- Oh, Miguel, I don't know what Sarah Smiles asked,
but you were asking, and I'm gonna answer that.
You were asking were their categories,
so I'm gonna explain what the government does,
and I also have to explain that there's no
easy answer solution.
So, many years ago,
what the government did, what everybody did,
I mean it all started with rescue missions
and the first mission was the McAuley
in New York City in, I think, 1879.
But, it was, you know,
three hots and a cot, bible study
and they made you housing ready, you know.
Let's clean them up, teach them some scripture
and give them some food, and get them a job.
And that worked.
I mean, homeless was different back then.
And it worked in a way.
But then when we hit the 1980s,
and this is the other one that bothers me,
and I'm not, please, I am not Democrat
and I am not Republican
because I think both parties are stuck on stupid.
You, you, there's this war going on
that we the American public are getting shafted.
I think both, both parties are at fault.
So, I am not Republican, and I am not a Democrat.
But one thing that drives me crazy
is people will comment on a YouTube video
and they'll blame the Democrats.
I mean, occasionally you'll get a Democrat
blaming a Republican, but it's usually always
the Republicans.
You know, that's a liberal city, that's a liberal country,
those lefties, they don't, I mean.
And if you look at homelessness,
the numbers we see today, is a direct result
of failed Republican policies from the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan cut $15 billion worth of HUD funding.
And he also, you know, we all know he closed
the mental intuitions funding and all that.
So, that is what caused the crisis we see today.
The current administration, Trump administration,
wants to cut the safety net even more.
He actually kind of has to because he wants these
tax cuts for the rich.
They do this trickle down economics.
If you're not totally aware, the theory is,
if rich people get richer they're going to create more jobs.
Well, that doesn't work because when rich people get richer
the stock holders, they try cut costs,
which means less jobs.
And we live in a capitalist country
that is driven by profit,
it's not driven by trickling down money.
And hiring people is the biggest cost.
Anyways, the cause of homelessness,
1980s everything changed, everything changed.
And, so homelessness started getting really bad
about 10 years ago they made the decision to start focusing
on chronic homelessness, and really, you know,
to briefly state what a chronic homelessness person is,
is a person that's been out there for a while,
that's, you know really stuck in homelessness,
has probably developed an addiction,
mental health problems, behavioral problems,
that's a chronic homelessness.
And they started doing this vulnerability index.
It's called, well there's two,
there's a vulnerability index and VI-SPDAT
and it's to rate how close this person is to death.
And then they're going to prioritize that person,
fast-track them into housing that doesn't exist.
And, I mean, there's some successes.
In the description is a video link to where
I helped house Lanny, invisiblepeople.tv/housingfirst
a four-minute video that explains housing first.
It works, it's a great solution.
We just need the political will to make it happen.
Anyways, I supported the movement
to just chronic homelessness.
I did, and I'll tell you.
I was here in Hollywood.
I was facing homelessness myself.
I was working as an outreach case manager.
It was a temp job.
I was, you know, borderline poverty,
scraping rent, crashing into homelessness myself.
And remember, I went to Santa Monica
and they had this book.
We're in this meeting and it's right when
they first start talking about the most vulnerable,
and I spent a lot of time on the street, always have.
And they're passing around this book of photos of
the 100 most vulnerable people in Santa Monica.
And I started, you know when they start talking about
most vulnerable, I was thinking about me
because I was close to homelessness.
I was like, what about me?
What about me?
You know, you're helping these 100 people,
well what about me?
And they passed around the book,
I swear to god, I could only look at four to five pictures.
These people were so close to death.
They were in alleys, they couldn't stand up, and I got it.
I went, oh my gosh.
I get this.
If I end up homeless chances are
I'm gonna fight and hopefully get out.
These people, they're gonna die.
And we've gotta help them.
The theory is, those people eat up 80% of the resources,
and the theory was that if we end chronic homelessness
we could take all that funding
and put it into ending family homelessness.
Not a bad idea, but it didn't work.
So, we're still trying to end chronic homelessness.
It's getting worse.
Elderly homelessness is a serious crisis.
Family homelessness, youth homelessness,
youth, families and elderly are the fastest
growing demographics, why?
Because we've only focused on chronic homelessness.
So, he's the rub for me,
and our video's on Alicia.
Alicia is homeless in front of
her apartment building where she lived for 17 years.
It's where she sleeps at night.
Alicia right now, she has some challenges,
but if you put her in housing,
I bet you in a year or two she could re-stabalise
once she rebuilt some self-worth and dignity
and she would be able to get into,
into some kind of self-sufficiency.
If we helped her for a year or two,
got her off the streets, gave her permanent support
of housing and we.
I believe that she would go get a job.
She wants to get a job.
I think it's possible.
Alicia spends her days, every day, in
the public bathrooms on Venice Beach.
Imagine the worst truck stop in America's bathroom.
Disgusting.
And multiply that by ten
and you have Venice Beach's bathrooms.
They're horrible.
They're concrete.
They, arrggghhhh!
She spends all day, every day, hiding in the bathroom.
She listens to her radio, and she sits in
the bathroom because she's scared.
And she used to be able to leave,
she used to be able to leave,
and find some place to hide
but as she's getting older, she's now been on
the streets four years, she can't leave,
so she hides in the bathroom.
What to you think her mental state is gonna be
in a year, six months, two years?
If we don't house Alicia now, she is going to need
support for the rest of her life.
So while I used to think focusing on chronic homelessness
was the smart solution, I don't think that anymore.
I think the newly homeless, and right here in Los Angeles
10900 people enter in Los Angeles every month.
10900, 10900.
Let that number sink in, 10900.
Now, homeless services here is doing a kick-ass job
because a lot of them they're helping,
otherwise it would be, I mean, crazy, you know.
But that's a huge number into homelessness.
Here, they just added 72 beds, 72 beds.
So, my point I'm trying to make,
is it's complicated because we do have to take care
of the most vulnerable, if somebody's dying.
But if the model is to save tax payer money,
to free up resources, I will argue,
let's say somebody is just entering homelessness
if you work to get them out of the streets,
they're going to find a job really quickly
and no longer need tax payer money.
A chronic homelessness person is gonna need them
for the rest of their life.
Is gonna need support for the rest of their life.
The issue is all around, you know,
we're triaging homelessness.
Now what triaging, you know is a war thing
where there's not enough medical supplies
and surgeons so they rush, you know, only the ones
closet to death.
We're triaging homelessness because we have
a lack of support.
And people have got complacent to that.
That's my biggest issue these days
and why I rant a lot about this is
because, you know what, I have friends that are on
the street and they have a better chance of dying
than they do getting off the streets and getting help.
They have abetter chance of dying.
That's a problem.
And homeless services seems to be,
yeah OK, well, we're gonna check the vulnerability index.
Well we only have this much housing.
Well, we only have this, we only.
That's just the way it is.
We need more money.
We can't do anything with more money.
I am unemployed.
I have not had an income.
Somebody in the Wave Group sent me a couple hundred
dollars last night.
Wave Group is our online support group for homeless people.
I didn't ask.
They sent me a couple hundred bucks.
Not to Invisible People, but to me.
That is all the money I have made this year.
I lost my last contract as freelancer in December 2018.
So I'm flat broke, and I'm out helping people.
Why?
Because I can't walk by homeless person
and just accept that's they way it is.
And if I can afford a tarp, or if I can do something
I'm gonna do it, you know.
And that's where we want it, need to get to.
We gotta, it's just, it's like this big game.
Here in Los, and I didn't mean to go on in this rant,
it's actually, I should have edited this out
cos I never, this whole little piece was really spot on.
But,
it's like this big game.
So here in Los Angeles there's 53000 homeless people
according to the last count.
There's more like 80000.
But there's 53000 homeless people.
The politicians have just now agreed to build
these bridge housing.
It's just a sexy name for shelter.
And the bridge housing is just temporary place
to get people into housing.
There's no housing.
They go into bridge housing, the shelter,
and they stay there.
OK, that's the problem.
It's a political campaign.
If you're, if you have 4000 homeless people
and you're building 70 beds that's a political campaign.
But get this, there's a report that came out
that LA County, the City of Los Angeles spends
30 million a year criminalizing homelessness.
You know, sweeping tents and everything else.
That's 15 shelters.
They spent 20 million on building shelters.
There about 2 million each.
That's 10 shelters.
But for the 30 million they're using to,
you know, take people's tents, the police they could
actually, but they don't, why?
It's, I don't know.
It's does not make any sense whatsoever.
It doesn't
I have no answers anymore.
I was talking to somebody last night,
and this person runs a non-profit,
they're very cost-effective,
and they lost their city contract
because the city is hiring somebdy
to do their work for three-times the money,
three-times, three-times.
Now, this person has been doing it for many, many years.
They have huge impact getting people out of homelessness.
They're very cost-effective.
The City fired them and is hiring somebody at
three-times the budget.
It doesn't make sense to me.
OK, rant over.
I know you asked prioritizing
and the categories of homeless people
and, you probably didn't want all that history
and added rants but that's what you got.
And hopefully it educated you,
or educated somebody.