Disaster in MacArthur Park is LA’s latest chapter in callous inhumanity
The atrocious scenes in MacArthur Park are just the latest chapter in decades of inhumanity.
But the City of Los Angeles has stopped those of us who are trying to do something about homelessness.
My husband and I founded, funded and ran a recovery-based shared housing community called Haaven.
Together, we supported eight fully furnished and outfitted shared-homes where more than 200 formerly homeless people found community and support in homes built on cultures of health and recovery.
The City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) excluded Haaven from their menu of solutions, claiming shared housing was “undignified.”
We did not require sobriety, but asked residents to refrain from doing drugs in the homes.
The City and LAHSA said that impeded people’s civil rights.
Our privately funded solution was driven out of business simply for providing a recovery-based alternative to the misery of the streets.
I first became aware of the homeless crisis in Los Angeles about 17 years ago, when my son was just 3.
We live in Venice, Calif., and I used to push him in his stroller down to the local kids’ park.
Day after day, I passed the same people sprawled on the sidewalks in various states of........





















Toi Staff
Sabine Sterk
Gideon Levy
Mark Travers Ph.d
Waka Ikeda
Tarik Cyril Amar
Grant Arthur Gochin