- Joe Vinatieri
Mayor

Whittier Homelessness:  When it comes to homelessness in California, cities and counties throughout the state are busy mopping up the deluge. And as we have seen in our town, Whittier is not immune. We need help from Sacramento to address the source of the leak.

California has the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the nation. Communities, cities, and counties are working hard to address the issue, but at the local level, we desperately need collaborative leadership at the state level to address the main issues that speak directly to the source of our homelessness crisis. Mental health, drug and substance abuse, housing costs and recent criminal “reforms” have all converged like a perfect storm to create the explosion of homelessness we are facing. These are state-level issues that cry out for state-level resolutions in a coordinated manner. If not, the only sad option is to continue mopping up water without fixing the leak.

Before this year, Whittier had seen a 44% reduction in our homeless population by headcount since 2015.  But in 2019, we saw our first uptick, along with the rest of Los Angeles County. The percentage of our neighbors experiencing homelessness per population is fewer than half the Los Angeles County average. This is not by accident. Residents here formed the Whittier Consortium on Homelessness designed to bring various sectors of our community together to discuss collaborative and mutually beneficial solutions to homelessness. The Consortium launched “Imagine Whittier,” a mentorship program that in its first year has seen 100 percent of families recovering from homelessness maintain their housing. Last year our local nonprofit, The Whole Child, housed 244 families in the region. We opened a new shelter at the Salvation Army for women and children, established a MHET team (Mental Health Evaluation Team) through the Whittier Police Department and L.A. County Department of Mental Health, initiated a veteran’s resource center at our Whittier Public Library, created a comprehensive City of Whittier Homelessness Plan. And we are looking to establish a mobile shower program and a Jobs Readiness program in Whittier. Our city staff, county partners, non-profits, service providers, faith community, business, health, and education sectors have all come together to address our homeless challenges head-on through collaboration, and we are seeing promising results. Yet even with all the success, we have seen in Whittier, the problem of homelessness still looms large…

We are doing nearly everything we can do locally, but are not able to address the source of the leak, the root cause. Many people are not in the capacity, nor have the ability, to receive help due to severe mental health illness and/or addiction issues. Instead, they are being left on our streets to suffer. This status quo is the opposite of a compassionate response. People desperately need access to treatment. Service-resistant individuals have been fueled by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Martin v. City of Boise that has tied our hands and has contributed to an increase in tent cities throughout California (Recently the US Supreme Court decided to not take the Boise appeal, thus, for now, the 9^th Circuit decision stands). To provide a bed for each homeless person located in Whittier (whether from Whittier or not) is cost-prohibitive and just not feasible. This is a federal mandate without any reimbursement for that mandate.

In Whittier, we were fortunate that a collaborative effort between state and local government resulted in the clearing of Parnell Park and the Whittier Boulevard greenbelt and moved many of the homeless into temporary shelters where service organizations can better tend to their individual needs. But the Parnell Park encampment is back.  Through local, voter-approved Measure H, the county has committed $3.5 billion over 10 years to address the homeless crisis. And Whittier is working closely with Supervisor Janice Hahn, who is helping to provide regional support on the issue. But even Measure H and the County’s Homeless Initiative is not able to truly address the root causes of homelessness in California. And recently California received the announcement from the Governor that he has convened a special task force on homelessness and is prepared to pour $1 billion into the task. It is really good news that the State is finally focusing attention on the problem. But it is not enough to just spend money. We need to get to these root causes of homelessness.

On behalf of those working to find solutions to homelessness at the local level, the Whittier community, City of Whittier, and Los Angeles County, we need a productive conversation and agreement with state leaders to address the sources of the leak. Until the root causes of homelessness in California - mental health, drug and substance abuse, housing costs and recent criminal “reforms” - are addressed at the state level, local cities will continually be forced to mop up the leak. We need to work together to fix the leak for all Californians ... at the root level. Be assured that until we have State help, we will continue to work on finding housing for our homeless who desire a bed but we cannot, and will not, allow our parks to be overrun in such a way that our taxpaying residents and their children are unable to use those parks.