By Mathew Millen Santa Monica
Rebecca Isaacs is the executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). Her proposal asking 1,500 people to volunteer, i.e. work for free, to count the homeless in Los Angeles County borders on the absurd. Let’s look at the facts. Isaacs lives in a million dollar mansion in the exclusive north of Montana neighborhood. Her salary is in excess of $120,000, plus benefits. Before she asks people, including the homeless, to work for free she should first set an example by 1) developing a second unit “granny flat” on her lot to house a formerly homeless person or family leaving one of Santa Monica’s shelters; 2) she should organize her Wilshire neighbors and demand the city develop 500 units of multi-family low-income housing from Wilshire to San Vicente Boulevard, over the next four years; and 3) with a budget of almost $60 million she should find the funds to hire the homeless to work with the teams of enumerators. The homeless know where their fellow travelers are sleeping under bridges, along freeways embankments, etc. If paid, some of them would have the income to pay for shelter, even if for a few nights.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 1, 2007. Read the original PDF.