What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
COVID: Destroying Jobs and Increasing Homelessness
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The COVID pandemic has given birth to a brutal recession. A new report from the Economic Roundtable predicts job loss from this recession will cause homelessness in Los Angeles to skyrocket. How bad could it get? Who will it hurt? And most importantly, how can we prevent it? Mike talks about that with the report’s author, Dan Flaming, this week on What’s Next, Los Angeles. (Plus, Mike shares a few thoughts on the Biden inaugural.)
Important Links
Economic Roundtable
Locked Out: Unemployment and Homelessness in the COVID Economy
Dan Flaming Bio
Coverage of the Locked Out Report
LA Times: Covid 19 job losses will worsen LA homelessness by 2023, new report says
Fast Company: The pandemic recession could cause an enormous spike in homelessness
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
The COVID pandemic has given birth to a brutal recession. A new report out from the economic roundtable predicts job loss from this recession is going to cause homelessness in Los Angeles to skyrocket. How bad could it get, and who will it hurt? And most importantly, how can we prevent it? We're going to talk about that with the report's author, Dan Fleming, this week on What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi everybody, and welcome to What's Next Los Angeles. I'm your host, Mike Bonin, and I want to thank you for joining me. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, uh just up front, let me let you know I am not just a member of the LA City Council. I'm also a dad. I'm a husband, I'm a progressive, I'm a recovering addict and alcoholic, and this week I am an absolutely relieved American, just freaking thankful to have Donald Trump and his plagues and his pestilence out of the White House and out of Washington. I I I don't know about you, but watching the inauguration the other day, I kind of felt like I was exhaling for the first time in four years. And then listening to the just amazing and inspiring words of Amanda Gorman, I kind of felt like I was finally breathing again. And then watching that celebrating America broadcast with my family on Wednesday night was pretty damn powerful. After four years of American carnage, of ego and of hate and of white supremacy, it was so powerful and so emotional to hear again about hopes and dreams, about community and solidarity, and to see our diversity celebrated. Just watching those those dancing and singing frontline workers and medical workers, it was like looking at the real America again. It was beautiful. Now look, I I am uh was and will be a Bernie Sanders supporter. And I am considerably, I think, to President Biden's left. But I have been very encouraged by his first moves, by his first day executive orders, and by his proposals for COVID and economic relief. There is some really good stuff in there that could really help Los Angeles and our neighborhoods with some of the issues that we are struggling with and with some of the issues that I'm really passionate about. Things like economic relief for struggling families and for renters, things like fighting the climate crisis, for public transportation, and especially, especially for combating homelessness. And that homelessness is our topic this week on what's next, Los Angeles. Across the country, throughout California, and all over Los Angeles, the homelessness crisis is an absolute nightmare. And unless we make big structural and systemic change in our economy and in our society, it's gonna get worse. Like much worse. A new report shows that the pandemic's great recession is creating job loss so extreme that it is going to create a brutal new cycle of homelessness. Just brutal between now and 2023. The report looked at the data and looked at the trends and said that roughly twice as many people could become homeless due to the COVID recession, then became homeless during the 2008 recession. Now, what does that mean? What would that actually look like? Let's think about that for a second. Nationwide, 600,000 more people could become homeless. That's more than a doubling of the national homeless population. Here in LA County, an additional 52,000 people could become homeless. The number of people here in Los Angeles who are chronically homeless, who live on the streets for years, and who are often really the public face of homelessness in Los Angeles, that population could double from the current 14,000 to about 28,000. Now, right now in Los Angeles, tens of thousands of people live in encampments on our sidewalks. Four of them are dying every single day. Now imagine that doubling in just the next two or three years. Who would it be? Who would be the people becoming homeless? Well, much like the people who are homeless today, this report says it would be the people who are pinched between low wages and high housing costs. This would be people who work in retail stores, in restaurants and in bars, people who work in clerical jobs or in child care or in hospitality, people who work for nonprofits, and surprisingly, people who work for colleges and universities. Those likeliest to become homeless are and will be blacks, Latinos, women, people under the age of 24, and people without a four-year degree. Now that's if we don't act, not just on providing housing for people who are homeless, but on undoing the structural elements of a broken economy that is relentlessly creating homelessness. This report that I'm talking about was written by a team at the Economic Roundtable. They're a Los Angeles-based nonprofit research organization that specializes in analyzing economic and social and environmental conditions. They have done a lot of important work over the past several years on things like homelessness and job creation, and they were particularly crucial in helping me and some others pass a landmark $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles a few years ago. Their new report, called Locked Out, is drawing a lot of attention for its findings and also for its recommendations on how to prevent the Armageddon that it forecasts. Today we're going to be talking with Dan Flaming. He is the president of the Economic Roundtable and one of the report's co-authors. Dan has been with the Roundtable since 91. Before that, he worked for LA County, where he was coordinating delinquency prevention and managing community development and affordable housing programs, and also working on administering job training and research programs. Dan has a PhD in urban studies and has led more than 50 research projects at the Roundtable. Dan Flaming, President of Economic Roundtable, thank you for joining me on What's Next Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for the invitation, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00Glad to have you. You and your team uh released a report just a couple weeks ago, and uh I believe you described the findings as unhappy. I think some of the news stories reporting on it uh describe the findings as grim, uh, showing that uh the pandemic recession is is gonna cause a massive increase in homelessness, worse than the the 2008 recession. Uh tell me a little bit about your top line findings.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the big picture is that the pandemic recession has hit industries that were already very low-wage employers. So the the epicenter of uh of the recession, the recession we're in right now, is in retail and restaurants and hotels and entertainment venues. And those are already the places that hire that hire workers on a part-time basis and the pay minimum wages. So the the workers that are being hardest hit already had uh tenuous income and employment connections. We're also seeing that over half of the layoffs look like permanent job destruction. So it looks like a lot of the workers who've lost their jobs are going to have a hard time becoming um becoming re-employed. And the problem can be seen on several levels. The um there's a broad level of industries that simply don't pay sustaining wages for workers, that um uh hire workers on demand and pay the minimum wage, and workers have a hard time getting by. Then among those workers, there's a substantial chunk that are in poverty, and then among those, there's a substantial chunk that actually work and are homeless. So you can see the problem on several levels, either a broad economic issue of uh inequitable wages, or um you can see it as an issue of people in poverty, or you can see it as an issue of people who are trying to work and don't have enough to pay for a roof over their head.
SPEAKER_00Let me let me step back and ask a little bit about uh some of the numbers. I I want to sort of look at it from the perspective of the average person in Los Angeles who uh I think would have a hard time imagining that homelessness could actually get worse. Uh people drive down the streets and they're seeing a growing number of encampments all over the city of Los Angeles and uh all over the state of California, really. And what we're seeing here in your report are some really jarring numbers, is that uh homelessness uh would increase between now and 2023 nationwide by about 600,000 and by some 52,000 here in Los Angeles County. Is that right? Yes, that's correct. Uh and and within that, uh there would be an increase in in chronic homelessness, which is is really uh the the hardest homelessness to to try to solve uh and and that which is really most visible, sort of the the public face of homelessness by by by I believe your reports at 14,000 in 2023?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um a little over 14,000 by 2023 is what we estimate.
SPEAKER_00And and that is a that that's basically uh a doubling of chronic homelessness uh here in Los Angeles. The the the numbers in in in your reports show big increases nationwide, show big increases statewide, show big increases in LA. Uh, but proportionately those increases are are are even larger in Los Angeles than they are in in the state and the country, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's correct. And and why is that? There seems to be an association between economic inequality and homelessness. So Los Angeles uh has more income polarization. We're uh we're a comparatively high cost region, and we have a lot of um low-wage workers, a lot of people who have trouble getting by. So that um there's already a great many people who are very severely rent-burdened and who have tenuous employment. And so they're they're a comparatively large share of our labor force, and uh we have a higher propensity to squeeze people out of housing and a higher propensity for people who are squeezed out of housing to become homeless.
SPEAKER_00So you're you you and your colleagues, your your analysis on this started really by looking at the the 2008 recession and what its impact was, right? Yes. Uh and uh you you were seeing that the 2008 recession, uh the the the impact of the unemployment and and of homelessness from that was was continuing uh at least through 2014, is the window you looked at.
SPEAKER_02Is that right? Yes, yeah, it's a lagged effect. So people do whatever they can to hang on to housing. They um they fall into arrears on rent, they borrow money, they use their credit cards, and then eventually there comes a day of reckoning uh for most renters if they can't pay rent and they lose housing. Um and then they uh look to the kindness of friends and relatives and couch surf, and that uh for many people wears thin, and then they fall into the population that HUD considers homeless, which are people who have no place of their own to uh sleep at night.
SPEAKER_00And you you from everything that that you looked at, the data that you extrapolated from 2008 uh and the trends that you're you're seeing now, uh the the impact here from from this pandemic uh would be even worse than that. Yeah, the unemployment is worse.
SPEAKER_02So it's still playing out. We had this unprecedented spike of job loss. In um from March to April, that one month, we lost half of all the jobs that have been lost in this recession. So it took about three years to get that level, two years to get that level of job loss out of 2008. So we've had an extraordinary spike, we've had a quick recovery in uh for many people, not everybody, and now we're uh losing ground again in the labor market with this new surge of coronavirus. So the exact amount of unemployment we're going to see is uh still being played out, but what really matters is um unemployment among these tenuously uh connected workers, and that is the epicenter of this recession. So it's both total unemployment and unemployment within that group of very vulnerable workers.
SPEAKER_00I want to underscore that uh because you know, in in in in public policy and politics and local government, what we hear a lot is uh is a narrative, and it's really it's fed by talk radio, it's fed by social media, a narrative that that that that that really stresses the idea that uh most people who are homeless are not homeless because of economic circumstances. It says that people who are homeless are are there by choice or that they're there because of mental illness uh or by drugs. Um but but your report is is is really showing both retrospectively and and and predicting looking forward that it it's really a combination of unemployment and uh out-of-reach housing costs that are driving this.
SPEAKER_02Yes, two-thirds of people who are homeless are doing something to get money. And it may be panhandling, it may be recycling, or for some, it's actually holding a job or looking at a job, looking for a job. And so most people who are homeless are making an effort to earn money, and early in homelessness, that is predominant among people. So new entrants into homelessness, homeless parents and homeless young adults are predominantly making an effort to be part of the formal economy. And we think that's a social asset and that's underutilized.
SPEAKER_00And there's there's two different factors on the employment front, right? There's unemployment and then there's underemployment. Right. Um, the the unemployment numbers uh are are pretty scary right now, uh, but we're also seeing a pretty scary phenomenon of of underemployment. I think you I think your report said that uh underemployment is the seedbed of homelessness.
SPEAKER_02Yes, these are um gig workers for minimum wage and uh it the there are a substantial number of people who are homeless and are still working. And what you see is they work maybe 800 hours a year. So they have intermittent employment uh and they don't have enough to pay for rent. So for every three people who are officially unemployed, there are another two who are underemployed. Most of that is in the form of involuntary part-time employment, so they don't have as many hours as they want. And they're often on call, so it's hard to hold down two jobs. They've got that one job and it's not very much.
SPEAKER_00And not only has unemployment increased as a result of the pandemic, but I presume that underemployment has as well. If a restaurant hasn't gone under, uh they're doing much less business, so they've laid off some workers, and then other workers are are working less than they did before, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what we see in the in the LA Orange County area is that 59% of households have lost employment income. And a lot of that is from a reduction of hours rather than just from being laid off. You're exactly right.
SPEAKER_00And um is is there a difference in the the demographics of people who are unemployed and people who are underemployed, or is it is it pretty much the same?
SPEAKER_02The demographics are pretty similar. Uh the risk factors are pretty similar. So being young uh is a risk factor, being African American or Latino is a risk factor, having less education is a risk factor, kind of gradations from having a college degree on down, risk increases, um, having being in a lower income job is a risk factor.
SPEAKER_00So once again, what we're seeing is in an is in a region with incredible um incredible income inequality, uh, what we're seeing again is that groups of people who are disproportionately victims of a whole range of social factors. The the populations of people who are right now most at risk of COVID, uh, most at risk of COVID being fatal, are the same people who are most at risk of uh unemployment, underemployment, and homelessness.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. The um the households that have lower incomes are much more likely to have a job that requires working face to face. So they can't telecommute. They may well have had income loss already in their household, so there's real pressure for the person who still has work to go show up for it and to face the risk of getting COVID.
SPEAKER_00So so what we're looking at when we look at these these grim or unhappy numbers about uh who might become homeless unless different actions are are taken, um, is that those who are most at risk are are women, are young people, are blacks, or Latinos, and and and people who are uh have less than a than a four-year degree. Exactly. Pretty scary stuff. And there are certain employment sectors that that that are most impacted. I I mentioned restaurant workers, but there's also a number of other fields, right?
SPEAKER_02So restaurant has been devastated, retail has been devastated, entertainment, which is everything from um sports arenas to Disneyland to um to country clubs to casinos, anything you know, where people were there face to face has been devastated. Hospitality workers. Yes, and and including hotels. Hotels have been devastated. Um social assistance agencies, the YMCA, the Ys in Los Angeles laid off about 14,000 workers in a heartbeat. Um, Goodwill laid off a lot of people. Um so uh social assistance organizations laid off people and uh also uh uh unfortunately show up as uh as major employers of poverty workers and also homeless workers. And this is also true of universities. Um universities are seasonal, so they lay off people over holiday seasons when the campus is closed, or they they reduce over the summer. And they, you know, there's a lot of food services, a lot of janitorial at a university. So universities often hire people for as little as paying them as little as they have to and give them part time employment. So universities are are a major employer of uh poverty workers as are churches. Churches.
SPEAKER_00Churches, sure. Wow. I think m most people wouldn't be surprised uh by the impact on on retail and on hospitality, on restaurant workers. I think most people would be really surprised to hear that that uh universities, many of which have significant endowments, uh, are employers of poverty workers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think this issue deserves some sunlight. And these institutions, whether it's other nonprofits like ourselves or uh universities or churches, need to live up to their moral claims and to their to their mission statements.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh and and churches, that one would was was surprising as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, churches, churches are real estate that gets uh considerably underutilized, and so the labor associated with it uh uh you know is intermittent. Yeah. And uh and often uh uh churches operate on limited budgets, many of them.
SPEAKER_00So the uh the the findings about uh the link between unemployment or underemployment and and and homelessness uh during this pandemic uh were were pretty clear and pretty stark. I I was struck in reading the report about how the the projected rates of of homelessness in Los Angeles are higher than the increases would be state and nationally. Uh and your report seems to indicate that that there's a number of factors for that, but a a huge driving force behind that is is the really uh high cost of housing and and the high percentage of people here who uh are uh are experiencing housing instability.
SPEAKER_02Yes, over half of people in poverty pay over half of their income for rent. So and actually of most of those is closer to 90 percent. So if you have uh a low income, it is um it's life and death and sacrifice to keep the roof over your head and also try to have food on the table and meet basic necessities. There are a lot of families who are very precariously housed in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00So the combination of the uh unemployment or the underemployment and the the cost of housing are are really huge drivers of uh of homelessness here.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell That and uh and uh and an inadequate labor market, yes, that doesn't pay that doesn't give fair value to essential work that people do for our lives.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, and the the wages aren't going up very high, but rents are going up higher than wages.
SPEAKER_02Right. And uh and we're going through a long window where many people aren't paying rent, and uh and we have a a day of reckoning when um the eviction moratoriums are going to end and there are going to be a fair number of people with big rent bills that they are not going to be able to pay.
SPEAKER_00G given all the different factors that we've discussed, most of which are sort of systemic, uh is it fair to say that that that we have uh an economic and a social system uh in the U.S. and particularly here in Los Angeles that that that that almost uh manufactures homelessness?
SPEAKER_02Yes, the the way I phrase it is that we're a society that turns the wolf loose at our own heels. And if we fail to run fast enough and adapt quickly enough, um we become uh a moral example for others. We you know that that um um in a sense homelessness is the warning message from capitalism that we need to keep our shoulders to the wheel.
SPEAKER_00Uh and and and here in in in Los Angeles, we we we we see it playing out that um the the odds of who becomes homelessness, and and those odds are sort of indicated by the the data we've spoken about, are very different for people based on uh their race or the color of their skin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, at every income level, um we found that African Americans are about four times more likely to be homeless than European Americans, and Latinos about twice as likely. So um this is this reflects the uh the social hazards associated with not being European American. Um uh and uh yes, we're we're not out of the woods in terms of being uh a colorblind society.
SPEAKER_00By by the social hazards, you mean the the bias, discrimination in in housing, employment, stuff like that?
SPEAKER_02It would be the structural biases in the labor market, in the housing market, in the credit system. It would be social networks of knowing where to look for a better job and having social connections for getting into the job, greater risks of being arrested and having um uh criminal record, um, greater risks of having a health problem or a disability. So it's it's a lot of layers of risk.
SPEAKER_00Uh you you were talking a little bit earlier in our discussion about uh sort of the the timing of when uh homelessness manifests as a result of changes in in the job market. Um already since the beginning of the pandemic, I think it's pretty clear to most Angelinas, it's certainly clear to me that that that homelessness has increased since the beginning of the pandemic. Um but but based on what you were saying, we're we're we're we're often there's sort of a a lag effect in that. Uh even if we sort of snapped back and and and and the economy snapped back quickly, we're we'd still be seeing impacts of that and an increase in homelessness for for some time to come?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we see a lag of a year, something between one and two years. Um for me, if I just imagined in my own mind what I would do, um, you know, I would run through every financial possibility from not paying rent, running up credit cards, borrowing money to try to stay housed, but try to uh couch surf with people I know or relatives. And for many people that wears thin at some point. Um the folks they're couchsurfing with are also poor and uh all also often overcrowded, and you can only extend hospitality so long. So people try pretty hard not to be in cardboard city. They, you know, none of us want to live on the sidewalk. And but it there it does it does uh come uh for many people that uh the safe they run out of safeguards, they run out of money and they run out of friends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and what's interesting about the the report that that you've done is you looked at at all the different aspects of or the different types of homelessness. You looked at the the couch surfing homelessness, you looked at it at chronic homelessness. Uh, and it at least to to start, the bulk of the the 52,000 uh would be people who are experiencing that that that couch surfing homelessness, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, the um the couch surfing in Los Angeles would be um about a slightly over a half of the people who experience homelessness. Yeah. So uh and and also uh it's we should remember that for many people, homelessness is a a compressed episode in their life rather than uh an entire chapter. That um over half of people who experience homelessness are able to make it out pretty quickly with uh help from friends or uh a bit of help from a homeless program that they make it out. So uh, and that is something, that's something we need to increase. I mean, that incentive to get back into work, get back into housing uh is an asset. It's uh I truly think we can't house our way out of this problem. We we need all the housing we can get, but we need other tools to to combat homelessness. And uh and so I think that motivation to work is uh is seriously underutilized.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that's that's an interesting point, and it's one that you've you and Economic Roundtable have have written about previously. And it gets to to one of my pet peeves about how we uh address homelessness in in Los Angeles and maybe in other places, but certainly here, is we we too often define the problem as just the problem of chronic homelessness, for which housing is the main solution. And of course, nobody becomes unhomeless without a roof over their head, but we we tend to ignore people on the early and the relatively easy side of homelessness, where it may be a short-term rental subsidy, or it may be a job, uh, or it may be a short-term intervention that that houses somebody and actually prevents them from falling deeper into homelessness, which is uh harder for us to handle. So you have in your report, you and your co-authors have proposed uh a number of different solutions to this. It's not that uh 52,000 uh additional homeless people in Los Angeles is inevitable. Um, there are interventions that we can take, there are things that federal, state, local, county government can do to reduce that and and and to try to mitigate that. Um tell me a little bit about what some of those solutions are.
SPEAKER_02Well, speaking broadly before speaking specifically, but picking up on what you were saying, Mike, um I think our responses uh are badly siloed. They're uh they're powerfully siloed, and that that's a serious problem. That if you look at this issue broadly, the battles that unions are fighting for wage equity and that the city has made progress on in terms of a minimum wage, and the anti-poverty agencies are working on, and the homeless agencies are working on, it's it's part of the same continuum. It's the same people, it's the same employers, the same jobs. Um we're siloed in terms of advocacy communities and efforts at reform. We're also siloed in terms of uh service delivery strategies. Um people in the homeless service provider community are predominantly caring people of goodwill, but they're siloed by their backgrounds and they're siloed by their funding streams. So uh the predominant model is a housing model, and the bulk of people come from a housing development or a housing background, and the funding streams are predominantly devoted to housing. So that's all well and good. We we need housing, we need people who care about housing, but if folks have better incomes, they don't need as much rent subsidy or any rent subsidy at all. So a housing strategy works a lot better in partnership with an employment and income strategy. And the other problem is that we have a policy of progressive engagement. We give people a little bit of help at the outset, they stay homeless a little more. Ultimately, if you're chronically homeless, which means several years, often many years, and progressive growth in health problems, progressive growth in disabilities, justice system involvement, we house that person. But in a sense, we're rewarding people for victimhood. We're rewarding them for having become broken and disconnected and uh and desperate. Um but there was a day for many of these individuals when they had a lot more wind in their sails. They um had a job, they had the ambitions of youth, they wanted to make it under their own steam. And it's not to say that it's a slam dunk to help people succeed at employment. It does take supports, it's not a casual effort, but it is a lot less effort than $600,000 to pay for a permanently subsidized housing unit.
SPEAKER_00Sure is. Yeah. So go ahead. Well, yeah I mean the I I I'd phrase it a little bit differently. I I actually agree with with much of your thinking, but I'd phrase it a little bit differently, uh less as rewarding people for being broken than I would uh a frame that I think puts the the onus more on uh the the the the system, which is that um we we we we have a system, uh the the the housing-based system, um which does not help people uh early enough. And so what that system essentially says to people is they are not homeless enough or traumatized enough for help. Uh and when you couple that with the the the lack of a uh of a serious job program or serious programs to uh uh to address income inequality in Los Angeles and address poverty in Los Angeles, you you just keep forcing people into uh becoming more homeless before we engage with them. And that's a ridiculously expensive and ineffective way to go about it.
SPEAKER_02It yes, that's a a good way of phrasing it, Mike. And I also um I mean we have a huge housing shortfall in Los Angeles. Huge uh we mean we we something like a quarter of the families that are economically eligible for Section 8 get it. So Biden has talked about scaling up Section 8. That's gonna take a lot more money and it's not gonna happen overnight. Um, and we may not have the housing inventory for it. So it's not just homeless people, but it's their next door neighbor, the mom with kids, and who's just she's working, she's got a couple of kids, and she's absolutely strapped to pay for rent and take care of. I mean, she needs help. So it's the homeless individuals who need housing are part of a community that is really struggling to keep a roof over their head. So we've got huge housing issues, and we, in parallel to that, we've got huge income issues.
SPEAKER_00And and in in your your recommended uh uh policy solutions, there were uh a number of things that were job and income-based recommendations. Then there are a number that were were housing-based recommendations. Let's talk about the the the job and the the income-based uh recommendations first. What were some of those?
SPEAKER_02Well, we think uh that that it is really important to create publicly supported employment for people who have become unemployed and and are at risk of staying unemployed and becoming homeless. And there are um there are tools we can use, some that the round table has developed to identify those people, but to see people in a discriminating fashion and to be able to assess risk and to respond with appropriate levels of help. But there um are all kinds of job creation opportunities. There are public needs for services and work, uh, to build affordable housing, to provide child care, to provide tutoring assistance for kids learning through Zoom, um nutritional programs, care for people who are sick. There are a lot of possibilities for the green economy, all of the infrastructure for the green economy, uh repairing our national forests that are burning uh at uh heartbreaking rates every year. So there are lots of productive uses of human labor that will build social assets and that have value for society. And we think that it is important to put people who are on a path to homelessness into that kind of work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about really is is sort of a a New Deal style approach. Some would say a Green New Deal style approach, uh sort of massive infrastructure uh uh uh type projects. Uh and what what what's interesting about what you're you're you're you're saying is that you and and some of the folks at Epicomic Roundtable over the past few years have um have developed a tool that could help us provide those jobs, not just to people who are currently experiencing uh homelessness, uh, but people that that you could predict are most likely to next be experiencing homelessness absent that kind of job opportunity.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we're uh using, we have two screening tools, one for young adults and one for unemployed workers. And um we're using those tools uh in the realization project, which is taking homeless community college students and giving them a um a heavy touch intervention of services and housing uh and and job finding. Uh and often the people who are identified are people who are in early stages of homelessness. But the idea is this intervention is comparatively expensive, and but that the savings of not having someone who's stays homeless for a lifetime or for a decade, um, that the savings by far offset the cost of mental health services, housing, um, and coaching and and job preparation, job placement. Um and I I would just say um at a personal level, the people in our realization project are really beautiful souls. And and um there are people who truly have a lot of employment potential, but they've also been through some very hard times. And um building their sense of rebuilding their sense of self-worth and finding a focused direction and taking the steps to move down that path does take some support. Um so it's not a cookie-cutter thing, and um there is a lot of individuality and diversity among people's problems. So it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. They're individualized solutions, but they truly do work. I mean, people um people are desperately hungry to make progress in their lives and to be able to support themselves.
SPEAKER_00They sure are. And and I'm I'm glad you mentioned that sort of the the experiences that many people have had in the the realization project, which is the the the program that that you and your colleagues are are creating to predict uh who needs help and and and then help them. You you know, we talk about the the the job employment piece, we talk about the housing piece. Another piece that really does contribute to to homelessness is when you combine some form of trauma with the the income and the housing piece. That's a that's a that's a perfect storm of of forces that that push people into homelessness. I'm and I'm sure though, as as as we're talking, uh sure as we're talking, somebody is listening who's saying, oh God, here we go, uh a whole bunch of government spending uh to to pay uh uh uh people who are are living on the streets. And and they in their head see that as a um uh a waste of money. But one of the things your your report said, and I I I jotted this down, uh, was solutions of employment cost less than the problem of homelessness.
SPEAKER_02That's absolutely true. And I also think that the dignity of work has a lot of cross-cutting appeal. It um is dismal to simply give someone a handout on a sidewalk. But the idea of that person being able to support themselves and work and um and contribute is appealing to all of us. It's a much it's much easier to have sympathy with that solution than with uh handouts. So I I do think that employment really is a cross. Cutting solution.
SPEAKER_00So that's on the the the the the jobs piece and well it's not all that you had on the jobs piece you also talked about things that uh we we have been doing or are trying to do in in Los Angeles where we may be uh ahead of other parts of the country, project labor agreements, increasing the minimum wage, uh trying to uh legislate more predictive scheduling for uh service workers uh so they can have uh multiple part-time jobs in order to uh pay the rent and pay for food. Um but then there's a whole range of housing-based solutions uh that you and your co-authors also recommended. I was kind of excited about some of them because they're things I've been proposing here in Los Angeles. Uh, but can you tell us uh uh about some of that?
SPEAKER_02Well, those include um uh fully funding Section 8, which would have probably the biggest impact, zoning reforms that would allow um uh affordable housing to be built closer to places where people who are work, um more extensive use of uh subsidy of uh like tax incentive subsidies to finance the construction of affordable housing. Uh those are among the few. What what's uh uppermost in your mind in terms of housing?
SPEAKER_00Um Well, there I one I think I think it's important to underscore for people listening about the the the point you made about Section 8 vouchers. Uh you know, I I think there's a lot of people who think that there's there there's there's vouchers galore and that there's just people who refuse to use them. When in fact, it's like winning the lottery to get a Section 8 voucher. And one of the things I hope the Biden administration delivers on is making Section 8 vouchers available to everybody who needs it. That would have a huge impact. Um, but some of the other things that that I was really jazzed about in your report is uh you were uh recommending funding for what we we in Los Angeles have called uh a right to counsel to help people uh facing eviction, because we know that if you're facing eviction without a lawyer, you're almost certainly going to wind up getting evicted. And if you have a lawyer, you're far more likely to stay housed. But then you also talked about um potentially buying some vacant or blighted commercial buildings, converting them into housing, which is a great idea. And uh you use terminology a little bit differently than than some of the activists do here in Los Angeles, but uh you were talking about uh rent forgiveness programs and and using some of the money from the federal government to uh directly help people uh uh pay their rent. Um uh that's a that's a lot of great stuff. You had in there something I'm not familiar with, and I don't quite understand it. It was something about helping help helping uh tenants or helping landlords purchase insurance.
SPEAKER_02Oftentimes um um renters are required to obtain um uh uh they're required to have a uh a security deposit. So in lieu of a security deposit, you can get you can buy insurance. So insurance that the last month of rent will be paid is a viable and cheaper alternative to a security deposit. And so it's a a recommendation to uh to to encourage and uh um validate the use of uh of that insurance in lieu of a security deposit. Got it. Uh is that done in other places that you know of? It's an idea that's come out of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta and it's been uh adopted in a few cities. I think I believe it's been adopted in Atlanta.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Well, we will look into that here in Los Angeles for sure. Um now that we are as as we're recording this, we're I guess three days, four days into the Biden administration, uh, we've we've gotten uh a lot of indications about what the administration might be doing. We've seen a lot of the executive orders, we've heard some talk about uh what might be in stimulus bills. Your report, as I said, was unhappy and grim. You've got some specific solutions. From what you're hearing the first few days of of the administration, uh uh you see any uh signs of optimism?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's certainly a breath of fresh air to have the new administration. It's like uh it's like coming out of a cave. Um so that's been truly heartening. Um the stimulus bills and uh uh would be extraordinary if it could be approved. Uh in keeping with our recommendations, we would urge something like a local hire agreement to be applied to uh funds so that there is targeted targeted hiring for uh vulnerable workers, which would essentially be the people we've been talking about in this report. So uh Obama's stimulus was for the most part a trickle-down um rather than being uh targeted on the most vulnerable workers. So we think that's really important. But yes, it's uh uh our our immediate work at the round table that uh is to try to deal with this issue of silos that we were talking about earlier. And if that's something that's of interest to you, Mike, it we'd really love to talk more and collaborate, but to try to um create a dialogue where different segments of the effort to combat homelessness are more um integrated and more uh collaborative, and also to see this effort as a continuum for economic equity to this cross-cutting uh for everyone from low-wage workers to uh to homeless workers. Uh and to so essentially to see it as a a less fragmented uh and and broader based effort for for equity and income and housing security.
SPEAKER_00I think that is absolutely essential. You know, I I I always say that that no matter what you do, uh if you don't provide a place for somebody to live, they're going to remain homeless. Uh but if you are not providing adequate health care, uh uh uh adequate income, we're not solving the problem. I mean, it's a it's a it's a multi-layered thing. And there's there's not magic wand solutions uh to this. It's not just about building a new building. It really requires significant structural and and and systemic change. And this is a a really big part of that. I look forward to to working with you on that and and and busting a few silos and creating a more holistic approach. Um I I I'd like to end the program uh by asking, since the name of the program is What's Next, Los Angeles, uh, what's next uh for the economic roundtable? You gave me a little bit of of an indication there of your work on silos. Uh what else is ahead for the for the economic roundtable?
SPEAKER_02Well, well, this issue of, I mean, when we put out these reports, we get some news coverage and we get some people downloading the report, but it's it's these scattered seeds in the minds of people who aren't connected with each other. And so we're interested in trying to get something concrete to emerge out of it all. And so to try to create forums where there is some common purpose and some joint effort to address this and and to see this as a as a direct set of dots between low wage and on a low-wage employment and homelessness, and to um see it as a battle that's relevant for a lot of actors rather than uh than uh small pockets of actors. So that's that's what we think is needed. And um I'm not sure exactly what research will do, but we do want to promote a dialogue, a collaborative dialogue around that issue.
SPEAKER_00Great. And if people want to uh read the report or read some of your other reports or find out more about economic roundtable, uh, how should they do that?
SPEAKER_02We have a website, everything we do is there and can be downloaded. It's www.economic rt, the word economic with rt at the end.org. So thanks for asking, Mike.
SPEAKER_00You bet, and I'll put that in the show notes so folks uh have an ability to uh to find it pretty easily. Uh Dan Flaming, president of Economic Roundtable, thank you for being here today. And what's next, Los Angeles?
SPEAKER_02My pleasure. Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_00Wow. It is really difficult to imagine homelessness getting worse in Los Angeles. To prevent the bleak scenario that the economic roundtable predicts and that Dan and I just talked about, we have to smash the status quo. Not just the status quo of how we respond to homelessness, but the status quo of how our society and how our economy basically manufactures homelessness. Homelessness is, let's be frank, an inevitable byproduct of a system with increasing income inequality. It is the inevitable result of a system where workers are earning less, where housing costs are skyrocketing, where people are saddled with debt, and where people go without health care. It is all connected and it all needs to be addressed collectively, simultaneously. To fix this, we need to dare to reimagine how we do things. We need to realize this pandemic and this recession it has spawned has made all of our worst problems even worse and more obvious. That means we need to be bigger and we need to be bolder and we need to build back better. Toward that end, there's this group called Local Progress. It's a network of progressive local elected officials from around the country that I am proud to be a part of. This week, on Wednesday, January 27th, Local Progress is unveiling Dare to Reimagine, a vision for transformative change. That's going to be a platform framework for building a just and an equitable future from the ground up. It's created collectively by local elected officials and community partners, and I'm glad to have been a contributor to it. It focuses on public budgets, on thriving communities, on neighborhood design and development, on revitalizing our democracy, and on fixing our broken economy. Again, that is going to be unveiled this coming Wednesday, January 27th, and we are going to be talking about that on the next episode of What's Next Los Angeles. But in the meantime, that is all the time we have for this edition of What's Next Los Angeles. My usual disclaimer for this podcast: no public funds or resources are used to develop, to produce, to distribute, or to promote this podcast. This is something I do on my own for fun and for free, with the assistance of Brian Holmes, our editor and sound engineer. If you'd like to suggest topics or guests for a future episode, feel free to email me at what's nextlosangeless at gmail.com. And you can always follow me on Twitter at Mike Bonin. In the meantime, please do not forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. That is it for this edition of What's Next Los Angeles. I'm Mike Bonin. Until next time, peace and take good care.