Letters: How to feed Hollywood’s homeless

Re “Hunger and the homeless,” Editorial, Dec. 6

While the Hollywood Media District appreciates The Times calling attention to helping Hollywood’s homeless, our issues with the current situation were left unexplained.

A well-run food program exists in partnership with the community, working with businesses, residents and other service providers to help those in need in a clean, safe, respectful, accountable and coordinated fashion. Most of all, a well-run food program should not be conducted on public property.

Unfortunately, none of this is applicable to the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition’s feeding program. For years the Media District has tried, to no avail, to help the coalition move its program off the street. That’s why we appreciate L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge’s call for a solution.

Nobody wants to make it harder for hungry people to find their next meal. It is our hope that we can collectively find a solution that continues this vital service while alleviating its negative impact on neighbors like us.

Mike Malick

Hollywood

The writer is board president of the Hollywood Media Business Improvement District.

I thank you for your editorial opposing LaBonge’s mean-spirited attempt to crush the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition’s public feeding program.

However, I don’t like the false equivalency between the food coalition and Hollywood businesses implicit in your admonition that “they must do more” to “find common ground.” And what I really object to is your framing this as a conflict between the food coalition and the “Hollywood neighborhood.”

The conflict is between the food coalition and the Hollywood Media Business Improvement District. There are many residents of Hollywood, myself included, who support the food coalition and who worry more about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked than about property values and delusions about urban aesthetics.

Adrian Riskin

Hollywood

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