Category Archives: Los Angeles

What Tax Time can do for the Working Poor

By Joseph Martinez and Walen Ngo, United Way of Greater Los Angeles The EITC, or Earned Income Tax Credit, has been known for over thirty years to be one of the more successful anti-poverty programs in the nation. The tax relief program is geared toward only workers earning income below a certain income threshold andContinue reading “What Tax Time can do for the Working Poor”

Evidence from Los Angeles that housing the homeless saves money

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) today released a study by the Economic Roundtable that provides even more evidence that providing permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless can ultimately provide public cost savings. These savings have been documented in research in cities across the nation, with the early work being done by DennisContinue reading “Evidence from Los Angeles that housing the homeless saves money”

New Homeless Numbers for L.A. What did we expect?

We’ve been suffering through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression over the past year, leading many of us to assume that social conditions have been worsening. Poverty and unemployment, and foreclosures have clearly been on the rise, and certainly we’ve expected that homelessness – the most extreme expression of poverty and insecurity –Continue reading “New Homeless Numbers for L.A. What did we expect?”

Providing housing for the homeless saves money

more about “How to Save Tax Dollars: Give the Hom…“, posted with vodpod It shouldn’t be a surprise, but to many people it is.  It turns out that instead of letting people suffer on the street or in shelters, we should be working to provide housing for them.  Not only is it better for themContinue reading “Providing housing for the homeless saves money”

Humanizing homelessness in Long Beach

Joel Roberts’ LA’s Homeless Blog ran a series of posts on the effort last week in Long Beach to survey chronically homeless persons living on the streets, part of the Long Beach Connections Initiative. The goal of the survey was to identify the most vulnerable people living on the streets as part of a community-wideContinue reading “Humanizing homelessness in Long Beach”

Humanizing homelessness

The Los Angeles Times is largely a shell of its former self, part of an overall downturn in the quantity and quality of newspapers. However, the paper is developing quite a niche in reporting on homelessness (which I guess makes sense because Los Angeles is home to more homeless persons than any other city inContinue reading “Humanizing homelessness”

Trends in LA and CA over the next few years

A common problem in trying to discern trends in poverty and inequality is that the data that we often have at hand are usually not particularly recent. The lag between when data are collected and publicly available can be significant, especially in a rapidly changing economy like we’ve been in over last several months. Also,Continue reading “Trends in LA and CA over the next few years”

Los Angeles Foreclosures

We hear nearly everyday about the growing number of foreclosures in our country, particularly in boom-and-bust markets like Los Angeles. This chart provides a historical picture that shows what a unique moment we are in. In the last LA housing bust during the early 1990s, foreclosures doubled from under 15,000 in 1992 to over 33,000Continue reading “Los Angeles Foreclosures”

Skid Row on the silver screen

With some trepidation I finally saw “The Soloist” movie last week.  Knowing that it was based on a true story and book I really liked and would be a visual representation of complicated issues and problems that are easy to stereotype and over-simplify, I was prepared to not like this movie.  My verdict?  I giveContinue reading “Skid Row on the silver screen”