Patch Blog: Changing Los Angeles--Highland Park's Homeless

who lived in the Park at York and Figueroa, used to be able to keep it tidy, and often chased away the drug dealers. Lately this became overwhelming as the population at the Park grew. I am told the Pasadena Police Department often ride homeless people over the border to Highland Park, especially at Rose Parade time. This vile practice has yet to be caught on video, but maybe soon. The Park became dangerous, and a serious health hazard.

We have no chance to end the poverty causing homelessness while we cling to the mythology that wealth is a function of character. If you were a better, more hardworking person, you would be richer. Poverty becomes a character question, and wealth becomes a reflection of your virtue. Someday we will relinquish this adolescent fiction, and leave our Calvinist past behind. Meanwhile many poor people, and sick people will be without a conventional home. If you have a home, plumbing and food in your electric refrigerator, you cannot possibly understand someone who does not want that. And some of them will be crazy, and some will be criminals, some will be addicts, and some will be families and children.  Where are the treatment programs for the mentally ill? Why do we criminalize addiction? The peerless Dr Gabor Mate, in his latest book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, describes the brain biology of addiction. 

And some will be veterans. How is it even possible for there to be homeless vets? It is a concept beyond my understanding. "Here, join the military, we will train you, and show you how to use a gun, ride in a tank and kill people or be killed. But when you are finished, if you are wounded, ill, or in any way damaged, thanks for your service, and please go away."

As news of the planned clean up emerged, a man I know, who works with children in social services, often asking for money to support his organization, suggested with a smile, a clean-up using fire hoses on “them.” Others were concerned the clean-up was callous and inhumane, asking had social services been offered before we stormed in to cruelly brutalize the people.

Meanwhile, last Friday, Los Angeles Street Servcies and LAPD, after posting notices, and many efforts to find placement for the people living at the square, cleared the area. Remember there are no city homeless services based in Highland Park. None. Instead of opining, pontificating, pointing fingers, snarling or breast-beating, from the safety of your home, come out and do the work. Meet the people you have such strong opinions about.

Mayor Don Lane of Santa Cruz, perfectly articulated two contrasting approaches to homelessness: police/city, with their responsibilities of pubic health, and crime, and social services, of which Santa Cruz has plenty, finding ways to help and provide support. He suggested these two find a way to work together. He then addressed the frequently heard comment that we need to make those people go away.

“This is a surprisingly common suggestion in a community that prides itself on understanding sustainability. We all know there is no actual place called away. The stuff we say we are throwing away is in a landfill right in our community. The stuff we are washing away is flowing into our waterways. There is no away.”

We recycle, we are close to , because they never go away, we know that batteries will not just go away. And yet there are people who just want homeless people to go away. We are all here together. There is no them. There is no away.