Four days a week, the Venice Family Clinic’s mobile examination room serves as a doctor’s office for people without homes in the region Los Angeles area.
“We want to be there for them,” said Dr. Coley King, the clinic’s homeless health services director.
According to the city’s Homeless Services Authority, more than 45,000 people are homeless in the city of Los Angeles. King says many of them suffer from serious medical illnesses.
“There are patients who have schizophrenia, who have HIV. So I think everyone has an urgency to solve this,” King said.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, nearly half of all homeless people in the U.S. live in California. The state had about one shelter bed for every three people who needed one last year, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Earlier this year, leaders like California Governor Gavin Newsom were given the authority to take action to clear homeless encampments after the disaster. The US Supreme Court has ruled cities could ban people from sleeping outside.
“It is time to move forward urgently at the local level to clean up these sites… there are no more excuses,” Newsom said in a video on social media.
Easy to say perhaps, but the reality is more complicated.
“The goal should be to solve the problem,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. “Our problem here is that we don’t have enough housing. We have to build, we have to buy buildings.”
Bass is focused on getting people off the streets and into shelters that didn’t exist until now. It does this by utilizing vacant motels and city-owned properties with the goal of urgently moving people in and permanently clearing encampments.
“You don’t solve anything by clearing out an encampment and just moving it to the next street,” Bass said.
Since 2022, Bass’ “Inside Safe” program has brought in more than 3,000 people from more than 60 encampments, the city says. The city has seen a 10% drop in street homelessness.
Pointing to an empty patch of grass next to a playground, Bass said, “This area here, many months ago, was filled with tents. And you can imagine what families would want to bring their kids here – right there – when this is filled with tents.” tents and you’re afraid of the people who are here. And now look at that.’
While some people have been able to find temporary housing, others are still waiting.
“We’re dealing with huge numbers, so it’s going to take a while. I wish I could tell you that by this date this problem would have ended. I can’t do that, but what I do know is that if we If we “Continuing on the trajectory we are on will help us solve this problem,” Bass said.
It’s an approach that could also solve a problem for Dr. King, who often loses touch with people who need more consistent care.
“We may lose them, and maybe forever, because they are so sick. I feel confident that we are already on that path here and trying to do this the right way,” King said.
A crisis decades in the making is slowly changing, day and night.
