Falling Through Society’s Cracks : Social Worker Says Jacki King Story Is Not Unusual

Barry Smedberg, who works with the homeless in the San Fernando and Antelope valleys, says the difficulties that former KTTV anchorwoman Jacki King experienced are only too real for legions of the homeless.

There is only enough money to provide homeless people with a chance at a bed for a few nights in a shelter, according to Smedberg, who is Lutheran Social Services area director for the San Fernando and Antelope valleys.

In order to really help the homeless keep looking for work, Smedberg said, “We need places where people can go for at least a month. Then, they have enough time to really check out the welfare system and see if they qualify. Three weeks pass until they get some money in from the welfare system.

Need a ‘Support System’

“If they are on any kind of other support system--help from friends--it gives them time to build up some money, which they need so they can rent an apartment,” he added.

Under the present system, Smedberg said, the homeless are forced to “stay in a shelter for a few days or rent a hotel room for a few days, which is expensive, get themselves rested up and cleaned up and then they’re back on the streets.”

He noted that in Los Angeles, the United Way, through Travelers Aid, operates a very limited federal program to grant qualifying homeless people the up-front money needed to get their own apartment.

But, for most of the homeless, the up-front money needed to rent an apartment presents an insurmountable hurdle. “A lot of people who are homeless have enough money to pay rent each month, but they don’t have enough to put up the first month, last month and security deposit,” Smedberg said.

He said he is not surprised to hear of King’s experience with churches--that most were interested in helping their own members but not destitute strangers.

Unless a church has a social service arm, according to Smedberg, it is probably not experienced in helping those outside its membership and may well turn strangers away.

Typical Patterns

Other than the mentally ill, and a few people who Smedberg says are accustomed to homelessness and prefer it, the Lutheran social worker believes homelessness typically follows either loss of a job or a husband suddenly abandoning a wife and children.

“If somebody is homeless they have pretty much hit the end of their limits. They’re desperate,” he said. “They need a job, any job, immediately.”

But the homeless also encounter discrimination in trying to get jobs. Employers, he said, see them as unreliable and as potential thieves and favor those with stable residency.

As for the homeless feeling that agencies shuffle them around, Smedberg said, that “there are so many people who are homeless and so few shelters . . . it is so frustrating to (try to) help people.”