The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 2.12 This Is Why The Homeless Crisis May Never End in The United States…

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

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Hello, hello, welcome to your Extra Morning Show. My name is Philip DeFranco, and today we're going to talk about the most visible sign of rising inequality in the United States, homelessness. Another month of strong numbers, seven and a half years now of job creation. That is a record stretch. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.7%.

That's a number that we haven't seen in nearly 50 years. And the lowest overall unemployment in half a century is forcing companies to hire workers they may have overlooked in the past. For months now, media figures have touted the strength of the U.S. economy, near-record unemployment, rising wages, increased consumer spending. But one statistic does not fit that narrative, and that is the homelessness rate. Despite the strengthening economy, America's homeless population has continued to increase. And while the surge is slight, the trend is concerning, considering that 2018 is the second consecutive year of rising numbers following six years of declining rates.

And perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than Los Angeles County, which saw a 42% increase in the area's homeless population between 2010 and 2017. That number coincides with rising rental rates, as a 2017 report by the California Housing Partnership found that median rent in LA County rose 32% since 2000 when adjusted for inflation. Now while LA finally made strides this year by reducing the homeless rate by nearly 5% there are still about

50,000 homeless people living in LA County and because of the great weather out here homelessness is even more visible in Los Angeles than arguably any other city in the country. Nowhere is this truer than Skid Row, which is a 54 block area in downtown LA where 2,000 people spend each night in tents or just on the sidewalks. It's the largest concentration of unsheltered people anywhere in the country, and it has a reputation for being a haven for drugs, crime, and prostitution, but the reality of Skid Row is far more complex than any of the stereotypes. So in order to understand the nuances of this crisis and the proposed solutions to LA's homelessness emergency being offered by grassroots activists, nonprofits, and government officials, we sent Cody Snell from the team to

talk to the people on the ground in Skid Row. There was never, ever, ever a time where a whole bunch of homeless folks got together at this super secret homeless, you know, summit and said, we're going to take over the eastern side of downtown and we're just going to spread out. It never happened. So Skid Row was designed. Take a walk through Skid Row and there's a good chance you'll see Jeff Page advocating for his community. Whether it's canvassing the streets for broken streetlights, talking to residents of the neighborhood about their ideas,

or checking in on the construction of new basketball courts. Page, better known as General Jeff and dubbed by many as the unofficial mayor of Skid Row, has lived and worked as a community activist in America's homeless capital for 12 years. A former rap producer who has worked with names like Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube, General Jeff moved to Skid Row in 2006 to pursue community activism after becoming frustrated with the lack of progress he was making working with gangs in South Central Los Angeles. But he quickly realized there was only one way to truly grasp Skid Row's homelessness crisis. You know, I knew that there was this style of acting called methodology, you know, you immerse yourself in the role. And so I like, if I was going to play a role

as a doctor, you know, go work in a hospital. So I thought, well, maybe if I reduce myself to a state of homelessness and kind of, you know, understood, you know, the complexities and the nuances, then, you know, and I would do that in South Central, then by the time I went to Skid Row, I would be a little more seasoned. And so that's exactly what I did. And so I was in South Central. I'm staying in abandoned houses, abandoned warehouses, sleeping in the streets, sleeping in cars, crack houses.

It was insane. General Jeff says the experience taught him that many of the issues that plague Skid Row's homeless community need to be tackled through grassroots efforts rather than what he deems an over-reliance on large non-profits and city government programs. 2006, 2007, I first got in here, and there was a gentleman.

He woke up. It was early in the morning, a couple hours before now. And he woke up, and he was saying to himself, man, I'm hungry. Who's feeding around here? I can't wait wait i hope somebody hurry up and bring me something to eat and it just that's not to me that's not normal as being a human being and so you get hungry you go get it you go get food you know hustle up some grub even in the old wild Wild West days. And so for the mindset to be reduced to a state of dependency is not normal. And so that motivated me to do more.

For General Jeff, that more meant launching the Positive Movement, an initiative that brings activities like three-on-three streetball, chess clubs, and photography classes to a community that much of society has given up on. All the funding that comes to Skid Row, it either goes for some form of recovery or some form of housing.

But there's nothing positive to do. As we walked with General Jeff through the streets of Skid Row, he pointed out the various ways he and other community members are bringing positive change to the area. Immediately across the street where we have the SRO low-income housing units for homeless folks, this is the very first shipping container housing in the entire nation, a Skid Row Housing Trust building. So those are shipping containers up there that are converted into homes for homeless folks.

One of our projects through Operation Facelift, we started that in January of 2008. You know, there was a need for color. We started a positive murals project. And so we just got paid, asked the owners, can we put a mural? And then we also reached out to a couple of the organizations that came in and believed in our perspective you look at this building behind this is the central city community church of the nazarene

every wednesday night they have skid row karaoke here and it's amazing because you have it you'll hear everything from elton john to james brown you know michael jackson little wayne it's no telling and you know some people in our community take it very, very serious, put on suits and ties and, you know, like they, you know, Showtime at the Apollo Summit. Then you have other people that just come in, just sign up and they, all right. You know, it's all, but it's a wonderful opportunity for the community to come together. Another, we talk about, again, it's more positive programming here. And it's amazing, amazing energy for our community.

But despite General Jeff's positive movement, the harsh reality of life on Skid Row is still apparent everywhere you look. Whether it's needles strewn on the streets or the nooks and crannies of buildings that the homeless are forced to use due to the small number of publicly available restrooms. You know, this is a toilet.

You know, because one thing about people being homeless, there's no access to, you know, restrooms, even in the downtown businesses. It's, you know, for customers only, they were being criminalized in the form of, like, they were, like, it was some type of a sexual act to where they would have to register for the rest of their lives as sex offenders

because they're exposed publicly. Hey, man, they're homeless, and they're just trying to relieve themselves, you know? These are the types of issues that General Jeff says are not being properly represented on a local level. That's why he's been a fierce advocate for getting Skid Row its own neighborhood council, which would not only give the area tens of thousands of dollars to pursue positive movement-style projects, but also more autonomy over political decisions. In Skid Row, we've been a part of the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood council since its inception in 2002.

And here we are, 16 years later now, going on 17, and Skid Row is still Skid Row. And so there's a lot of unaddressed issues. Two years ago, Los Angeles allowed residents of downtown and northeast LA to vote on whether Skid Row could have its own neighborhood council. But just 15 days before the vote, LA City Council member Jose Huizar pushed to make the voting process online only, a disadvantage for Skid Row residents with less access to computers. The measure lost by 60 votes. You know, we felt strongly that we got cheated out of our election. And because obviously Skid Row is prime real estate, there's a lot of development with the downtown revitalization. They're looking at chops, looking at Skid Row like, oh, as soon as we get

them out of the way, then we can come in and build skyscrapers and lofts. And we're saying, no, no, no, we live here. You know, we have a voice in the state, so what's the matter? General Jeff is hardly alone in using grassroots efforts to bring a sense of pride and dignity to the Skid Row community. Every month, Luis Sanchez and his team of volunteers sets up shop in a small church parking lot in Skid Row, where they serve hundreds of hot meals and give out donated clothes. We went from just my son, my daughter, and a couple of volunteers to about 30, 40,

and then from there it just took off. Today, the foundation is comprised of 150 volunteers, focusing specifically on the rising number of children in Skid Row, offering up face painting and balloons at the monthly events. According to LA's Homeless Services Authority, 2018 saw a 109% increase in the number of children living in Skid Row, an increase that Sanchez believes is due to more domestic violence cases and high housing prices in the city. You know, the kids are walking the street, they going to school they're watching the drug use they're watching the uh the stuff that is going on in front of them and and it's it's damaging very damaging for them and it's very heartbreaking it's very heartbreaking on on what's going on

you know the children are not the ones that chose this, right? It's the difficulties the families are going through. So the children are just a product of the difficult situations that are going on. To give these children and their families a break from the daily struggle of life on Skid Row, Sanchez also organizes trips to baseball games, carnivals, golf courses, and movie theaters. When you give opportunities for the kids to do something, it gives the families hope, right? When they're able to go to Disneyland or a camping trip or things like that, they're able to look beyond the Skid Row. While these grassroots initiatives go a long way in improving everyday life for Skid Row's

residents, a major issue at hand, shelter and housing, is still largely provided through large nonprofits and government funding. In 2016, LA City voters passed Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond program to construct 8,000 to 10,000 permanent housing units for the city's homeless population over 10 years. One year later, LA County voters passed Measure H, raising the sales tax by a quarter cent to fund temporary housing and supportive services, such as healthcare, job training, and outreach teams. Christopher Koh, the director of Home for Good, a collaborative funding initiative that looks for innovative solutions to LA's homelessness crisis, told us that these outreach teams are crucial to informing the city's homeless about their options when it comes to transitional or permanent housing. We're finally funding the people to go out and talk to people and engage

in people. That's a process. I don't know if you've gotten any piece of mail offering you a free vacation rental or home. It's hard to believe the first time. It's kind of the same process when someone's been out there for 10, 20 years. It takes three, six, nine months to believe an offer for help. Truck Month is on at Chevrolet. Get 0% financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 Custom Blackout or Custom Trail Boss. With Custom Trail Bosses available, Class Exclusive, Duramax 3-liter diesel engine, and Z71 off-road package with a 2-inch factory suspension lift, you get both on-road confidence and off-road capability.

Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck Month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. Some of Skid Row's residents we talked to highlighted their contentious relationship with support staff when it came to obstacles preventing them from obtaining housing. For me, the obstacles have been the staff, because the staff has not been supportive down here. They always have an attitude. They're not willing to help you or anything like that. No, I have not had support, nothing like that down here. Others we spoke with, like Daniel Evans, who has lived in Skid Row for three years, said that housing is obtainable,

but that it requires some personal responsibility. They make it available for you, you know, if you want it, you know, it's up to you, up to the individual, you know, because they put it out there for you and, you know, everybody down here don't have to be in this condition, you know, a lot of them just choose to be like that because I was down here living on the streets for a while because that's what I wanted for a minute until I came to my senses and I went on and got housing, got affordable housing. While more HHH permanent supportive housing units are built, the mayor's office has ramped up efforts to get more individuals off the streets by spending $20 million to construct new temporary shelters.

They're calling the shelters bridge homes, and the plan is to build one in each of LA's 15 city council districts. You can think of it simply as shelter, but the reason we're calling it bridge Housing is it has a lot of upgrading components kind of worthy of a new name. These components include not just on-site support such as mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and life skill classes, but also housing navigation help. You can learn about managing your finances and keeping your home and your apartment kind of clean all you want, but if no one's helping you apply for an apartment,

if no one's helping you put that rental application together, if no one's helping you actually drive to those places to see those apartments, you're going to be stuck in that shelter for a long time. But General Jeff says that while the intentions behind bridge homes may be good, the money could easily end up being wasted if it doesn't lead directly to permanent supportive housing.

So you're taking this funding to try to hurry up and do something, a quick fix of what people call band-aid solutions. And in three years, you know, you're going to, once you house these people, you know, they're going to wind up coming right back to the street. So what exactly does a more permanent solution look like? Look no further than the Downtown Women's Center, the nation's first permanent supportive housing provider for homeless and formerly homeless women. More than 100 women enduring everything from physical disabilities to substance abuse issues to domestic violence live at the center while they transition to stability and independence. So every woman here that's housed has an individual case manager that she meets with regularly to make sure she's on track. And one of the outcomes we see from that is a 99% retention rate for the

folks that we house here. That means that once women are housed in permanent supportive housing at Downtown Women's Center, they are not going back on the streets. Ana Veluiz, the Director of Communication and Policy at the Center, told us that the organization follows a housing-first model. That means the center does not require women that may be suffering from alcohol or substance abuse issues to get clean before they are provided permanent shelter. There is also no limit to how long they can stay there. If you think for yourself, everything from getting ready for a job to accessing medical appointments, it's difficult to do if you're living on the street. So the

housing first model gives people a foundation and a safe place to be able to start to rebuild their lives. But replicating the center's model has been easier said than done. Not only do these types of facilities require major funding commitments, but many communities in L.A. have been reluctant to embrace permanent or even temporary housing construction in their neighborhoods for fear of what it will bring to their community. I already have a problem with break-ins and assaults and harassment and public defecation and urination. What I've always said is we want to clean and save Venice, not in our parks, not on our beaches, and not in residential neighborhoods. That was the reaction from attendees at two different town hall meetings in Venice last year

to the mayor's proposal to build a single bridge home in the city. But Velouise says that these communities need to understand that homelessness in LA is not going away. Do we want them sleeping on our streets in front of our houses and businesses? Or do we want them housed and on a path to stability? It's a question all of Los Angeles will need to answer

if homelessness is ever going to improve. So with all of that said, now that you've heard about some of the solutions that are being tried to tackle this homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, I do want to pass some questions off to you. Is your community experiencing some of the same problems with homelessness that we showcased in Skid Row? Do you think that outreach teams and Housing First programs are the way forward? Or do you think it's up to the individual to seek out help for themselves and to try and obtain shelter through the options that Are already out there? I'd really love to hear your thoughts on those questions or just on the story in general also of note we put a link

To the GoFundMe set up by the Chilo Foundation which we featured in the story to help send children and their families and skid row to Disneyland for the day so if you'd Like to be a part of that you definitely can but with all of that said I want to say thank you so much for watching Remember if you like this video you like these extra morning news deep dives We're going even further than we normally do, let us know, hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these daily videos,

sometimes two times a day videos, be sure to subscribe, maybe even ring that bell to turn on notifications. But with that said, I love your face, I hope you have a fantastic day, and I'll see you later on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show.