Myers Housing/Homelessness Q3
The homelessness problem is more difficult to solve than the housing shortage and affordability problem. It is also more permanent and likely to keep growing for the foreseeable future. Our booming economy cannot stem this tide, nor can a potential glut of affordable housing. Mayor Garcetti’s major efforts of the last year could not so easily put “Humpty Dumpty together again.” What we are seeing is the broad unraveling of social support systems that we have relied upon for generations. Evidence of what is missing today can be gleaned by comparing the status of very low-income immigrants. Very few are homeless because they benefit from social support of kin and country folk. What is it that’s missing from our domestic homeless population and how can we rebuild that missing fabric? Or how can we help grow a wholly new social fabric that will provide support for our growing numbers of lost Americans? We had best figure this out with today’s homeless because this disintegration could well make deeper inroads into the middle class in the decade ahead.
