To the editor: As much as I object to added bureaucracy, I'm surprised California hasn't created a new agency whose sole job is to fight homelessness. (“California spent billions on homelessness without tracking whether it worked,” April 9)
Instead, some $20 billion has been spent over the past five years without any single point of management and accountability. Instead, we have a hodgepodge of agencies, all with different views on solutions and with little to show for the money they are spending.
What we have by way of oversight is a state committee, whose members have little real responsibility and little monitoring and validation of their effectiveness. No one will lose their job if it doesn't work; It's just something they do in their free time and put it on their resumes or in political ads.
My recommendation for director would be a retired general or admiral who has no political aspirations, but is smart and mean enough to get the job done.
Roger Krenkler, Westlake Village
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To the editor: What a perfect moment.
I paid my property taxes last Tuesday. On April 15 I pay my state income taxes.
But The Times reports that the council created to monitor the $20 billion the state has spent on homeless programs over the past five years doesn't really know whether any of these programs were effective.
Fire each of these council members.
Meanwhile, The Times recently reported on staffing shortages at Los Angeles County juvenile facilities and on California students sleeping in their cars. Remind me again, why do we pay taxes?
Susan Scheding, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Humanize homelessness.
I was at the Metro station last summer and saw a woman sitting on a public bench, fully clothed, and she started urinating while crying. If she were a girl, her human instinct would be to go help her instead of leaving her sitting around in dirty clothes damaging public property.
It makes me angry to see how carelessly the state has handled homelessness. The incompetence that comes with not effectively budgeting for our most pressing problem is astronomical.
With summer approaching, we all know how uncomfortably hot Los Angeles can get, something city leaders sitting in air-conditioned offices doing anything other than their work may not understand.
Humanize homelessness. He is someone's son, someone's brother, someone's spouse, someone's father. That's someone.
Until the State plays its role, I plead with the humanity in you and urge you to step forward.
Priya Khullar, Reseda
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To the editor: The Times has been publishing articles about how much money is being spent on the effort to end homelessness and notes that the number of homeless people continues to rise.
Continue with articles about how increases in housing prices push people off the bottom of the rental market and into homelessness.
It seems likely that people are becoming homeless at a faster rate than local governments and nonprofits can create housing, leading to the misconception that dollars intended to address the crisis are being wasting
María Montag, El Segundo
