Sobering
News on Homeless Veteran Front; Shriver Protests Lack of Action
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By Jorge Casuso
July 10 – The range of emotions during a City Council
hearing Tuesday night on plans to house homeless veterans seemed
as complex as the issue itself – from hailing good news to
pondering sobering statistics to expressing visible frustration.
By the end of the discussion, City Council member Bobby Shriver
had stripped his name from a council resolution praising his efforts,
along with those of other law makers, to provide housing and services
for homeless vets in three buildings on the Veterans Administration
Grounds in Westwood. (“Plan to House Homeless Vets Gets Go-ahead,”
August 22, 2007)
Shriver noted that the effort he kicked off shortly after taking
office nearly four years ago had failed to provide a single bed
for a homeless veteran and that lawmakers shouldn’t be patting
themselves on the back because a contract with a service provider
might finally be signed in January.
“I’ve worked very hard on this, and I have to express
my frustration,” said Shriver, who has intensively lobbied
federal officials on the issue. “I’m frustrated that
federal legislation has slowed the process down. It’s mind
boggling when people are living on the streets.
“I think if the decision came from Washington to clear these
buildings, they would be cleared,” Shriver said. “I
just feel very frustrated that we’re taking a phased approach
(one building at a time) and that we’re sitting here four
years later with not a vet in the buildings.”
Tuesday’s discussion had kicked off with good news –
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky (one of those commended in the
resolution) had successfully urged the Board of Supervisors just
hours earlier to give Santa Monica $1.1 million over the next two
years for homeless services.
The money will go to OPCC and Step Up on Second, Santa Monica’s
two largest homeless services agencies, to provide housing and services
for those who face the greatest risk of dying on the streets.
“We view this as a demonstration project, because you are
doing something that will help the rest of the county,” said
Flora Gil Krisiloff, Yaroslavsky’s senior field deputy.
The news, however, was accompanied with a sobering indication of
just how hard it is to get the “chronically homeless”
off the streets. (“City Launches Program to House ‘10
Most Vulnerable,’” February 1, 2008.)
Julie Rusk, who heads the City’s efforts to tackle homelessness,
noted that of the 131 homeless individuals deemed by a field survey
taken by the City in January to be most vulnerable, 27 were now
off the streets with seven of those placed in permanent housing.
“We’d like to get them off the streets as quickly as
possible,” Rusk said. “It’s really a rapid housing
approach. We’ve been doing this for five and a half months.
We want to be making more rapid progress.”
The statistics would become more sobering still. Of the 36 homeless
individuals who told the City they were veterans, and therefore
could qualify for housing and services on the VA grounds, only 15
were actual war veterans.
“They may hold up signs saying they are veterans, but they
may be veterans of the Salvadoran army of veterans of the street,”
said Bill Daniels, director of the VA’s Comprehensive Homeless
Center for the Los Angeles area.
According to Daniels, of the 15 homeless veterans targeted for
services, one is already being housed on the VA grounds, another
is living on Step Up on Second and a third is in temporary housing.
Another five are receiving outpatient and medical care.
As for the rest, one is in jail, another is living in San Francisco
and two “don’t want absolutely anything to do with us,”
Daniels said. As for the other two, social workers are “still
actively trying to find them.”
Then came news that the Secretary of Veteran Affairs “is
still fully committed” to housing and providing on-site services
for homeless vets in all three buildings, “but we will be
proceeding in a phased approach,” said Ralph Tillman, the
local VA’s director of Assets Management.
Two of the buildings have been empty for years and one is currently
being used to house and serve veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars, officials said, saying the current occupants can be moved
to another facility on site.
An expression of interest would be issued Friday seeking service
providers to take over the first of the three buildings, Tillman
said. The contract, which would cover a 20-year-term with a 20-year
option, would require the provider to bring the building up to code.
“This could bring us to a contract by January 2009,”
Tillman said.
Shriver quickly expressed his frustration with the lengthy process.
“These building have been empty effectively for 20 years,
and we cannot figure out how to get the buildings occupied,”
Shriver said. “I find it really outrageous.”
Shriver then asked to have his name dropped from the resolution
“advocating that the Veterans Administration expedite the
use of (the) three buildings,” which commended the “years
of intensive bipartisan coalition building lead by Councilmember
Shriver and the City.”
The resolution also “acknowledges and appreciates the work”
of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman
and Supervisor Yaroslavsky.
“When we call them out in a laudatory way, it is, as my mother
would say, ‘unseemly,’” Shriver said, referring
to his mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics.
“We have not accomplished one vet sleeping in these buildings,”
he said and asked that his name be replaced with that of LA Council
member Bill Rosendahl, who also has been working hard on the issue.
Mayor Pro Tem Richard Bloom, who served on a regional task force
to end homelessness, put a more positive spin on the night's discussion.
"The important thing is that we keep moving forward, that
we keep pushing," Bloom said. "From where I sit, I think
it's nice to think that something actually might be happening in
January 2009."
Related stories:
“RAND
Exposes Invisible Wounds of War,” June 16, 2008
“Santa
Monica’s Homeless Population Drops, County Census Finds,”
October 12, 2007
“More
Homeless Call Downtown Home,” November 26, 2007
“Minority
Groups, Families See Rise in Homelessness,” January 7, 2008
“City
Finds Common Ground on Homelessness,” October 9, 2007
“City
Finds Housing ‘Chronically Homeless’ No Easy Task,”
May 9, 2007
“From
Personal Habits to Bureaucracy, Obstacles to Housing the Chronically
Homeless Loom Large,” May 10, 2007
“Successfully
Housing Chronically Homeless Will Take Political Will, Countywide
Effort, Officials Warn,” May 14, 2007
“My
Time as Santa Monica's Special Representative for Homeless Initiatives,”
December 19, 2007
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