Red tape affecting Angelenos on streets

Everyone, seemingly, has a common-sense approach to healing the human tragedy of homelessness right there in their back pocket.

If only “they” would try this! So it's especially sad, back in real life, to find that when taxpayer-funded solutions are already indeed available to help get the tens of thousands of unhoused people in Los Angeles County a roof over their heads, the bureaucracy bungles its task and leaves people out on the streets.

Such was the case for Yolanda Robins, who as Connor Sheets and Francine Orr of the Los Angeles Times report, was unhoused in December, and “received one of the 3,365 emergency housing vouchers awarded to the city of Los Angeles by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on July 1, 2021, to help get the most desperate people off the streets.”

But Yoland Robins is still unhoused: like “the vast majority of the more than 3,000 people and families who have received the emergency vouchers in L.A., she remains in limbo. Although the housing authority has distributed all of its vouchers, it has had little success getting recipients into permanent housing.”

How to have your say:

“Vast” is an understatement. Out of more than 3.000 vouchers available, only 196 have been used to get a person actually housed. That's a pitiful success rate of 5.8%. So what's the problem? Homeless people eligible for vouchers, including many in actual possession of them, say that they try to jump through the bureaucratic hoops and end up never hearing back from the government agencies in question.

Leaders of those agencies say that while they try to prevent that from happening, they have “staffing issues,” and must obviously grapple with the plain fact that there is little housing available in Los Angeles County.

Still — (admittedly much smaller) Santa Barbara is not exactly a real-estate market with a lot of vacancies, and its housing authority got 89 emergency vouchers in July 2021, housed all those people and just got 25 more vouchers. If you can find housing for homeless people in that luxury market, with less than a half percent vacancy rate, you can find it here. Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, figure out how to do your job. People are dying out there when you don't.

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CSU's students

Re “Black students fall behind in CSUs, a fact hidden in data” (July 25):

The people trying to increase the number of minority students (i.e., Black students) in colleges by using race as a factor rather than basic academic achievement do not want the public to know they have been hiding contrary data for years. What a surprise. You are not doing any favors for a Black applicant, or any applicant for that matter, to allow them admission to a college or university when they have not met the academic requirements.

In fact, you are really doing them a disservice. When any applicant does not have the required level of academic achievement, their chances of graduating are reduced.

Using race as a factor for admission may help a minority applicant get into college, but does nothing to help that student achieve the goal of graduating.

San Pedro, Peck Park shooting and safety

Re “2 killed, 5 wounded in shooting at park” (July 25):

This is what you get when voters vote for progressive politicians. This is what happens when voters choose to vote to reduce felonies to misdemeanors, vote for a progressive district attorney and progressive liberal judges.

What has happened in San Pedro is a direct result of how people voted to dismantle the criminal justice system in Los Angeles. These actions impact the public safety of all of us. Basically, voters voted to turn California and Los Angeles County into the wild, wild West. You got what you asked for.

Charles Schulz and the `Peanuts' Franklin factor

Re “On `Peanuts' and the Franklin factor” (July 22):

Kudos to Peter Larsen for his touching expose about cartoonist Robb Armstrong and how he was encouraged by “Peanuts” creator Charles Shultz. I was deeply touched by this article and its commemoration of a great man and the importance of mentoring.

It's a shame that the newspaper no longer publishes either comic strip (yes, I've been a subscriber long enough to remember when it did). I encourage the editor to consider returning both “Peanuts” and “JumpStart” (but not at the expense of any current ones).

Who knows, a new generation of cartoonists may be encouraged by the honesty and inclusion reflected in these strips.