The good news is that our city has done an outstanding job in addressing the homelessness crisis and our numbers are not going up, as they are in the rest of the county
It is also good to know that our City Council is listening to the homeless housing advocates, and vice versa. Mayor Tornek spoke very favorably about our Congregational Land Committee and was even open to reconsidering Safe Parking. There is also keen interest in motel conversion to homeless housing. And either affordable and/or homeless housing will likely be built on city-owned land next to City Hall.
The bad news is with the economy going into deep recession, we can expect the numbers of homeless people to increase dramatically, especially among seniors.
Today we took part in a conference call organized by Bill Huang, director of Pasadena's and learned that:
● 56% of residents are renters,
● 47% spend more than 50% of their income on housing,
● there has been a 50% increase in chronically homeless people on our streets since last year,
● there has been a 27% increase in homeless seniors on our streets since last year.
As Rabbi Joshua Grater, director of Friends Indeed, pointed out: "There is a homeless crisis; there is an affordable housing crisis; there is a permanent supportive housing crisis. These are all interconnected and need to be addressed as a collective whole, even as each one requires different housing solutions."
Bill Huang also emphasized that other cities in the San Gabriel Valley need to follow the good example of Pasadena and provide homeless and affordable housing and services. We totally agree and are working with Everyone In to be supportive whenever such projects are proposed in adjacent cities.
An important lesson we've learned from Covid 19 is that the pandemic doesn't care about city limits. As Dr. King observed: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
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