Source: L.A. Independent

L.A.'s 'Crisis of Housing and Heart'

Poverty: As homelessness increases in Hollywood, group opens a 65-bed shelter.

September 28, 2005

By ROSANNA MAH, The Independent Staff Writer

A 65-bed shelter to house the chronically homeless with temporary housing has opened in Hollywood.

Hollywood is ranked second, after downtown, with the highest homeless population, according to Hollywood Councilman Eric Garcetti, who joined over 1,100 volunteers in the county's first homeless count in January.

"This is not just a crisis of housing, it's a crisis of heart,"says Garcetti. "It's a crisis of how we define ourselves in the city."

Garcetti urged over 60 people who turned up at the shelter's Thursday grand opening to join in a city-wide effort, known as Project Y!MBY (acronym for Yes! In My Backyard), to gather community leaders and stakeholders to solve the regional homeless problem in the Southland.

An aide to Garcetti, said the councilman's claim that Hollywood has the second highest homeless population in Los Angeles was based on anecdotal material.

There are currently no studies that track the homeless population in communities that lie within the city of Los Angeles.

Officials with the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless say the new shelter is only a drop in the ocean when it comes to addressing the widespread homeless crisis facing the county.

"We were turning people away at our front doors," recalls Joel John Roberts, the nonprofit's chief executive officer. "As soon as we opened our doors 3 1/3 years ago at our Madison Avenue shelter, we knew we were inundated with people from Hollywood, and we needed more beds."

Founded in 1984, the organization opened its first facility in West Los Angeles, operating out of a Westwood church basement that offered food, clothing and employment assistance for the homeless. The nonprofit is now based in Hollywood, with three shelters and service centers that serves around 4,500 men, women and children.

Since its opening in May, the interim homeless shelter "" located at 5627 Fernwood Ave. ""has been a godsend for about 100 out of 88,000 homeless people who are scattered throughout Los Angeles county. Facilities at the shelter include a dining room, lounge area, lockers, as well as a separate women's dormitory.

"People who are homeless are part of our community," said West Hollywood Mayor Abbe Land, also co-chief executive of the Los Angeles Free Clinic, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. "[Without] the grace of God ... we are all probably just a few checks away from being potential homeless, especially with the health care system the way it is [and] with the high cost of housing. If anything bad happens to us, we could be on the streets just like that."

Assemblyman Paul Koretz and City Councilman Tom LaBonge also spoke at the ceremony.

Erza Dandridge, 33, who lost his job as an accountant and found himself living on the streets of Hollywood for over a month, credits the nonprofit for providing him shelter and the resources to find employment.

"I never thought I would ever become homeless," said Dandrige, who has lived at the shelter for three weeks. "It's a thin line between how I got here and how someone else got here. It's a real learning experience."