Inching Forward Isn't Enough - Letters to the Housed
Hello Neighbors,
As many of you know by now, we made some progress again this year in housing people who have been living on the streets. It's a remarkable accomplishment, considering the decades of growth in homelessness before 2023, and I celebrate my peers for this success. But inching forward isn't enough.
The Reality of Life on the Streets
Homelessness is a death sentence for too many. We expect people who can't find housing to live with the violence, trauma, and hopelessness that exists on the street. Thousands of people are working to bring an end to this suffering, but it's still not enough—almost seven people die every day from the effects of life on the streets.
We need more resources on the ground. We need better tools to help service providers organize and cooperation between programs, and we need funding that honors that cooperation instead of pitting agencies against each other.
A System That Fails Our Most Vulnerable
When I was invited to speak in Sacramento recently, it was in support of a new, dedicated emergency line ( AB 654 ) to speed up the response time in addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness. 2-1-1 has not delivered on the promises it made years ago. The wait times, unanswered calls, and low success rate eroded trust. It has promised improvements for years, but the concept was flawed from the start.
"2-1-1 is a 'one stop' referral line for many services with varying levels of severity, and the best you can hope for, if you get through to someone, is a referral to another resource, another number to call with the risk of being put on hold again."
When we do this to our most vulnerable neighbors, we break their trust and put their lives at increased risk. Believe me, a family's first night on the streets can be horrifying. Not being able to protect or provide for your child is a trauma we should never ask people to face, especially when it could be remedied with access to lifesaving resources that can be delivered quickly with a system designed for their specific needs.
This Is a Life-and-Death Emergency
I don't use the term "lifesaving" lightly. The incidence of violent crime against women and men (both cisgender and transgender) on the streets deserves outrage. The trauma and risk to the emotional and physical development of children (many of them LGBTQ+ who have been rejected by their families) should break our hearts. But we've grown used to these statistics.
"We've lost the compassion to see these as real emergencies with life-altering complications. We have hardened ourselves to the pain of people on the streets who suffer incidence of depression, violence, and suicide far above their housed neighbors."
Our human family has suffered to the point of breaking in LA and many other cities around the world.
This is an emergency for all of us, housed and unhoused. We choose to let this go on. We can choose to end it.
Success Stories Show What's Possible
Some areas, like Hollywood, have been more successful than others in housing people, which speaks to the power of local organizing. Hollywood Forward has supported local service providers and successfully navigated sometimes tense relationships between the providers, property owners, business owners, and funders.
50% of the neighbors sleeping on the streets in Hollywood have been housed, most locally in repurposed hotels and low-income buildings. This is an achievement worth celebrating. Further proof that a community gathered together, informed, and engaged can make progress against what was once considered to be an intractable problem.
New Hope with the ECRC
Another glimmer of hope is the new Emergency Centralized Resource Center ( ECRC ) a dedicated center coordinating the efforts of outreach teams and service providers across LA County. The ECRC appears to sit somewhere between the 2-1-1 referral model and an emergency response network—coordinating over a dozen county agencies relevant to serving the needs of the unhoused community.
The ECRC opened to the public on July 1, 2025, but, like 2-1-1, is only open from 8 AM–5 PM M-F.
But what if you have an emergency that falls outside of regular business hours? This is why we need a dedicated emergency number like 9-1-1 (and why I was in Sacramento to talk about it).
Building Solutions Together
We're making slow progress, but we need to do better. I was so frustrated by my experiences trying to find resources for people I met on the streets that I created SecondGrace.LA. I put all of the publicly available resources there for anyone to find (it's free!) and created a community of insiders who could support each other's work in helping get people the resources they need.
If you're not already a member, you can sign up here.
Thanks and see you next week.
Paul
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Resources:
RAND Study - LA Housing Progress 2025
AB 654 - Emergency Homelessness Response Line
Emergency Centralized Resource Center (ECRC)
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