LINCOLN BLVD. — First went the business, then the apartment. After 20 years running an operation that represented wholesale clothing manufacturers to retailers in Downtown Los Angeles’ Garment District, 59-year-old Alvaro Sotelo was without a job or home, left to face a murky future in a hostile job
DOWNTOWN — It might seem counterintuitive in an expensive real estate market but housing the homeless can cost taxpayers less than keeping them on the streets.
VENICE — There will be 20 fewer homeless individuals living on the streets after a local nonprofit organization bought an apartment building that will provide housing for the down and out.
CITY HALL — If history means anything, then Santa Monica city officials might be forced to suspend enforcement of its anti camping ordinance. That’s what officials in Los Angeles and Laguna Beach did as part of their settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union after it sued the cities for all
VENICE — Through the lens of a camera, Rebecca Curry re-lived what it was like to be homeless. Armed with an SLR digital camera, the former client of OPCC’s Daybreak recently ventured back to the streets to capture the memories of a dark two-year-period, taking a picture of her son’s stuffed animals
CITY HALL — There was a 56-year-old woman who once lived on the streets of Santa Monica, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and claiming she sees spaceships coming for her nightly, the same ones that murdered her parents and sister.
VENICE — Somewhere on the streets lives a 59-year-old man who once served his country in the armed forces, today fighting a different kind of enemy — cancer, hepatitis C and kidney and liver diseases.
CITY HALL — A pilot project focused on helping homeless individuals access services and clear court records of so-called “quality of life crimes” is being extended and expanded, all while costing taxpayers less money, city officials said Thursday.
MID-CITY — As local residents continue to feel the crunch of the national economic recession, small community groups are making big differences in the lives of those who have fallen on hard times.
CIVIC CENTER — During a recession that has seen people losing jobs and homes comes some interesting news that the local homeless population is actually shrinking.
CITYWIDE — Responding to concerns that a proposed anti-panhandling campaign could reinforce stereotypes about a city once known as the “home for the homeless,” officials are looking to take a different approach.
CITYWIDE — For more than 200 volunteers, a long night had just began. Just before 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the Ken Edwards Center on Fourth Street was packed with volunteers who gathered to participate in the Santa Monica homeless count for 2009.
