Readers React: No more public meetings on homelessness -- deal with the problem now

To the editor: After spending half my adult life involved in developing and implementing affordable housing programs, I find it sad and a bit tiring to read that both the county and the city of Los Angeles need rounds of meetings and planning sessions to figure out what to do to house people living on the streets. (“L.A. Mayor Garcetti rules out, for now, declaring homelessness an emergency,” nov. 18)

It is not rocket science. Simply put, we need to build and subsidize new rental apartments and provide rent subsidies to enable people to move into rental housing in the community. We need to give flexibility to both government and the affordable housing and service community (both nonprofit and for-profit) to utilize the funds as needed — for transitional programs or permanent housing and for case management services.

We don’t need 50 public meetings to define who should be helped or how or where. We know what to do, and the infrastructure already exists to get it done.

Lois Starr, Redondo Beach

The writer is a former director of housing for the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission.

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To the editor: The population of Los Angeles has not spiked since 2000, yet homelessness is rising and prices and rents have escalated beyond affordability.

Why? Decades of federal economic policies have created a condition of surplus liquidity pouring into real estate. The more that pours in, the higher the prices.

America’s cities are being victimized by another housing bubble, and Washington is once again sitting on its hands while homelessness afflicts the cities. The federal government holds the cards but it does not fix the problem.

Eugene Mullaly, San Diego

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To the editor: There was a time when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development deferred to local communities to determine what they needed most to address and end homelessness. Not always easy or pretty, these planning processes nonetheless challenged communities to think through the best way to help the homeless.

With the passage of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009 Act, a more arrogant approach has taken hold, no longer encouraging our best thinking on what to do but prescribing solutions with little regard for regional context or the fact that the HUD funding, while substantial, does not begin to fully meet the need.

So with these limited funds, our choices have become narrower and more rigid at a time when we need to be more creative and flexible.

Natalie Profant Komuro, Glendale

The writer is executive director of the homeless services agency Ascencia.

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