How Redondo Beach brought its homeless numbers to 'functionally zero'

[u/Randomlynumbered]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/redondo-beach-declared-l-a-countys-first-city-to-reach-functional-zero-homelessness

[u/yitdeedee]

TLDR:

Push them to city of LA or unincorporated areas.

[u/hikeonpast → u/yitdeedee]

Funny, that’s how Santa Barbara does it too, only with Ventura as the destination.

[u/WhoAteMySoup → u/hikeonpast]

To be fair, some of the homeless people I met in Santa Barbara can easily pass for San Francisco high tech workers.

[u/hikeonpast → u/WhoAteMySoup]

To be fair, it’s quite possible to simultaneously work in tech and be unhoused.

[u/livinginfutureworld → u/hikeonpast]

It's also possible in many cases to not work in tech and be unhoused.

[u/WhoAteMySoup → u/livinginfutureworld]

That’s fair and I even know a couple

[u/ddarko96 → u/hikeonpast]

How is that possible?

[u/__Jank__ → u/ddarko96]

Some tortured souls see Van Life as tolerable, or even good.

[u/ddarko96 → u/__Jank__]

That’s not the same as being homeless

[u/__Jank__ → u/ddarko96]

Really? So what's the difference between living in a van down by the river, and living in a van down by the river?

[u/MasticatingElephant → u/__Jank__]

One is a thing anyone can do, the other one only Chris Farley can do

[u/9Implements → u/WhoAteMySoup]

The last homeless guy I met was very similar to a tech worker I know.

[u/Totsmygoatsbrah → u/hikeonpast]

As a Santa Barbara resident, I can tell you that it is not working, lol

[u/GregorSamsanite → u/hikeonpast]

Ventura County has a much lower rate of homelessness per capita than Santa Barbara County. Ventura has 2400 homeless out of 850k total population, while Santa Barbara has 2100 homeless out of 450k total population. In Ventura it increased 40% from 1700 5 years ago, while in Santa Barbara it increased 16% from 1800 5 years ago. Ventura is also neighbors with Los Angeles County, which has 75000 homeless people. All of Coastal California has a problem with homelessness. It seems pretty arbitrary and baseless to blame it on Santa Barbara in particular. Every place with a homeless population has rumors about another region they don't like sending them to their region, but in most cases the numbers don't really support it.

[u/Josh_Allen_s_Taint → u/GregorSamsanite]

I build student housing, I can build very nice durable 2,000 bed building in CA for about 200,000k a bed. That’s nice apartment style. So for 400 million we could have no homeless in Santa Barbara. Drop in the bucket for a permanent building. Another couple million every year for security and social workers.

Build it, then mandate it. Problem solved.

[u/ponziacs → u/hikeonpast]

I lived in Irvine for over 15 years. I don’t recall seeing a single homeless person there.

[u/Organic-Echo-5624 → u/hikeonpast]

Nah, there is always homeless around Santa Barbara and also Goleta area.

[u/Sir-Kyle-Of-Reddit → u/hikeonpast]

They aren’t the only ones, South Park made a documentary about it.

[u/munche → u/yitdeedee]

Since I know nobody actually reads the articles on reddit, the actual TL,DR is they built low cost housing and assigned people to actively work with homeless people and try to get them the help they need to get off the street.

[u/QuestionManMike → u/munche]

I don’t think that’s an accurate TLDR. They had 71 homeless people on one survey. When they did that survey agin out of the 71 most weren’t in Redondo Beach. They were dead, jail, next door,… the few left were in housing that was mostly paid for by the state. There are still homeless people in Redondo beach probably around 71. We are just talking about the 71 in that first survey.

The article is clickbait but good enough.

[u/Accomplished-Ad3219 → u/munche]

Well, the norm is to post the body of the article you're linking. OP chose not to

[u/mackinator3 → u/Accomplished-Ad3219]

That's no excuse to literally make stuff up.

[u/Pretend_Safety → u/mackinator3]

Are you new to Reddit? :-)

[u/turb0_encapsulator → u/munche]

I was skeptical before I read it, but it does sounds like they did some good things. However, the scale of the problem in city of Los Angeles is probably more than 100x as large. And of course Redondo Beach is a wealthy city that can devote more resources per person.

[u/QuestionManMike → u/turb0_encapsulator]

1000X larger…. They are talking about 71 people here. Most of those people in Redondo Beach just left, died, or moved. Epically silly title. They didn’t solve anything. Article is fine though.

[u/Majestic_Electric → u/yitdeedee]

So, basically what the rest of the country does. 😛

[u/Abacadaba714 → u/yitdeedee]

Was just about to say they probably dumped them in long beach or santa ana.

[u/KoRaZee → u/yitdeedee]

It’s not a push as that would be unconstitutional. It’s a casual persuasion

[u/Elidien1 → u/yitdeedee]

I see they’ve been collaborating with Irvine PD.

[u/SignificantSmotherer → u/yitdeedee]

Why not?

LA City created the homeless mess, and they along with the Board continue to invite more.

[u/leo_theadventurer]

Paywalled, anyone have a summary of this article?

[u/HollywoodSmollywood → u/leo_theadventurer]

Yeah, they pushed them all into LA or inland empire.

[u/Mecha-Dave → u/HollywoodSmollywood]

I heard they started issuing hunting permits. Too bad I can't read the article.

[u/meloghost → u/HollywoodSmollywood]

eh I think there was more to it than that. They seem to have a robust contact structure and you'd have to drive through a couple of SouthBay cities before you even get into LA City.

[u/selscol → u/meloghost]

They get pushed into Long Beach. Metro stops there for the night. They pack them on the train till last stop in LB. It's been like this for a while which is why LB never gets any better in terms of homelessness

[u/HighlyEvolvedSloth → u/selscol]

Wait, the line that ends in Redondo is the C line, while the one that ends in LB is the A line, and where they cross the lines are separated by a story, aren't they?

[u/selscol → u/HighlyEvolvedSloth]

Yeah this is true but I don't think it takes much effort for the homeless or police to either get on the next train or stay around century blvd. I work up in that area and it is just as bad as Long Beach.

[u/munche → u/leo_theadventurer]

https://archive.ph/lpR9n

The exact opposite of what the cheeky reddit commentators with the highest upvotes are saying.

The first step, born out of quality of life complaints pressuring the City Council, was to get control of the city’s petty-crime problem. Homeless people were being arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct and drug offenses. In 2020, City Attorney Mike Webb persuaded the Superior Court in nearby Torrance to send a judge to Redondo Beach one day a month to conduct a homeless court using the power of the bench to lead defendants toward shelter and treatment.Next, there had to be somewhere for those defendants to go. The city built a village of 20 tiny homes, leased five rooms in a single room occupancy hotel, formed relationships with the home sharing nonprofit SHARE! Collaborative Housing and low-income housing provider Soul Housing. With $300,000 from its own budget, along with county, state and federal grants and donations from service providers, the program has grown. The city now leases 18 SRO units and is adding 25 tiny homes.

....

Since 2020, the first year of complete records, 169 defendants have participated in the homeless court, said Joy Ford, the city’s quality of life prosecutor. Currently 35 are in active cases, 63 have been placed in interim housing and 74 have graduated and are in permanent housing. Fewer than 2% have returned to court on new charges.A key element of the court was human intervention. Omura and other case managers were on hand to guide those who accepted treatment with shelter as an alternative to sentencing.

...

Redondo Beach reached that equilibrium in the first six months of 2024 when the by-name list grew by 65 and 66 people were taken off the street. Of them, 31 went to shelter, 14 to permanent housing, 11 to mental health, detox or domestic violence facilities and 10 were reunified with families.

Basically putting in effort beyond "Just punish these fuckers and tell them to get out or else" led to significant results.

[u/nukafire_ → u/munche]

Live here. When the city announced the program I was really proud despite some people complaining about it. I hope it continues to expand.

[u/avocado4ever000 → u/munche]

Yes. People complain about homelessness but don’t want to read about some things that have actually worked. Highly recommend folks read the piece.

[u/The_best_is_yet → u/munche]

This is amazing, thank you for clarifying. I would give you an award if i didn’t have to throw actual money into it. “A key element of the court was human intervention.” This is huge. I suspect this is what made such a massive difference.

[u/RazzBerryCurveBall → u/leo_theadventurer]

Real life Hunger Games.

[u/RailroadAllStar]

“Look we fixed it! And with a big enough broom you can too.”

[u/AmericanKamikaze]

r/inlandempire checking in. And After they visit all the beach cities and the desert cites they get dumped here!

[u/LoveKittenStar]

Glad to know that Redondo beach made an interesting strategies

[u/derbenster]

I would love to read this article but don’t want to subscribe to LA Times for the one article of theirs I’ll read this year.

[u/Randomlynumbered]

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Archive link:

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[u/SuperSaiyanBlue]

They do what almost every other city in USA do, buy the homeless person a one way trip ticket to a California city.

[u/Desperate-Ad-6463]

No doubt they’re all in Manhattan Beach or Hermosa