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Homelessness: Is Housing First working? California is a case study
‘Housing First’ (without many requirements) doesn’t seem to be very effective as over 60% of the homeless population suffers from either substance abuse and/or mental illness. Addiction and mental illness are treatable diseases with long term care, but there is no cure. Simply providing shelter will not cure a disease. It allows the individual to go untreated,…
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Homelessness in California: Newsom needs Trump to bail him out
To put things in perspective let’s begin with some startling numbers for our entire country. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in January of 2024 there were 771,480 people that experienced homelessness in a single winter night in this country when the count was taken. That’s up from 653,104 (18%) from…
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Is ‘Affordable Housing’ possible in California?
It’s a buzzword for politicians and developers: Affordability. According to the California Housing Consortium, housing is affordable if it costs no more than 30% of your monthly income. And most affordable housing developments are designed for people with household incomes of 60% or less than the area median income. But is that realistic? Consider a family with…
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Homelessness: Housing First or Treatment First? Transitional housing is the answer.
What is Housing First? Housing First is an approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to homeless individuals without any requirements before accessing or retaining such housing. Housing First’s primary goal is to remove homeless people from the streets or shelters to permanent government subsidized housing, while offering certain services to hopefully improve housing stability.…
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On May 7th, I celebrated 4 years of continuous sobriety.
On May 7th, I celebrated 4 years of continuous sobriety. I can still recall when I relapsed within 48 hours of leaving my 3rd treatment for alcoholism. During the last few mornings of this particular relapse, I remember how I spent each morning on my hands and knees in front of the toilet vomiting followed…
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‘Fear Became My Life’
‘Fear Became My Life’ In this article I discuss my 6 step plan to move through my fears one step at a time. Fear, doubt, and uncertainty controlled me and ultimately led me into alcoholism. In this article I discuss more about how these factors contributed to me becoming alcoholic and how I move through…
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The plight of a single mother living in poverty. Here’s what the numbers say…
The plight of a single mother living in poverty. Here’s what the numbers say… According to the US 2020 Census there were 10.72 million single parent families with women representing over 80% of that number or approximately 8.58 million. Nearly a third of that number were living in poverty. So, how does a mother with…
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On May 7th, I celebrated 3 years of continous sobriety.
On May 7th, I celebrated 3 years of continous sobriety. There were countless times over the years in the midst of severe alcoholism where I dreamed of staying sober for just one day. I remember when I received my termination letter from my former employer on July 4th, 2007. After reading this letter a couple…
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2020 Homelessness in Los Angeles: We still don’t have a plan and here’s why:
We need a plan for the homeless in LA, yet we still do not have one… 2020 Homelessness in Los Angeles: We still don’t have a plan and here’s why: The homeless numbers for 2020 came out prior to the Covid-19 pandemic wave and the count reflected a double-digit increase for the second consecutive year.…
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Homelessness in LA was up BEFORE Covid-19. It Will Get WORSE Until it Gets Better.
Homelessness in LA was up BEFORE Covid-19. It Will Get WORSE Until it Gets Better. Covid-19 and The Homeless Here’s what you may not know today… This year’s homeless numbers just came out, and it represents a double-digit increase (13%) for the second consecutive year. They estimate the homeless number to grow another 20% in California according…