A New, Aggressive Approach To Homelessness

"As Los Angeles grapples with what to do about skid row, city officials might look to their seaside neighbor for ideas. Long a haven for transients, Santa Monica has launched an aggressive new effort to get chronically homeless individuals off the streets. It has earmarked funds for counseling intoxicated individuals who are arrested and held at the city's jail. City officials are also considering a special court that would serve the mentally ill arrested in Santa Monica and the greater Westside, and a pilot program to help reunite homeless individuals with relatives willing to shelter and care for them.

...While Santa Monica has only a fraction of the homeless population that exists in downtown Los Angeles, it is beginning to try some of the same ideas that Los Angeles officials are weighing as they make a new push to improve conditions on skid row.

...Santa Monica [is being pushed] to embrace a "housing first" model. Such programs, which seek to provide permanent shelter and recovery services for chronically homeless individuals, have worked well in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Cities generally find that this approach costs less in the long run than providing emergency hospital and police services for transients who remain on the streets."