What one LA nonprofit is doing to address homelessness

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 By Cody Jones


Other major cities besides Portland deal with the complex issues of homelessness. Cities like Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Austin. City officials want to provide an ideal image of their city for the residents and tourists but at the same time are lost on how to humanly achieve this. A lot of the times the issue of homelessness will be pushed to the wayside in city council meetings as the council decides on what they deem as more prudent issues instead. The reality is that homelessness is as prudent as it gets. If one cares about human life then homelessness should not be an issue that plagues pretty much every major city in the United States. 


This being said a few cities have started to take the rights steps in order to solve these issues. In Los Angeles, California a non-profit organization of the name, Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, has teamed up with the city to start ensuring that homelessness becomes an issue of the past.


Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission has started building tiny home villages throughout the LA area that is specifically for homeless individuals. These villages have already proven to be beneficial to the city but also to the homeless community. The Hope of the Valley tiny home village doesn’t care if the houseless individual has legal problems or drug issues. They only ask that they leave all weapons in a lockbox outside of the village. While in the village individuals can start to take their first steps to no longer being homeless. The tiny home villages give individuals their own very 64 square foot home, already equipped with a bed, desk, air conditioning, and heat. While in the village the individuals will have the opportunity to engage in a safe community where they can get mental health help as well as have the security to leave their belongings as they go look for potential work opportunities.


Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission funds these tiny homes through donations and their thrift stores throughout the LA area. They currently have four villages and are looking to build more. So far these villages have helped to make parts of Los Angeles look more appealing while giving homeless people the right resources for success. That being said more villages and similar ideas will need to be employed in order for the issue of homelessness to be completely erased. 

 

It will be interesting to see if other cities start to try to roll out some of the same programs that other cities are using to address homelessness. I know that Portland is exploring their own version of the tiny home villages for the homeless off of Broadway and near the Waterfront. These villages in Portland do look more appealing than tents and debris in other parts of the city all while also giving the homeless a vast array of resources. However, there are still lots of tent camps with trash in other parts of the city. 


In the end, I do not think there is necessarily anyone solve all program to address homelessness rather it is going to take the compilation of lots of programs to terminate homelessness.

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