I hope that this is the first of many attempts by those of us who have been working for change for decades to begin a discussion of what real change could mean. For those of us working at the community level we are hoping that a new democratic administration under President Obama will represent a shift in financial priorities of course but we all know that money alone will never solve the problem. Housing and health care are on everyone's mind these days because middle America is hurting but lower income people, people living at the edge, communities and elected officials deal with housing and health care all the time. We all welcome the big picture change we have talked about now for months, but let's talk about what change will really mean for those of us working in the real world.
I am proposing this diary to hopefully promote a discussion of what real change will mean for those of us working to assist homeless individuals and families and those at risk of homelessness. Working in Los Angeles as the special needs housing manager for LA County is challenging and exciting but in the dark ages of the last seven years, been very difficult. I would like to talk about pilot programs here in LA that can be duplicated across the country provided we get the change we need with a new democratic administration. Last night I responded to a diary on health care coverage and the difficulty in citing medical clinics. I raised the issue of nimbyism and whether the progressives who were discussing this would welcome affordable housing for homeless people with multiple mental and chronic health problems in their own neighborhoods. I received some good feed back with a request for a diary on this topic.
Los Angeles, unfortunately, is the homeless capital of the United states with close to 90,000 homeless on any given night. We fight the good fight here within the bureaucracy; advocats working within the system, partnered with non profit service and housing development providers. I know this is going on all over the country but thought it would be interesing to find out what progressives know and think about this and what's going on.
I want to share with you some great programs, show how spending tax monies for housing with supportive services can actually save tax dollar; and discuss how nimbyism even among progressives is an impediment to solving these problems. You might have read about patient dumping in LA and it's true. We have a wonderful pilot project called Access to Housing For Health. If there is any interest in this subject I will talk about this and other efforts going on and we can discuss how to make this happen accross the country