Letters to the Editor: Readers moved by column challenging us all to ‘listen to homeless people’

To the editor: Carla Hall makes so many important points in her editorial on the importance of listening to the homeless (“To understand homelessness, listen to homeless people. Here’s what I learned,” March 30). I believe, based upon many years of working with and around the homeless population of Los Angeles County when I was in law enforcement, that her most important point was that, above all else, people really do need a safe place to sleep before they can become more stabilized. Hall encourages the reader to imagine how hard it would be to solve a personal problem if you had no place to sleep, shower or use the bathroom.

I thought about this point all the time when I worked around the homeless. I remembered how terrible I always felt after taking a red-eye flight anywhere; getting off the plane tired, hungry and in need of a shower. This thought always crept into my mind when trying to imagine how much worse people must feel when this is how they feel all the time and how almost impossible it is to make a sound decision when you feel this exhausted. Mix some drug use and crime into this recipe of stress and exhaustion and it spells disaster for most.

If the city of Los Angeles was really serious about getting the homeless population stabilized, it would invest heavily in mobile units with doctors, pharmacists, social workers, showers and food that could come directly to the homeless encampments to assist people. It is much easier to have a discussion with an unhoused person about a long-term plan when they are rested, clean, fed and feeling safe (not to mention more hopeful). This is such a simple concept, yet it never seems to be emphasized enough when discussing the issue of homelessness.

Jennifer Swoboda, Long Beach

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To the editor: Of all of the profound reflections that Hall shares with us that span the duration of her career covering issues of homelessness for The Times, perhaps the most poignant observation she makes is in her concluding statement when she calls upon all who care about the fate of Los Angeles with a call to action:

“I challenge you to care about providing homes to people who need them. I challenge you to welcome new affordable housing when it’s proposed in your community, because as an Angeleno witnessing this crisis, you know how many lives that housing could change — how many lives it could save.”

The acute housing crisis that has led to the highest level of homelessness in the nation, along with the unwillingness of the few who have benefited from a system of single-family zoning at the expense of the many who are stuck in permanent rentals, will destroy our city if not addressed in meaningful ways. For those living on the edge of housing insecurity, restrictive zoning, limited income growth and ever-increasing rents will continue to destroy lives and the future of our once-great city.

Lisa Ansell, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: Reading Hall’s interesting column about understanding the homeless got me thinking about how so many well-meaning people would like to see the unhoused. Unfortunately, the problem is far larger than the homeless being just folks who lost their jobs and had fallen on hard times but otherwise are no different than the rest of us.

In my Burbank neighborhood, there’s a man wandering around who occasionally walks down my street and starts howling at the top of his voice. He appears not to have bathed in the past year. Last week, I had to escort a woman living near me to her front door because he was standing nearby, looking scarily at her. In the past, he’s dropped his pants and exposed himself to women on my street while having a blank stare in his eyes. The police have been contacted by several of us neighbors reporting this dangerous-looking vagrant but, of course, nothing ever happens as a result.

I tried to ask the man to please leave the area, but he didn’t even seem to understand that I was standing there before him, much less talking to him. This man would likely never accept living in a shelter home or being counseled or cared for by anyone because he trusts nobody.

Until L.A. finds a way to deal with the mentally ill and substance-abusing addicts roaming and living on our streets, no amount of public policies or funding will make much of a difference, unfortunately.

Doug Weiskopf, Burbank