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Tag: Chronic Homelessness

Excelling for the 2028 Olympics: Restoring, Not Displacing, LA’s Unsheltered Residents

September 4, 2024 / By Daniel Flaming, Gary L. Blasi, Anthony W. Orlando and Sam Tsemberis / Economic Roundtable

Los Angeles’ most glaring flaw as host of the 2028 Olympics is the nation’s largest population of unsheltered homeless individuals. If LA fails to make inroads on the problem, 2028 will be a disaster for unhoused people and LA’s reputation. Restoring the lives of unsheltered residents will be an Olympic achievement.

Basic Housing Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles

April 25, 2024 / By Gary L. Blasi, Benjamin F. Henwood, Sam Tsemberis and Daniel Flaming

Public policy in Los Angeles as long been blind to the central fact that unhoused people are extremely poor. Direct cash subsidies could help move tens of thousands of homeless Angelenos into housing at a far lower cost per person than our current system.

The Work Behind Work: Combatting Homelessness with Jobs

February 14, 2024 / By Seth Pickens, Daniel Flaming, Manuel Gomez and Ana Alvarez

The most common reason unhoused individuals give for why they do not have a place of their own to live is unemployment and lack of income. Homelessness is primarily a problem of income. Upstream interventions that lead to employment will significantly reduce the number of men, women and children who experience homelessness.
Photograph courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, originally accompanying "Op-Ed: Two-thirds of L.A.’s homeless are trying to find work. Let’s help them" By Daniel Flaming June 6, 2019.

Rapid Re-employment Offers an Escape from Cardboard City: Homelessness Is an Income Problem as well as a Housing Problem

June 6, 2019 / By Daniel Flaming / Los Angeles Times

More taxpayer dollars are being spent on homeless housing and services, yet homelessness in Los Angeles County increased 12% last year and chronic homelessness is up 17%. Society needs to do better. Homelessness is an income problem as well as a housing problem — and both need to be addressed to solve L.A.’s 

Escape Routes: Meta-Analysis of Homelessness in L.A.

April 24, 2018 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns and Jane Carlen / the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

We can’t navigate without a map. If we can't see the whole picture of homelessness, we can't begin to solve the problem. This meta-analysis brings together 26 point-in-time data sets to provide a single panoramic description of people without homes who are living in places not meant for human habitation. In addition to building affordable housing, the path for ending Los Angeles County’s crisis of chronic homelessness is through identifying individuals with a high risk of becoming chronically homeless early after the onset of homelessness and intervening with coordinated system-wide assistance that supports a permanent exit from homelessness before the problem is catastrophic.
Photograph by Geoff Livingston, "Me and My Boom Box." Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on April 10, 2017, taken in the Skid Row neighborhood, Los Angeles, on April 2, 2017. Protected under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED license. The Economic Roundtable has not changed the image, and does not imply that the licensor endorses our use. The Economic Roundtable is not using the material for commercial purposes, and is not redistributing a modified, remixed, transformed, or built upon version of the material.

Who Counts: Assessing Accuracy of L.A.'s Homeless Count

November 20, 2017 / By Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns / Economic Roundtable

Within the past year, Los Angeles County and City voters approved $4.75 billion for services and housing to combat homelessness. The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is crucial for identifying how this money should be used to help people escape homelessness. The Count is an increasingly comprehensive effort to count and describe Los Angeles’ homeless residents, but it is not yet sufficiently accurate to identify year-to-year changes in homelessness. 
Photography by Daniel Flaming, taken in downtown Los Angeles, June 25, 2014. Owned by Economic Roundtable, creation of ERt staff.

All Alone: Antecedents of Chronic Homelessness

August 25, 2015 / By Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns / the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Public assistance programs are Los Angeles’s primary interface with individuals experiencing homelessness and can be a catalyst for connecting at-risk and homeless recipients with crucial services and reducing the massive public costs associated with chronic homelessness. The vital role is to identify tripwire events among all recipients, particularly children and transition-age youth, and quickly connect at-risk individuals with needed employment, behavioral health and housing services.
Photography by Robin Kanouse, "Homeless On The Streets of Los Angeles, California, USA." Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on March 1, 2010, taken on February 28, 2010. Protected under the CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED license. The Economic Roundtable did not make changes to the image, and does not suggests the licensor endorses our use.  The Economic Roundtable is not using the the material for commercial purposes, and is not applying legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Getting Home: Outcomes from Housing High Cost Homeless Hospital Patients

September 1, 2013 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner - Statistician and triage tool developer and Susan Lee - Corporation for Supportive Housing / Economic Roundtable, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, UniHealth Foundation

Evaluating the outcomes for 163 hospital patients screened from April 2011 to May 2013 by the 10th Decile Project in Los Angeles, which works with hospitals to identify the 10 percent of homeless patients with the highest public and hospital costs – the 10th decile – and provide immediate services for placing these individuals into permanent supportive housing.

Photograph of a sleeping, unsheltered homeless resident, downtown Los Angeles, by Daniel Flaming, 2023. Owned by Economic Roundtable, creation of ERt staff.

Hospital to Home: Triage Tool II for Identifying Homeless Hospital Patients in Crisis

November 18, 2012 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner, Manuel H. Moreno and Halil Toros / Economic Roundtable

Different conditions of body and mind found among homeless adults provide a basis for predicting who will have very high public costs – in the 10th cost decile. This report presents a triage tool developed specifically for use in hospitals or clinics where there is not access to data from other agencies about the use of non-medical public services. 
Photograph by St Stev, "Trashcan and a Homeless Man." Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on April 1, 2008, taken on February 2, 2008. Protected under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED licence. No alteration or commercial use of this photo made by the Economic Roundtable. the Economic Roundtable Has not remixed, transformed, or built upon the material.

Crisis Indicator: Triage Tool for Identifying Homeless Adults in Crisis

August 1, 2011 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns, Gerald Sumner, Manuel H. Moreno and Halil Toros / the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Corporation for Supportive Housing

The triage tool, or crisis indicator, identifies homeless individuals in hospitals and jails who have continuing crises in their lives that create very high public costs. This redesigned tool is four times more accurate than the earlier screening tool released in 2010. The tool is developed for use in jails, hospitals and clinics where homeless individuals with high levels of need and high public costs are most likely to be found. Discovery of the exceptionally high public costs for people in the 10th cost decile has led to interest in identifying these individuals and giving them high priority for access to permanent supportive housing. This group accounts for well over half of all public costs for homeless adults, and their costs decrease by 86 percent when they live in permanent supportive housing.
Report layout, design and all associated graphics assembled by the Health Consumer Alliance of California, underwriter of the Economic Roundtable's research study and report. HCA is a network of ten consumer assistance programs operated by community-based legal services organizations across the state of California. https://healthconsumer.org/ Images drawn from public domain collections. The Economic Roundtable is not using it for commercial purposes.

Dividends of a Hand Up: Public Benefits of Moving Indigent Adults with Disabilities onto SSI

March 1, 2011 / By Daniel Flaming / the Health Consumer Alliance of California

Counties bear large hidden costs for individuals with disabilities who are indigent or homeless. This includes costs for health care, jails and probation in addition to readily identifiable county costs for public assistance. A large share of this cost is health related – costs that the federal and state governments would pay through Medi-Cal if the individuals were receiving Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI). 
Photograph by David Kjelkerud, "Strategy at Galerienhaus." Photograph uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on July 29, 2008, taken on July 26, 2008.  Protected under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED license. 

10-Year Strategy to End Homelessness

June 1, 2006 / By Daniel Flaming and Paul Tepper / The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

A comprehensive strategy with 25 actions, accountable agencies, timelines, and performance benchmarks to prevent and end homelessness in Los Angeles County. From 2002 through 2004 the Economic Roundtable and the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center carried out research, listened to ideas from community stakeholders, and met with public officials in order to prepare this strategic plan for ending homelessness in Los Angeles County. 

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