Just got back from my trip to LA. I was taking a class at Loyola Marymount.

We stayed at the Westin, LAX. I wouldn't recommend it. The rooms were small and average decor, the pool was horribly small and the sounds of the jets taking off didn't add to the ambiance. Not a big deal since I wasn't there much.

The "June Gloom" was in full bloom. No sun and the temps were pretty low.

I was very taken back by the number of homeless. We drove to Santa Monica one AM to run and there were homeless all over the park benches, laying on the grass covering up with newspaper. I mean tons of them.

Does anyone know why they don't do something about this? It just is amazing that an area that is so wealthy would turn their backs on these people.

I just kept thinking of Angelina Jolie constantly in our faces telling us about the suffering in Africa and yet in her own back yard there are people who obviously need help.

Sad that these people can't receive help with addictions, mental illness, etc.

Anyway, I still find LA exciting. It would just be nice to see someone be held accountable for this situation.

I hope I see changes the next time I go to LA.

There are a lot of homeless people in So-Cal. The weather is nicer than many places for urban camping, I suppose.

Do you have homeless in your town, green? What are you doing to help them?

I just kept thinking of Angelina Jolie constantly in our faces telling us about the suffering in Africa and yet in her own back yard there are people who obviously need help.
And a good example she is! You visited LA and saw homeless, did it move you to do something about it , aside from mention it here and hope they are gone on your next visit?
Every big city has homeless. A sad fact of life these days. Some do better jobs than others in dealing with it.
If it really bothers you enough, you might look into what you can do about it at home, like many of us do.
If you wish, I would be happy to post a list of organisations that will be happy to accept your donation.
Scarlett

Amen Scarlett

There are homeless everywhere, but at least they won't freeze to death in LA unlike alot of major cities.

Just to let you know, Santa Monica area/Venice area are "popular places" for the homeless to camp out because of the nice weather and the beaches so there may have been a disproportionate number compared to other cities in L.A, you don't see as many homeless in the east san bernadino county areas (too much smog!). Anyway, I guess the homeless have good taste, because santa monica is a great city.

When we were in San Francisco a couple years ago we saw several homeless sleeping on the sidewalks. We were told that the state mental facilities had "downsized", many patients were turned out, and many ended up living on the streets.

As a former volunteer with organization (Boston) which helped homeless, I learned there are many reasons people are homeless. And homelessness ranges from those very visible like you saw sleeping in the open to those living in temporary shelter - either public shelter or depending on the temporary kindness of friends.

In most cities, there are alternatives to sleeping in a park, but some find these shelters worse options - they may be dangerous or there may be rules they are unwilling or unable to follow. Or they may be full, although in the winter in Boston they will not turn people away.

The people you saw may have mental illness or substance abuse issues and been unable to find or follow treatment or it has been unsuccessful. They may have had treatment and needed after-care which is more difficult to find than acute hospital care.

They may have been financially marginal and housed but one blip in that fragile economic puzzle fell apart and they had no home.

Or they may have chosen to refuse help when offered, something I had a hard time accepting.

What I do know is that the problem is more complex than just renting them a place to live or putting money in the cup of a pan handler.

Read this recent AP story:

SAN FRANCISCO - You could tell something unusual was going on at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Friday by the shopping carts double-parked on the sidewalk.

tinyurl.com/kz84v

It's not just a LA problem. It's a California phenomenon. And wasn't it about 10 years ago when Jerry Brown suggest giving out free shopping carts to the homeless? Californians are so compassionate!

LA is a magnet for disaffected people from all over california, US (and the world for that matter). many people go there with just dreams or as a last chance. i don't just mean people who want to famous but people who have been beaten down or not accepted for whatever reason where they live and want a new start in a place that is seen as open and accepting.

when they get to LA, they often have no money and no support network (no family or friends). when things don't work out, they end up on the street.

of course, not all are in this category but i believe that this scenario is the reason why LA has a bigger problem that the "normal" level of homelessness seen in all US big cities.

Mike T

I did not intend to offend you. We were actually very concerned about these people.

Here where I live, we do not have homeless on the streets. They would be picked up by the police, taken in, fed, and then evaluated and the proper steps would be taken to give the people the assistance they need.

We personally donate on a regular basis to give assistance (both time and financial) to homeless and offer them a fresh start. I volunteer at a Church once a month ( I work 28 days a month so I don't have a lot of time) but we collect clothing (business casual & suits)to get people clothes for interviews and offer assistance in placement. We do a lot of work getting them housing, drivers licenses, and training them with new skills to assist them in securing a new job.

While were there we kept a case of water, oranges, dry dog food bags in case they had animals and health bars in our car and would stop and give them to the people along with a few dollars. We didn't just hand out money to all of them. If a guy was sitting on a wall by a gas station with a sign saying "please help" and there was a 40 oz in a paper bag by him, then he got no money and we gave him an orange, a bar and a bottle of water. Yet there were others that we handed a 10 or a 20 based on how we felt about the situation.

I also emailed your Govenor about the issue. I understand that they are trying to pass a law that would allow the police to pick them up off the streets. As of now, I guess there are no laws in place to assist the police in dealing with this issue.

Once again, I didn't want to offend Mike T, if I came across as being unsympathetic, I am sorry. I an not trying to be rude at all. Sorry.

In most states the SSI check must be mailed to an address. In California, the check can be picked up. This is why many who chose to homeless live in California. Is this true or just an urban myth?

I live in California. As I understand it, it's not a crime to be homeless. Therefore, a person who appears to be homeless, sitting on a bench in a park, really wouldn't be picked up by cops, even if to be treated and given assistance. And in some places, like San Francisco, there is outrage when police enforce laws like confiscating stolen shopping carts, or rounding up sleeping people for anti-camping ordinances. It's a very complicated social problem, but it's common in many big cities, particularly if there is a mild climate. I think the OP comments were a little off-putting, because it seemed to lump June Gloom and a lousy hotel room in with the homeless. I understand from further posts that this wasn't the case, but I'm still not sure exactly what the OP was trying to glean.

I used to work with some of the agencies involved with homeless issues in Los Angeles County. There are outreach programs to attempt to divert those living on the street to shelters etc. However no one can be forcibly removed against their desires. Some on the street prefer to be there, sometimes they do not like the rules imposed in shelters such as no drugs, etc. St. Joseph's Center in Santa Monica is rather well-known resource for poor and homeless so to say "an area that is so wealthy would turn their backs on these people" is just plain wrong.

green, where is your "hometown"? it must be very small and rural..Almost every city in the country has homeless people in shelters or sleeping in the streets.
In 2002, there was estimated to be around 3 million people on the streets and that number has risen.
In some cities and states (Oregon for one), public hospitals ( psychiatric also) have had to discharge mental patients for lack of funding, which also is responsible for the drug/alchoholic abusers who are on the streets due to lack of medical care .
Many homeless/street people will gravitate towards those cities and states that offer better care for them, regardless of climate..I used to wonder why all the homeless stayed in NYC, why not at least go to the South/Florida. Much of it seems to depend on the programs the governments of certain states/cities have for the care of their homeless.
You should read up on this, it might help you figure out what you can do about it if it bothers you.

You California folks are giving Green a bad shake here. As I read it, the trip was important to him and he was looking forward to it very much. It was a culture shock for him to see all the bums hanging around there. Not only the homeless, but Santa Monica has it's fair share of shady characters also.

I think Green feels sad about the condition of the people there. He is not knocking Santa Monica.

Maybe he comes from a smaller town. All of our larger cities have the homeless problem. Calofornia, with fine weather, has a healthy share of these people in it's cities.

Green rph -

Most homelessss don;t need busines suits for interviews. The vast majority have serious mental illnesses, compounded by their efforts to self medicate these illnesses with alcohol and or drugs.

Most states simply will not allocate the resources to help these people. They don;t need jobs or cots to sleep on. And most don;t need to be permanently hospitalized. They need regular medical care and medications provided in safe, sheltered living arrangements. (With this some are able to return to basic jobs, some never will achieve that - but can at least be safe and healthy.)

Unfortunately, unlike most diseases many major mental illnesses cause you to think you're not ill - and without structured living arrangements and medication supervision many will end up on the streets - or in jail. (The institution in the US housing the most mentall ill patients is the Los Angeles county jail - picked up for a host of minor offenses related to their illnesses.)

(And as in New York many long-term institutions have closed with the promise that numerous half-way or sheltered arrangements would be made available - but they were never funded - so the ill do the best they can with very limited resources.)

I think greanrph made a good point about "Angelina Jolie constantly in our faces telling us about the suffering in Africa..." I really felt this way after hurrican Katrina and looking at people in New Orleans. It was an eye opener.
Unfortunatly I must admit that the homeless here in San Diego have become a bit of the landscape to me and I don't really notice them much.
At one time some friends and I used to make pb&jelly sandwiches to hand out to the hungry, after a few weeks they started complaining that they wanted subs and things. All we wanted to do was give the hungry something to eat that wouldn't go bad.

I direct housing production for a large nonprofit in the Seattle area that serves homeless households. I've been involved on and off with homelessness for 35 years, give or take a decade. By cracky.

To say it's a complex bundle of issues is gross understatement.

There are indeed "homeless by choice" individuals. Many suffer from mental or physical illness or a combination. Many cannot cope with the structure imposed by shelters; many more can't find housing because there isn't enough of it.

In the greater LA area last year over 82,000 homeless people were counted in a "point of time" survey. Of that, over 11,000 were unsheltered children. I doubt if very many of those kids were homeless by choice. LA's percentage of non-elderly males (usually the hardest group to house) was higher than the national average; in our area individuals in families comprise the majority of the homeless.

It's a national crisis; indeed a global one.

To their credit, the City of LA and neighboring communities are expending more resources than ever to create additional shelters and supportive services so that homeless folks have more options. Private nonprofit, charitable, religious and civic groups are also stepping up.

The missing player, frankly, is the US government. And by the way, the biggest upsurge in mentally ill persons sleeping on the streets in California followed the closing of many State-supported care facilities by a previous California governor. Gipper by name.

As we travel (and this is a travel board after all) we need to keep our eyes open not just to the problems, but also to the solutions, and to notice the hard and good work people are doing all over the country - the world, even - to make homelessness an oh-so-20th-Century phenomenon.