can see the need in almost any neighborhood. According to a UCLA study, 64% of the homeless have been on the streets for less than a year. We must move them into decent housing before they become a permanent underclass of urban nomads.

Homeless families are not just the latest social problem; they are harbingers of a portentous future, a living warning of what awaits a city that does not house its people. We must produce affordable housing, now, to reverse the growing economic and geographic schism in our city. There can be no quiet and amicable separation of rich and poor; we must find a way to keep our extended family together.