Brentwood News August 27, 2021

August 27 – September 23, 2021

Report Advises Against Most Westside Homeless Shelter Locations Following Bonin’s Call for Feasibility Study City Administrative Officer concludes majority of proposed sites are infeasible for residential use B y S am C atanzaro Bringing homeless shelters to Will Rogers and Dockweiler beaches, Mar Vista and Westchester parks alongside other locations is infeasible, city officials concluded in a recent report.

On August 10, the Los Angeles City Administrative Officer (CAO) finished a feasibility analysis of potential shelter locations in the 11th District. The analysis comes after Los Angeles City Council voted in May to approve Bonin’s proposal to look into bringing more homeless housing centers to the Westside.

In the Tuesday report, the CAO concluded the majority of the sites Bonin prosed were infeasible for homeless shelters.

“My thanks to the CAO for conducting the study and for underscoring the challenge of finding locations on the Westside,” Bonin said in a statement. “I believe very strongly that every part of the city, including the Westside, must provide

solutions to homelessness, and I will keep working with neighbors to find them.”

According to Bonin, he will not push the City to continue pursuing the sites the CAO deemed infeasible.

Among the locations deemed infeasible is the Los Angeles County-owned parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach,17000 Pacific Coast Highway, pegged as a potential temporary site for singleoccupancy tiny-homes or safe camping. The CAO cited high infrastructure costs and logistical issues at this site and also for a similar proposal at Dockweiler Beach in Playa del Rey. “The beach sites were not built for 24/7 residential use, and thus, the sewer infrastructure is not suitable for homeless housing,” reads the analysis. “The power capacity would have to be increased at both beaches, and the nearest transformer is located 1,000 feet from the sites.”

In addition, the report cited the lack of nearby fire hydrants at these two beaches as among the reasons why the sites would be infeasible for residential use.

The CAO report also deemed it infeasible to bring safe sleeping to a privately owned plot of land in Del Rey citing lack of access and utilities.

In addition, the analysis concluded bringing safe sleeping sites at Mar Vista and Westchester parks would be infeasible because the sites are widely used by the public and generate revenue for the city.

“Prior to the pandemic, both Westchester and

Mar Vista Parks experienced varied and robust recreational usage. Data from both parks show that on average more than 6,000 youth participants attend and utilize the parks and facilities. The parking lots are needed for pick up and drop off for programming and aquatics,” the CAO report states. “These parks generate more than $500,000 in annual revenue.”

Instead, the CAO recommended that these two parks should be considered for targeted outreach through the “Encampment to Home” program,

which just housed over 200 people from Venice Beach.

The report also deemed infeasible Bonin’s proposal to bring a temporary homeless shelter to the West LA Municipal Building “The Municipal Building is zoned as public facilities, and thus, not feasible for shelter use.

Even if the zoning was changed to accommodate

Homeless Shelter, see page 7

Sheriff to Begin Process of Clearing San Vicente Encampment More details to be announced at September BCC meeting

By Sam Catanzaro The Sheriff has begun the process to clear a homeless encampment outside the West Los

Angeles VA. According to the Brentwood Community Council (BCC) the assessment process has begun by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) to clear the encampment from on the sidewalk along San Vicente Boulevard.

“The LASD is working in tight coordination with housing providers, the Department of Mental Health and the VA to offer services and housing to all residents of the encampment. It is likely that we will see gradual improvement over the next 30 days in addition to specific days of significant sidewalk activity,” the

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BCC wrote in a newsletter this week.

According to the BCC, the LASD Homeless Outreach and Services Team leader Lt. Geoff Deedrick will be in attendance at the September BCC meeting to report to the full community with more details.

“As frustrating as it may be, especially for those who live close to the encampment, the LASD requests the community allow them to work quietly and respectfully during this time.

They have enormous resources available and are working as quickly as possible,” the BCC added REDEFINING LUXURY REAL ESTATE ON THE WESTSIDE GARY GLASS | 310.820.9343 Lic# 00933169 Gary@GaryGlassEstates.com GaryGlassEstates.com

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“Complicated” Doesn’t Mean “Impossible” Founding Publisher For some months now I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations about what to do about homelessness. One recurring theme I hear over and over again is “how complicated” this is.

Complication No. 1: Not all homeless individuals are alike. Some maybe just lost a job and just need a quick hand up; others have mental health issues but don’t do drugs (and can be rehabilitated with counseling); others do drugs (and need more serious rehab); some are so far gone they need permanent care.

Complication No. 2: There are lots of laws about what can and can’t be done to move homeless individuals out of encampments and into other forms of shelter. And then there’s the inconvenient fact there aren’t enough places to put the homeless, even if you could legally move them. And then there is the question of whether elected officials even want to enforce the laws or not. And some think the homeless have civil rights and should pretty much be able to live wherever they want and do whatever they want.

Complication No. 3: There are big debates about what’s the best and most affordable type of shelter – tent villages, tiny homes, shipping containers, big apartment buildings. Many say the reason the big permanent supportive housing units cost so much is because of all the red tape, regulations, consultants and other city- and county-required add-ons that can add 35% to the cost of a structure.

Complication No. 4: Finding funding for low-income/affordable housing that includes some units for homeless individuals is wildly complicated, with banks buying up tax credits and then using these credits to fund the projects. This is just one source of funding; there is usually a mix of public and private money, as well. It can take years to put together the money required to build housing. Developers find life much easier when they just build high-cost housing for high-income people. The money is there, the market is there, the headaches aren’t there.

Complication No. 5: Zoning laws make it really hard to build up the density that will be required to deal with the homelessness issue at scale. LA has a massive affordable housing crisis, not just a homelessness crisis (though the two are related).

The availability of affordable land is obviously an issue and some parts of the city and county have more land than others. But if we could build higher, especially along transportation corridors, that helps contribute to the solution.

Complication No. 6: There are many governmental agencies involved in all this – federal, state, county and city. We have 88 cities in LA County, and different cities handle things different ways. Many of LA’s homeless arrive from other cities and states. It’s hard to take action that requires all these entities to agree.

Complication No. 7: And then we have politics. Different elected officials have very different points of view about what should or shouldn’t happen when it comes to dealing with homelessness. Politicians who want to stay in office have to pay attention to what their constituents want. It’s fair to say, most constituents

don’t want a bunch of homeless individuals stashed in their neighborhood.

Complication No. 8: Where will the money come from? Homelessness is a big problem that’s going to require a big (expensive) solution. Do we just keep taxing ourselves and let the politicians continue with the $650K condos? Or is it time to try something else?

Complication No. 9: Lack of will power appears to be a real issue. It’s not clear our elected officials have the stomach to do something big enough and bold enough that will actually solve the problem. It’s easier, it seems, to live in denial and hope to be on to the next elected post before being held accountable for results.

Complication No. 10: It seems like the voters have finally had enough. This is a new development. But will this be enough to translate into new candidates, new elected officials and new approaches that will actually make a difference?

Change is never easy.

As we look ahead, with an eye toward coming up with solutions, it seems like there should be general agreement on at least a few points: • Spending $650K per permanent supportive housing unit is scandalous, unaffordable and takes way too long to build. The Prop HHH money will result in an estimated 5,700 units. What about the other 60,000 homeless individuals in LA County? I think the $650K condos will go down in history as one of the worst policy blunders of all time.

• Reasonable minds can debate whether there truly is a “pay to play” system in place (developers and others who make campaign contributions get awarded the contracts; one

Photo: Getty

“Spreading out the homeless problem – and solution – equally across the city isn’t feasible.

We simply don’t have the land on the Westside, and putting homeless individuals in parks or on the beaches robs all of LA of happy access to these amenities. We need to build villages for the homeless where the land is more readily available, which means other parts of LA. This isn’t a NIMBY statement; it’s just a reality statement,” writes Jeff Hall in his latest column.

hand washes the other). Nobody is saying this system is currently illegal (though maybe it should be). But it’s hard to argue there isn’t at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

But we shouldn’t become anti-developer in this conversation; we need their help in order to solve this problem.

• Tiny homes, shipping containers, decent tents, shared apartments and other forms of small (and affordable) housing units are the way to go if we are to tackle this problem at scale, affordably, and in a reasonable time frame.

Complicated, see page 7

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HOW COVID-19 IS AFFECTING INDIVIDUALS WITH HEARING LOSS

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tremendously. Unfortunately, for the purposes of social distancing during COVID-19, we are asked to remain six feet apart from one another. By increasing the distance to six feet, the audibility of speech drops by anywhere from six to twelve decibels. The added obstacle of a mask over the speaker’s mouth will drop the audibility of speech even further.

W

e’d like to introduce you to Melissa Alexander, a board certified doctor of Audiology located at 1260 15th St. Suite P2 Santa Monica 90404. While COVID-19 has disrupted many aspects of people’s lives, the Hard of Hearing and Deaf Community has particularly been challenged. Masks play an important role in slowing the transmission of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still recommends face masks for the general public, regardless of vaccination status, in indoor public places and outdoors where there is a high risk of COVID-19 transmission. However, mask wearing makes clear communication even more difficult for individuals with hearing loss.

If you’re finding it difficult to understand someone wearing a mask, you’re not alone.

Both hearing impaired individuals and those with normal hearing will notice a significant decrease in their ability to understand someone with a mask on.

Whether we have hearing loss or normal hearing, we all use a variety of communication strategies to help understand speech. We sit close (typically within 3 feet) to the speaker to hear their voice more clearly. We read the speaker’s body language while they speak. We use visual cues from the mouth during a conversation to fill in the gaps with contextual cues. Did the speaker say ‘rat’ or ‘bat’? Being able to see the lips of the speaker aids in facilitating communication,

Certain masks do a better job of letting in speech while still protecting the individual wearing the mask. A study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America evaluated different mask types to determine which type of mask muffles speech least. Single use surgical masks (the blue ones) and KN95 masks dampened the least amount of sound (only about five decibels), while the cotton handmade masks dampened anywhere from eight to fourteen decibels of speech. Surprisingly, face masks with clear windows (the very kind recommended for communicating with the hard of hearing) reduced the audibility of the talker’s voice the most (nearly fifteen deibels).

So what can we do during this challenging time, to help individuals with hearing loss?

One hearing aid manufacturer is trying to address this issue. Signia has a revolutionary new feature called “mask mode”, which is available to the user in an app on their smartphone. The user simply engages the mask mode and their hearing aids increase the audibility of speech immediately. This feature dramatically improves the clarity of speech when someone is wearing a mask.

Even if a patient is wearing a different brand of hearing aid, their Audiologist may be able to create a program to improve audibility in these challenging listening situations.

It’s more important than ever to be mindful of your communication. When speaking to someone who’s hearing impaired, remember to speak slowly, clearly, and at a normal volume. Try to keep background noise in the room to a minimum. Make sure to face each other when talking, and take turns when speaking. Rephrase yourself when misunderstood, rather than just repeating.

Chances are, if you repeat something a listener didn’t understand the first time, you will not be understood the second time.

Rewording your statement provides more context, which improves the likelihood of being understood. And, if you are hearing impaired, remember to always wear your hearing aids.

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Homeless Shelter, from page 1 shelter, the available space is too small to make an interim housing project viable. An interim housing facility should be a minimum of 13,000 square feet to provide up to 70 beds, administrative offices, hygiene facilities, common space, and storage, to make it financially and programmatically viable,” the report states.

Two parking lots– in Marina del Rey and at Dockweiler beach–are still under consideration by the CAO for RV-safe parking sites. Bonin’s proposal also called for looking into shelters on airport land at LAX, which is also still under consideration by the CAO. “[Los Angeles World Airports] has identified possible sites for homeless interventions and requested that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) review for approval. The FAA would have to agree to allow the use of airport land for homeless housing and waive the requirement that land purchased with FAA funds be leased at market rate,” the report states.

Overall, the CAO concluded that the Westside

Complicated, from page 4 • Spreading out the homeless problem – and solution – equally across the city isn’t feasible. We simply don’t have the land on the Westside, and putting homeless individuals in parks or on the beaches robs all of LA of happy access to these amenities. We need to build villages for the homeless where the land is more readily available, which means other parts of LA. This isn’t a NIMBY statement; it’s just a reality statement.

• Many homeless individuals like living in their encampments. Many do drugs and are involved in bike theft and other crimes. Some get in fights and start fires. On the streets, they can panhandle, buy drugs, hang out – and remain free. Entering a more structured housing arrangement, to many homeless individuals, is like going to prison. If there isn’t some legal mechanism whereby we can force these individuals into alternative forms of housing – and that assumes such housing exists – there will always be a significant number of homeless living on our streets.

• Once everyone has a place to go, then we can legally ask them to leave the encampments – and then we can get back to building

lacks publicly owned land that can be used to house homeless individuals and that Los Angeles should continue to lease privately owned sites for homeless interventions.

“Council District 11, like Council Districts 1, 5, 7, and 12, lacks City-owned land that can be used for homeless interventions. For these areas, we should continue to identify privately-owned sites that can be leased for homeless interventions and request that the Los Angeles Housing Department pursue properties under the Project Homekey 2 Program. Most of these districts benefited from Round 1 of Project Homekey. In Council District 11, two motels/hotels were purchased, and are now operating as interim housing,” Bonin noted in a press release that he was “pleased” the CAO report pointed toward motel conversions and Encampments to Homes, both programs he has pushed for.

“If the City adequately funds motel purchases or master leasing through Project Homekey, and if the City matches sufficient housing resources to Encampments to Homes, we can quickly bring thousands of people indoors, reducing the need for tiny homes and safe camping sites,” Bonin said. permanent supportive housing – or maybe not. If we do a good job of rehab, job training and the like, maybe quite a few of today’s homeless population can re-enter mainstream society and won’t need the more costly permanent supportive housing.

• It’s likely tiny home villages will become a way of life for many – for many years to come. But tiny homes beat the hell out of the street encampments. One guy at a Hope of the Valley tiny home village (up in San Fernando Valley) calls his tiny home his “Taj Mahal.” This idea that tiny homes or other comparable approaches aren’t “good enough” or “undignified” seems very wrong-headed to me. Leaving people on the streets year after year is what’s not good enough and truly undignified. It’s a sin, really.

• There cannot and should not be any entitlement to a $650K condo. Lots of everyday citizens live in places far less nice. This approach also isn’t fair to the homeless individuals left out on the streets. We will have spent $1.2 billion to solve a problem – and then failed to solve it.

If we can agree on the nature of the problem, that makes it easier to focus on actual solutions that might work. If you’d like to participate in this conversation, please get in touch: jeffhall@mirrormediagroupla.com.

Andy Lopez

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