Homeless Population Rising on US West Coast, Experts Cite Housing Costs

A recent report describes a sharp rise in the number of homeless people, mainly on the West Coast. In Los Angeles, the count grew 75 percent in six years, from 32,000 in late 2011 to 55,000 in late 2017, and about 41,000 of those people were living on the street.

Counts are difficult to make precise. Elizabeth Bowen, a researcher in the Department of Social Work at the University of Buffalo, New York, said each district runs its count using its own method, and such counts happen periodically. In Seattle, about two thousand volunteers counted the city’s homeless population on the streets in an effort called Operation Night. Bowen said that many people experiencing homelessness are not visible in a street count. She described research on homeless youth, many of whom slept on a friend’s couch and may not appear in the count.

Asked about the increase, Bowen said there is no single path into homelessness. She said that in America, the central issue is that housing prices have grown faster than wages, which she called especially severe on the West Coast, including in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle. She also said that housing is not guaranteed in the United States, that people eligible for public housing do not necessarily receive it because of long waiting lists, and that health insurance and drug problems are additional factors. Bowen said most homeless people are families, especially single-parent households, and that many work at least part-time but cannot make ends meet.

Seth Kortsban, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work, offered another explanation, saying the center of economic activity has moved toward the West Coast and that people have moved there to look for work. He noted that Los Angeles’s population rose by half a million in a decade. Yvonne Wising, a professor at Salem State University, said that in many cases people pay about half their income for housing, and that after heating, electricity, water and city taxes, many people are left without enough money for health care, transportation and food.

Conditions in some encampments drew concern. In October, employees of the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation checked hygiene conditions where several tents had gathered, counting 222 such places, 50 of which had tents housing 30 or more people. Anna Scott, a reporter for KCRW public radio in Los Angeles who covers homelessness in the city, said she was shocked by the conditions she saw. She said, “It makes me very sad to walk through the city and see people living on the street,” and described a lack of toilets and garbage collection in homeless areas.

Homeless residents have complained that authorities have confiscated basic property, including clothing and shoes, because of the space it takes up. The municipality said such confiscations are carried out to keep sidewalks clear for public passage. Scott noted that there is a history of lawsuits against the municipality over the impounding of homeless people’s belongings. Scott also said that shelter conditions vary by how they are run, including when people may enter and leave and how many belongings they may bring, and that some people avoid shelters because they fear they are unsafe.

Los Angeles has responded with a new tax approved by voters last year, directed into a fund for homeless services. The tax is projected to collect $4.6 billion over ten years, build 10,000 apartments and improve the city’s welfare services. Scott stressed that this is a long-term solution that will not be felt immediately. Wising said urban areas have more resources, including soup kitchens, shelters and health care, while rural areas face high poverty, scarce financial resources and limited public transportation. Bowen said people in rural areas struggle to find apartments, to access health insurance and mental health care, and to cope with the opioid epidemic. She said it is unlikely that funding for health care and public housing will increase soon, adding, “We should, as a country, decide that this is something we care about.”

Source: Read the original report (translated from Hebrew)