HOMELESSNESS FACTS – It’s a new iteration of an old story. A recent community meeting in Venice erupted in discord as neighbors blamed crime, trash, and human waste on a nearby permanent supportive housing (PSH) development that houses recently homeless people. Westside LA Councilmember Traci Park demanded that Venice Community Housing (VCH, which manages the building), be held accountable for the problems the neighbors cited. She submitted a City Council motion to require supportive housing providers to conduct far more restrictive and costly screening and maintain dramatically heightened security as conditions for City funding.
Crime, trash, and human waste are serious problems. But to evaluate this proposed remedy, it’s important to look at what we already know about solutions to homelessness.
The “Housing First” model works. Housing First means prioritizing getting people into housing without first requiring resolution of mental health or substance abuse problems. It is based on evidence that homelessness makes it exponentially harder for people to successfully tackle those problems. Councilmember Park, like President Trump and other conservatives, opposes Housing First, instead advocating for a Treatment First policy. In a January interview, Park declared, “Unless we have […] a legal mandate to force the issue with recovery […] we are not going to solve homelessness in Los Angeles. I have never been a big fan of Housing First.” But as recent overviews in the American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health confirm, study after study shows Housing First significantly outperforms Treatment First in improving housing stability and health…