The Los Angeles Times: Letters to the Editor: Why you — yes, you — are partly to blame for homelessness

Photo Credit: Alex Datig

Margaret Martin, Los Angeles

To the editor: This is a grave humanitarian crisis. To protect the health of all our citizens, we must take quick action. The Federal Emergency Management Agency should participate. This is what must be done:

• Declare homelessness in Los Angeles an emergency of the highest order, thereby making additional state and federal funds available.
• Designate overnight parking places where people living in vehicles can park without being harassed.
• Obtain and distribute tents, cots and blankets citywide.
• Set up and maintain public toilets, hand-washing facilities and garbage cans citywide that any citizen can access. Keep them secure.
• Transform out-of-service buses into mobile showers and laundries with regular routes, to enable homeless citizens to get their bodies and their clothing clean.
• Partner with local schools of medicine and social work to develop and deploy mobile clinics and counseling centers.
• Partner with local food banks and restaurants to provide homeless citizens with greater access to wholesome food on a daily basis, since they have no access to refrigeration or safe food storage.
• Mobilize additional street-cleaning crews.
• If we fail to take these basic actions, we should expect more disease outbreaks, violence and preventable deaths.

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