To the editor: Per visitor contributor Brian Levy’s latest article, 50,000 folks stay on Los Angeles County’s streets (“L.A. has now laid an actual basis to handle homelessness,” Could 21). Los Angeles’ homelessness assist system completely rehouses about 20,000 folks yearly. Within the meantime, greater than 60,000 folks develop into homeless yearly. This implies the present insurance policies and packages are by no means going to resolve the issue despite the billions of {dollars} being spent yearly.
Isn’t it time to be extra inventive in developing with extra reasonable and probably efficient methods to resolve the issue? It jogs my memory of the saying, “Madness is doing the identical factor over and over and anticipating totally different outcomes.”
Charles Blankson, Menifee, Calif.
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To the editor: Levy says that, a decade or so into Los Angeles’ homeless disaster, L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors has now outlined “a set of bold and achievable targets.” Levy presents this as trigger for celebration. For me, it represents a trigger for dismay.
Communities across the nation have had broadly differing levels of success on this situation. The officers addressing homelessness in L.A. have had 10 years to discover essentially the most profitable packages and finest practices elsewhere, consider these most scalable and appropriate for L.A. after which develop and implement a program commensurate with the means at hand.
Levy writes, “objective clarification is a crucial early step.” Proper. Ten years on, the county is taking a significant early step. In what universe ought to this be cheered?
Shelley Wagers, Los Angeles
