State of Emergency: Homelessness in LA

By Felicia Zhu ‘17

This past Sunday was the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, 2016. USC hosted several panel discussions, and homelessness in Los Angeles was one of them. Here’s what was discussed in case you missed it.

Suzanne Wenzel (USC School of Social Work professor) moderated a discussion with Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson (co-chair of the LA’s Council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee) and Benjamin Henwood (USC Social Work Professor & co-author of Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Transforming Systems, and Changing Lives).

How did we get into this state of emergency?

Council Member Harris-Dawson said that we as a city have manufactured a housing scarcity. Los Angeles has the money to create housing and the demand for housing. But why do we still have a scarcity? This is because the city of Los Angeles has a set of policies that make large spots in the city low density housing. Over time, this system does not keep up with the natural population growth, by not building enough housing for its inhabitants (Marqueece Harris-Dawson).

In this way, scarcity plus demand drives up the value of housing. Scarcity is not only created, but routinely reinforced by Proposition 13, which says that people’s property taxes stay at the level in which they paid to purchase their house. This creates a situation where housing becomes an investment for wealthy people–the higher you paid for your house, the more property taxes you pay. It’s like healthcare–where sick people are left sick because no one can make a profit off them. As long as we don’t deal with housing scarcity, we will always be confronted with homelessness (Marqueece Harris-Dawson).

It takes work to educate people about where their money goes.

In January 2016, the city of Los Angeles released this report, detailing their comprehensive strategy to tackle the issue of homelessness in Los Angeles.

Photo from Los Angeles City Homelessness Report

The city of Los Angeles plans to spend $1.85 billion over the next 10 years to resolve the issue of homelessness. When asked how the strategy will be funded, Council Member Harris-Dawson said that it will take a combination of feeds, new taxes, general obligation bonds, and voter support. It takes work to educate the public about where their money will go, and it’s important to present it from an easy-to-understand mathematical approach. 

It actually would cost tax payers more money to just leave someone on the street than to get them into housing. It’s a money-saving proposition to get people into housing, than to have them picked up by the police/ambulance and checked in to the hospital (Benjamin Henwood).

Non-profits and activists play an important role in calling attention to homelessness.

Photo from the NY Times

There is a dehumanizing aspect when dealing with homelessness. Homeless people become invisible to the general public for personal security. But, as human beings, it’s hard to walk by and ignore the homeless person on the street. And when we do, we have to shut off a part of ourselves–taking away our empathy as human beings (Marqueece Harris-Dawson).

Non-profits and activists play an important role in calling our attention to homelessness. Homelessness has always been an issue, but it seems that people have noticed it more now due to the tents that line the city’s streets. Activists create visibility for the problem, and calls the question for the public to confront (Marqueece Harris-Dawson).

To solve this problem, we as a society need to get our priorities straight.

Council Member Harris-Dawson said that we have to look at what we prioritize in order to end homelessness. There is no shortage of luxury housing–currently, there is a 20% vacancy for luxury housing in Los Angeles. Take a look at downtown and you’ll see three high-riser buildings (for luxury housing) in construction. And on the streets below them–homeless people living in tents. 

Council Member Harris-Dawson concluded by saying that we as a society prioritize things that benefit wealthy people. He said that there’s this idea that if people make it really nice to be wealthy, then people will work really hard. So, if we start taking things away from the rich, then people won’t want to work as hard to become rich. This idea drives the affordable housing scarcity in Los Angeles. As long as we continue to go along with bank and government policies, the problem will continue to persist. At some point, we have to say “Enough is enough” (Marqueece Harris-Dawson).

Disclaimer: All content is sourced from the panel discussion with Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Professor Benjamin Henwood.

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