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Back in January, Santa Monica officials went out to conduct a homeless census within their oceanside city. 266 were found, but 107 were found to be "vulnerable," which was defined by examining their length of time spent on the street, age, physical and mental health condition.
Those identified as such were then put on the city's Chronic Homeless Project Service Registry so they could receive "intensive services." Now, five are permanently house and another eight are in temporary shelters.
Photo by discarted via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
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I could care less about putting them into homes and shelters. What I care more about is rehabilitation. A lot of homeless people have a difficult time adapting to a 'normal' lifestyle and leave their homes to go back to the streets.
Yikes, twooh, quite an assumption there. Innovative programs and research have both shown, over and over again, that giving homeless people (even those with an 'abnormal' lifestyle) a roof over their head improves their well-being, their health, and their ability to cope other stressors that they face in life.
Understandably, housing is not the ONLY answer. But it is a HUGE one. Looks like Zach mentions above that those in the homeless registry are going to get "intensive services".
And anecdotally, i'm a healthcare provider who takes care of a good number of homeless people. Providing housing for them would restore a significant amount of dignity and stability to their lives.
This chronic homeless project service registry is a grand idea. I wish it would tap into some of the systems already in place to find these folks (we have very sick homeless patients in our clinics who we could volunteer up as the most vulnerable!) and that the project would include more homeless people (our cities DO have the resources to do this, and time and time again in other cities that have tried to house homeless people, it has turned out to be hugely economically and humanely advantageous to the city).
Anjali's post gives me faith in humanity again.
Also, this - http://www.scribeskidrow.blogspot.com/