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Begging on the street - Source: Reuters
The homeless population of Los Angeles fell sharply during the
past two years, a study released found, confounding expectations
that the recession would drive more people into the city's streets
and shelters.
Some credit went to better programs to keep people off the streets,
but experts say the worst economic slump since the Great Depression
may also have played a role as rents declined and created more
affordable housing.
Others disputed that notion, asserting that recent waves of
foreclosures invariably drive more people into homelessness.
According to the latest census performed every two years by the Los
Angeles Homeless Services Authority, an estimated 43,000 people are
living on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings or in
shelters and government-funded transitional housing facilities on
any given night in greater Los Angeles.
That count, conducted January 27-29, is down 38% from the 2007
tally but remains the largest homeless population of any
metropolitan area in the United States, said Michael Arnold,
executive director of the Homeless Services Authority.
The number and proportion of the homeless who are living on the
streets was down, too, from 83% to about two-thirds of the total,
while the number of families with children included in the tally
also dropped substantially.
Arnold said the numbers reflect stepped-up local efforts to fight
homelessness, including a $US100 million initiative undertaken by
Los Angeles County and a recent expansion of rental vouchers aimed
at homeless families.
Still, Los Angeles, the second-largest US city and home to a
notorious downtown Skid Row, appears to be bucking a national
trend.
While other areas across the country have seen similar declines in
their homeless populations since 2007, most sizable cities are
reporting increases, not decreases, said Nan Roman, president of
the Washington-based National Alliance to End Homelessness.
She called the findings of the Los Angeles survey a little
surprising, but agreed with Arnold that it was possible for a
housing slump to have depressed rental rates, leading to an
increase in lower-cost housing.
Arnold said that even rising unemployment could indirectly help
lower homelessness, as a declining work force leads to higher
vacancy rates, which drives down rents and creates more affordable
dwellings.
"What we expected was that people would lose their jobs, and then
they would lose their homes and then they would become homeless,
and the answer is that it's a lot more complicated than that," he
said.
Some experts disputed the notion that the real estate crisis could
help ease homelessness.
"It's just a premise that we don't find holds water," said Neil
Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the
Homeless.
"The truth is that there's an overall lack of affordable housing in
this country," he said.
"When you enter into bad economic times, the wealthy (and)
medium-income people move into housing that is less expensive, and
they start occupying units that would typically go to low-income
people, drying up a resource of affordable housing."
Donovan's group and six other organizations recently issued a
survey that found about 10 percent of homeless people assisted by
social service agencies around the country over the past year had
lost their homes due to foreclosure.
