HOMELESS LA RANT

Regan started this bullshit in the 1980s with closing mental health facilities. Since then there has been a steady decline nation wide of mental health hospitals for severely mentally ill patients. They have literally been turned out onto the streets to live like animals. All homeless people are not created equal, and not all will take help and thrive. 

There is a segment of the NON HOMELESS population that isn't willing to work and earn for a living. So there are the same types of people living on the streets. The type of person if you put a roof over their heads, they wouldn't lift a finger to keep it. A month or two later they are back out on the street back to their shenanigans. 

There are people who are out getting high and drinking who given a place to live or rehab wouldn't stop using to the point of not being able to function normally. Then there is the person who has been fired or downsized and unable to find work. Or the person who has been bankrupted by MEDICAL BILLS who has no place to live because their health will not allow them to work but social security A.) takes SO LONG TO GET and B.) Isn't enough to live on so collecting a check and living in a tent is about the most they can hope for. 

There are people who have a mental illness and cross over to drugs and alcohol to self medicate thus amplifying their original illness. Functioning in society isn't really an option. They can function sometimes to UNDERSTAND how to apply for housing; but the process is so daunting and tedious for a perfectly sober sane person that making appointments for assessments and case management are almost a joke for someone struggling with mental illness or addictions. 

Outreach is meager at best, and funding is stretched so tight that finding a decent, clean, safe place to live on a voucher or section 8 program can try men's souls. The section 8 program has changed in the past couple of years too. Section 8 used to handle problems with tenants through their program. If a program participant broke a rule (say was selling drugs out of their unit) section 8 would then be responsible for removing them quickly so another tenant could move in. 

NOW it's up to the landlord to evict the tenant screwing up and it's a long and involved process that could end up siding on the side of the tenant and leaving the owner with excessive damage and disturbances to the property. Because of this section 8 is no longer a golden ticket to a landlord, and options have shrunk for apartment hunters. Section 8 tenants are even being put on leases that when they expire they are not allowed to stay and the landlord then turns around and rents the unit for market price. 

There is NO regulation of landlords adding affordable units to new construction. There is no punishment for not opening 30% of your units to low income families.




Did I mention that the average waiting list in Los Angeles for low income housing is 2-7 YEARS LONG? What are people supposed to do for 2 to 7 years while they are waiting to be housed?




Regan closed the hospitals then flooded the streets with drugs.......