As deaths of homeless people rise, L.A. to appoint new leader to tackle crisis


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In the nation’s homeless capital, a reckoning is brewing between elected leaders whose political futures hang in the balance and service providers who say the system meant to protect the county’s most vulnerable residents is set up for failure.

As the social safety net unravels for people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County, the chief of homeless services, Heidi Marston, is leaving her post, saying elected officials are failing to address the root causes of the crisis, such as a lack of affordable housing, wages that fail to keep up with costs and an inadequate mental health system.

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Instead, she said, homeless service providers are being used as targets in a blame game over why the crisis, which has been growing for decades, has not been fixed.

“Homeless services … are perfectly positioned to really be the scapegoat for the homelessness crisis we’re seeing in this country,” said Marston.

“But we know it isn’t the homeless services system and nonprofits that are in control of minimum wage, that are in control of affordable housing,” she added.

In another effort to tackle the issue, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted this week to create a new office to coordinate its homelessness response. The entity would oversee multiple agencies and report directly to the board.

As upheaval continues at the county level, 61 percent of voters in the city of Los Angeles say homelessness is a top priority in the upcoming mayoral race, according to a poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

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“I would call it a churning,” said John Maceri, CEO of The People Concern, one of the county’s largest service providers. “We are certainly in a time of change.”

Katrina Holland, executive director of JOIN, which helps homeless people in Portland, Oregon, find permanent housing, said her community is also suffering from a lack of focus.

“There is this problem with inflow into houselessness that we are just not adequately addressing,” Holland said. “Instead, we’re focusing a lot of attention on the visible and tangible impact of people on the streets, of trash everywhere.”


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