Here are some of my ideas:
* Put the mentally ill in hospitals. That will solve about 90% of homelessness.
* Figure out why there are so few asian or latino homeless and see if there are things that can be emulated.
* Provide a place for them to go that is far away from respectable citizens.
* The nicer Los Angeles is to the homeless, the more homeless it will get.
But the $138 million budgeted by Garcetti this year is more goal than guarantee, with roughly half of it still something of a mirage.
L.A. County has a more solid $150-million budget for homelessness, and even at that, Supervisor Sheila Kuehl warned that modest sums won’t counter economic trends that are “forcing people out of their houses.”
Translation: The steady advance of tent cities and rolling homes is headed soon to your neighborhood, if it’s not already there.
It’s time for Garcetti, and Kuehl, and other city and county officials, to start campaigning for a reliable source of funding — a sales tax, a bond measure, or fees on new development.
Come on, somebody has to take this on. We’re going to become the next Calcutta unless some 21st-century hero steps up.
