Angeles. And though their funding is distributed in many directions, the main players in local philanthropy are united in focusing a large chunk of their giving on what is undeniably the city’s biggest issue: homelessness.
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES
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OHN MACERI is one of the leading forces fighting L.A.’s homelessness epidemic. He’s executive director of The People Concern, a Santa Monica–based nonprofit formed from the merger of OPCC and Lamp Community that focuses on poverty and homelessness. It’s one of the largest social service agencies of its kind in Los Angeles County and supports thousands of homeless people and victims of domestic violence every year. Like his counterparts working in Skid Row and across the county, Maceri takes a systemic view of homelessness, seeing it as an extreme manifestation of poverty that has been exacerbated by a severe lack of affordable housing. “It’s really the perfect storm,” he says. “You have a tight, expensive real-estate market, and we’re not adding new affordable units to the inventory fast enough to replace the housing that’s being lost either through being torn down or through gentrification or redevelopment.” Vacancy rates for various types of housing in L.A. have generally hovered between 2 percent and 5 percent for the past few years. “So there’s an imbalance,” Maceri explains. “We have a housing crisis, which we’ve had really for a long time, but it’s accelerated in the last several years, which has contributed to our increase in homelessness.” The intuitive way to counteract homelessness is simply to build more housing. The growing consensus among experts, service providers, researchers, and practically everyone working around issues of
homelessness is that the best way to eliminate chronic homelessness is to build and operate what’s known as permanent supportive housing—housing with on-site or connected social, medical, mental health, substance abuse, and case management services. Studies show that supportive housing reduces homelessness, often at a lower cost than providing maintenancefocused services like soup kitchens and shelters. Maceri says philanthropic donors—the large grantmaking
we’ve been able to do that has been innovative,” Maceri says. Philanthropic institutions are recognizing the power they wield. Some are even taking on an almost activist role. United Way of Greater Los Angeles recently reorganized its institutional mission away from the foundation’s traditionally neutral stance and into the arena of policymaking and advocacy. It is now focused almost entirely on issues of poverty and homelessness—and on finding ways to ensure its grants and
“PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY REALLY CAN BE AND HAS BEEN THE CATALYST FOR A LOT OF THE WORK THAT WE’VE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT HAS BEEN INNOVATIVE.” JOHN MACERI, The People Concern
institutions as well as individuals mailing in checks—have been crucial for The People Concern’s efforts to expand the supply of housing for formerly homeless individuals. About 30 percent of the organization’s funding comes from philanthropy every year, and he says it’s far more nimble than the slow and often restricted funding from government grants and programs. “Private philanthropy really can be and has been the catalyst for a lot of the work that
funding can make a measurable impact on those problems. One of its key efforts was the 2010 launch of Home For Good, a plan to end chronic and veteran homelessness created in partnership with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. As part of that plan, United Way of Greater Los Angeles established the Funders Collaborative, a unique, coordinated effort by more than a dozen local philanthropies that combine funding to propel local programs to