I couldn't be happier to help create Second Grace LA

The online community committed to ending homelessness in Los Angeles County. You know, and I know, the only real solution is a massive community response - thousands of Angelenos rising together to help the people living outside at the end of their streets—our unhoused neighbors.

Years of delivering direct services to neighbors in the Tenderloin and on Skid Row taught me that we must engage more volunteers and organize our service providers to work more closely together. This is where the idea for @secondgrace.la started.

Government alone cannot solve this crisis.

If solutions are to be found, they will come from communities like ours. We must advocate for all our neighbors. People with homes and people without. Renters and owners. Non-profits and businesses. We all want the same thing - for every person to have a place to call home.

No one grew up wanting to be homeless.

No one experiencing homelessness deserves what has happened to them. The causes are complex. The rent is too high. Wages are too low. Mental healthcare is inadequate. Substance abuse disorders go untreated.

But another big problem to overcome is that we have become desensitized to human suffering. We've learned to ignore the painful realities around us. This cannot continue.

We're overworked, stressed, and living in rapidly changing times. But we will all feel better if we help people around us. This is a tried and true method, not some new invention. SecondGrace.LA provides a way for neighbors to connect and combine their efforts. We offer resources, information, and training - access to the accumulated wisdom of thousands who have spent decades serving those in need on the streets.

In the years since I started this work, I've seen hundreds of people get housed, find jobs, and start on their way to happy and fulfilled lives. It gets worse out there every day, but I haven't lost faith in us, and I know it can improve. The time for change has come. A movement of neighbors helping neighbors is the only way to overcome this challenge. After we end homelessness, communities will be organized and empowered to solve whatever problems affect them together as a community.

Nobody else will do this for us.

Nobody besides us can bring the patient, enduring love needed to help people in such distress. We are the solution. SecondGrace.LA, is where we'll plan how to work together to lift up all our neighbors across LA County. And in doing so, how we can lift up our entire community.

Join us online at secondgrace.la or on Instagram @secondgrace.la. We'll be launching soon, and we want you with us.