By: Brian TangOn May 4th, 2022, the Research Committee created and presented a recorded workshop detailing various aspects of Cedars-Sinai, a nonprofit academic healthcare organization with a multitude of medical offices and hospital locations throughout Los Angeles County and beyond.
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By: Evelyn Silva Rosales With the ongoing election, Governor Newsom’s opponents have brought attention to the frustration many voters feel about his policy to tackle homelessness in California. Citizens have reported that they are skeptical he “has made any significant progress to alleviate the state’s homelessness crisis, or at least prevented it from getting worse” (Willon). This has become a topic of conversation that could impact the results of the election due to criticism of Newsom’s homelessness policies.
By: Nyoko Brown As of 2020, The Los Angeles Times reported that Black people composed 34% of the county’s homeless population (Lopez, 2020). This is an especially striking detail, seeing that Black people in Los Angeles only make up 7.9% of the entire population (Lopez, 2020). The over representation of Black people in homelessness is often overlooked. This factor, with the right attention, could significantly impact efforts against the homelessness crisis.
By: Brian Tang As a result of a complaint filed in 2020 by various residents, business owners, and community leaders, the city of Los Angeles has proposed to spend $3 billion over the next five years to attempt to house its homeless population of about 41,000 individuals.
By: Evelyn Silva Rosales On March 15, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development renewed its annual funding and provided additional money to the Los Angeles Continuum of Care (LA CoC). The monetary award was announced by Secretary Maria L. Fudge in Houston Texas, who hoped it would “provide funding to individuals and families experiencing homelessness move into permanent housing with access to supportive services, with the overarching goal of long-term stability.”
By: Brian Tang Governor Newsom has often been criticized for his lack of creative solutions towards California’s problems, but he has recently announced a novel strategy for tackling the growing homelessness problem that does not involve simply increasing the amount of money allocated towards this issue. He proposes the creation of a Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court that would direct homeless individuals with mental health or substance abuse issues towards social and psychiatric services instead of the incarceration system.
By: Nyoko BrownThe COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many issues within the homelessness crisis. In January of 2022, NBC News covered how the relocation of unhoused individuals experienced a surge during the pandemic. The article titled 'Indelible mark of shame': L.A. pivots to clearing homeless camps amid Covid surge, housing crisis informs its readers that the Los Angeles City Council adopted an “anti-camping” ordinance that banned sleeping in outdoor locations. What readers can take from this article is that now that homelessness is visible in more residential areas, the crisis is being met with more policing and fewer solutions.
By: Evelyn Silva Rosales In a research study made by Jessica Richards, researchers found an association between homelessness and poor health outcomes in Los Angeles County. They set up a homeless trajectory conceptual model to indicate that homeless trajectories are rooted in predisposing risk factors. Individuals who fall into homelessness especially vulnerable when they experience financial instability along with the loss of a loved one or other tragic events in their lives. Once homeless, they may be at substantially greater risk of health problems due to exposure of violence, weather, pollution, poor sanitation, and behavioral risk (Richards, 2021).
By: Nyoko Brown Permanent supportive housing (PSH) provides housing and a variety of services to people who have experienced chronic homelessness. It can come in two forms, one being a single-site housing unit and the other being scatter-site housing units (Henwood et al, 2017). Research on such programs in Los Angeles is not extensive but is comprehensive enough for one to conclude that ending homelessness requires more than providing housing alone. A lot more support is needed to rehabilitate individuals regarding the adverse physical and mental health outcomes that are associated with homelessness.By: Brian Tang Los Angeles County officials have been forcing homeless encampments to clear out near the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which will host the 2022 Super Bowl. SoFi stadium, the new home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, was built at a cost over $5 billion and opened in September 2020. Officials claim that large events such as the Super Bowl often bring heavy traffic to the streets, where homeless individuals live. There has been a long history of major events displacing local unhoused communities; they all involve higher safety risks for the homeless population, including increased vehicular traffic and police interaction.
By: Evelyn Silva Rosales In the past decade the United State’s rate of homelessness has decreased by 10.3%, but in specific regions like Houston the homelessness rate has decreased by more than half. Though these statistics portray a hopeful future, Los Angeles rates continue to increase and in the last decade they have doubled.
By: Sreeram Kurada After almost a year, LA County resumes the annual homeless count in 2022, which will take place during January 25-27th. The LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is asking for volunteers to help count the unsheltered street count of homeless individuals, which is the main component of the homeless count.
By: Nyoko Brown A topic of increasing concern is the access individuals who use injection drugs have to clean and free needles. People in vulnerable populations, such as those who are unhoused, face a number of barriers to accessing clean needles ranging from lack of supplies to a lack of privacy when seeking services. Satellite exchange programs, such as Clean Needles Now in Los Angeles are actively improving their outreach and ability to supply clean needles. While there is still much progress to be made, the research papers presented here give much insight into the severity of the issue.
By: Brian Tang After touring the homeless encampment outside the gated grounds of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (VA) campus in October, VA Secretary Denis McDonough noticed that the fairly large encampment consisted of mostly veterans. He subsequently traveled back to Washington and vowed to provide all of these homeless veterans housing in addition to 500 other homeless veterans by the end of 2021.
Equity-Oriented Health Care Improves Patient-Provider Relationships Within Unhoused Communities11/28/2021 By Nyoko BrownMany advocates for health equity are emphasizing Equity-Oriented Health Care (EOHC) as a standard for delivering sustainable and accessible healthcare to vulnerable communities. Individuals experiencing homelessness face physical and social barriers to care that programs with an EOHC approach could begin to mitigate. EOHC is healthcare that is tailored to the patient that is being treated with cultural sensitivity and trauma- and violence-informed care (Gilboe, 2018). Los Angeles Clinics tackling the alarming number of HCV cases within the homeless community serve as a current model for how healthcare can evolve to meet the needs of those without stable housing.
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