“Housing is a fundamental human right. Homelessness in the wealthiest society in the world is (an) affront to humanity.”
—Million Family March: The National Agenda
Michael Henry is 25, full of life and hope, except for when people pass by him like he is invisible, a ghost, which makes him feel like an animal. He does a few turns on his mini-bike before speeding off through his South Central neighborhood from the Granada on Broadway Outreach Project.
It provides outreach to the community by offering support groups for dependency issues and programs such as rehabilitation outreach, HIV testing, counseling, support groups, and health fairs.
Mr. Henry has volunteered there for the last three years. He is going through homelessness now, but manages to make his way, he told The Final Call. His top three needs are housing resources, mental health therapy, and food, he stated. And job placement, he added.
“A lot of the jobs I apply for, they tell me, ‘Oh, you’re not fit for this job, or you don’t have the experience or we’re not looking,’ but the whole time they say they’re not looking, they’re hiring a different person, just because I’m a minority,”
Mr. Henry said. He likes to do handy work, and does all types of things, he said. He builds different things, cuts grass, paints, all just to survive.
The young Los Angeles native is featured in a documentary, “We, the Vulnerable of LA,” which sheds light on homelessness in L.A. County. It comes at a time when the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) grapples with the loss of some $50 million in funding earmarked to serve homelessness.
The “Million Family March: The National Agenda – Public Policy Issues, Analyses, And Programmatic Plan of Action 2000-2008” addresses the issue of homelessness in the U.S. The National Agenda was developed from the Million Family March in 2000 called by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
In the chapter, “Housing,” the agenda states: Housing is a fundamental human right. Homelessness in the wealthiest society in the world is (an) affront to humanity. Family life is to a large measure conditional of the quality of the family’s housing.
Public policy makers too often provide legislation remedies on housing that are out of reach for families who have historically been denied equal access to housing opportunities.”
The National Agenda continues, “The issue of homelessness is a growing social and spiritual crisis in America. In too many cities across the nation entire families live homeless on the streets.”
A few of the recommendations presented in The National Agenda included:
• Establish Community Development Corporations (CDC)
• Develop funding sources for cooperative housing
• Develop alternative financing programs for new homeowners
• Retain land ownership within the family
• Consider a tax credit program to help the middle-class afford housing
LAHSA is a joint powers authority of the city and county of Los Angeles, created in 1993 and is the lead agency in the Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-funded Los Angeles Continuum of Care. It coordinates and manages federal, state, county, and city funds for programs providing shelter, housing, and services to people experiencing homelessness.
A County of Los Angeles Department of Audit-Controller review earlier this year found that of the $50.8 million it was awarded in voter-approved Measure H funding (a quarter of a cent sales tax), it did not establish formal agreements to determine how and when the funds would be repaid.
LAHSA only recovered approximately $2.5 million (five percent) as of July 8, 2024, from some subrecipients who cited cash flow issues, for example, according to the review. LAHSA could not provide comprehensive contract data and did not develop an adequate contract monitoring plan to ensure effective oversight of their sub-recipients, according to the audit.
LAHSA may not be able to recover all working capital advances and as a result, may not repay the county the full $82.5 million in advanced Measure H funds, continued the findings. It recommends that LAHSA work with subrecipients who have overdue outstanding cash advances to recover funds and ensure annual cash advances are recouped annually.
“Stakeholders across Los Angeles County have worked together to create innovations that have improved the rehousing system. We have seen noted improvements since 2023, for instance, we housed a record 27,000-plus people throughout the County.
In addition, the last Homeless Count showed a five percent reduction in unsheltered homeless, the first reduction in six years,” stated Christopher Yee, LAHSA Communications Specialist.
“We must continue collaborating to further this success and ensure everyone living on the streets comes home. LAHSA will work with the County to evaluate the feasibility of the proposal and offer our input based on the best path to continue that success.
While that process unfolds, LAHSA will remain focused on improving the rehousing system and bringing more of our unsheltered neighbors inside,” Mr. Yee told The Final Call via email.
The audit findings prompted the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to announce plans to create its own department to manage homeless services.
During a hearing in August, Federal Judge David O. Carter expressed frustration over the lack of action by LAHSA and demanded answers on how the city and county of Los Angeles are spending public funds to solve the homeless crisis, according to an ABC 7 report.
The audit stems from a lawsuit brought by the Alliance for Human Rights, a group of business owners, residents and members of the unhoused population upset over how taxpayer dollars are being spent on homelessness, it noted.
As L.A. County and LAHSA work things out, many, like Mr. Henry, wait in the balance. He fell into the streets when he reached “adulthood,” and had to leave home at 18. But he lacked the education, knowledge and resources to actually be on his own, he stated.
“I was confused on the first steps to take, so ever since then, I’ve been trying to figure everything out, just putting two and two together,” he told The Final Call.
Mr. Henry said that news about LAHSA means the money aimed to help his community and his basic needs are put further out of reach.
“It impacts me because basically I won’t be able to get the resources that I need to be able to get housing, job placement or even just any type of counseling,” Mr. Henry said.
“That actually bothers me, because I go through anxiety and depression, and when my anxiety and depression bother me, it makes me go to a whole different world, makes me want to do something to myself and harm myself, and I don’t like that,” he added.
The 2024 Los Angeles Homeless Count estimated that 75,312 people were experiencing homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles County, according to the County of Los Angeles Homeless Initiative, which works to solve homelessness.
Adam Rice, a member of the Washington State-based Human Rights to Housing Collective thinks LAHSA has done a lot of good work, and that good things are happening in Skid Row by some agencies.
“It’s not like the county is shocked that LAHSA has lost money,” Mr. Rice told The Final Call. “This is not the first audit where LAHSA has not been able to account for money, but $50 million is a lot of money and good work and a good move towards housing does not explain how you can’t find $50 million,” said Mr. Rice, a former community organizer for the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN).
That is a big thing, but at the same time, he feels the only reason LAHSA exists is because the city and county were unable to perform their duties to address homelessness in the first place.
“LAHSA stems from a lawsuit! It’s not like they created LAHSA out of the goodness of their heart,” argued Mr. Rice.
In 1991, the creation of LAHSA stemmed from a legal settlement regarding issues with access to the General Relief welfare program, according to LAist, a public media organization that provides news and information about Southern California.
Unlike California, Houston, Texas, has become a model for other cities by cutting its homeless population by nearly two-thirds, according to a report by Danielle McLean for Smart Cities Dive in late 2022.
“Over the course of a decade, Houston reduced its alarmingly high homeless population by 63 percent. … Just a decade ago, Houston had the sixth largest homeless population in the country, with about 8,500 people identified as being homeless on a given night in 2011, according to its annual point-in-time count,” she wrote.
HUD designated Houston a priority city, and with technical assistance funding and collaboration with surrounding county governments, various community stakeholders and nonprofit service providers, it became a model that has decreased homelessness. This, despite operating with a small budget, according to Ms. McLean.
However, in Greenville, S.C., funds earmarked for homelessness are not being effectively directed toward them, according to Efia Ngwaza, founding director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination in Greenville, S.C.
“The claim of the city and county, all of whom have commercial property interests, the real estate agents and brokers and developers who are involved in making those decisions, so the funds are being diverted to creating what is called affordable housing, which doesn’t address the issue of homelessness at all,” Ms. Ngwaza told The Final Call.
There were nearly 700 people identified as homeless in 2022; with about 450 beds in the area’s emergency shelters, most of those identified as homeless found shelter, but about 20 percent lived in areas considered unfit for human habitation, according to a report by the Greenville Journal.
“The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s estimate of fair market rent in the Greenville area for a one-bedroom apartment last year was $871 per month. The average reported monthly income for people in emergency shelter was $836,” continued the online article by Jay King.
“There are no provisions for low-income housing. Affordable housing is for folks with incomes from $50,000 and up, which not only doesn’t address the question of homelessness.
It doesn’t address the question of affordability, so what they’re basically doing is using the funds to subsidize housing for poorly paid so-called first responders and they’re sticking primarily Black senior citizens into these complexes to avoid charges of discrimination,” alleged Ms. Ngwaza.
The solution is housing first, stated Mr. Rice, if approached as a people rather than a money game. “When we take people off the streets, it’s not simply housing people. In order for that to stick, we are reintegrating people into society. We are healing broken souls. That’s what you have to do, because otherwise, people will end up on the streets like that,” he said.