The City of West Hollywood’s Homeless Initiative works to address homelessness with a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, collaborative response. The City partners with funded social service agencies, with the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, with the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, and with Los Angeles County agencies to provide a wide variety of services that reduce homelessness and support people who are experiencing homelessness.
As part of this work, the City of West Hollywood will host a virtual Community Update Meeting about the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 6 p.m. The meeting will take place via Zoom. Advance registration is requested and community members are encouraged to submit questions in advance when registering for the event via Zoom. Detailed information and a Zoom meeting registration link are posted on the City’s website at www.weho.org/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/24823/15.
The Community Update Meeting will provide community members with an opportunity to learn about the latest information about the City’s Homeless Initiative, including recent outcomes from City-funded organizations that directly assist people experiencing homelessness in moving from the streets into housing. Meeting attendees will get a preview of new projects in development that respond to community needs and make significant progress toward the goals of the City’s Five-Year Plan to Address Homelessness in Our Community.
The meeting discussion will also include a special focus on current efforts the City is taking to secure Homekey financial support from the State of California, which could create an opportunity to provide an interim housing site in West Hollywood where community members could access resources, connect to services, and move off the street. The event will provide insight into next steps for this effort and will offer community members details about other ways to get involved in the Homeless Initiative.
At the Community Update Meeting, attendees will hear from a variety of speakers including members of the City Council of the City of West Hollywood – Mayor Lauren Meister and Mayor Pro Tempore Sepi Shyne, who comprise the City Council’s Subcommittee on Homelessness – as well as City staff members and representatives of the City’s contracted services providers. Outreach teams who work with unhoused community members will share about how they do their outreach work and about the challenges faced by housed and unhoused community members as a result of the nationwide housing and homelessness crisis.
The West Hollywood Homeless Initiative is overseen by the City of West Hollywood’s Strategic Initiatives Division in coordination with the City’s Social Services Division; both Divisions are part of the City’s Human Services and Rent Stabilization Department.
If you are concerned about a community member who is experiencing homelessness, please call the West Hollywood Homeless Initiative Concern Line at (323) 848-6590. If your concern requires time-sensitive assistance during nights or weekends, please call the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station 24/7 at (310) 855-8850.
If folks want to know what is happening with the homeless in Beverly Hills, here it is in today’s Courier. Make your own comparison……
https://beverlyhillscourier.com/2022/01/30/human-relations-commission-hears-homelessness-report/
Exactly as I expected, after finishing this article, before reading the comments. I suspected that the same usual suspects would complain, complain, complain. And it has barely started. “The city isn’t doing enough!” And now, when the city does something, “… it’s not enough! It is not our problem!” Typical, typical NIMBY attitudes. To be fair, I think the City should do more. Much more than this. But this, at least, is a (small) step in the right direction. But some people are just content to be p’d off about anything and everything involving the local government. The reality is,… Read more »
You are offensive, Randy. Do you work at City Hall? What’s your connection to Horvath and Erickson?
Awww … I’m glad to offend you. Super glad. Let’s just say I live in the ‘hood. For 23 years. I’ll bet it is more than you have. You probably live in Idaho. Who do you work for, “offended by Randy?” You are probably just another one of the constant complainers on this site, who believe in conspiracy theories about Councilmembers having “spies,” using a different name. News flash: I do not think much of “SHE” even pays attention to this site, and do not really care about your comments. You aren’t that special. I have been in contact with… Read more »
The person you’re replying to is Michael Grace. He changes his username for almost every comment but the writing style stays the same.
If that is true, really, really brave of him.
Your compulsion to post under different names indicates to me that you are mentally ill. The joy you take in harassing people is just a symptom!
Hi greeneyedguy!
Relax Francis
Another virtual meeting with questions vetted in advance so they can put the best possible spin on why things (with all their efforts) are getting worse and not better.
And another negative reply from you, about just about anything, and everything. Becaaauuuse … it involves the City Council.
The city council is corrupt. Why are you shilling for them?
I’m DONE talking to you. I’m not a shill, and owe you zero explanation. I’m not even sure if you live here. Most of what you do is stir the pot. For all we know, you live in Arkansas, and are a rabid Trump supporter. “WehoFan … ” as if! If you *actually* live here, show yourself, speak out at Council meetings, run for office, support candidates you believe in, and if none of that, recognize that this Council is in place, at least 2 of 5 members, for the next 18+ months. Put your money where your mouth is.… Read more »
You’re too defensive Randy. Weho deserves better than the current city council.
I’m NOT reassured knowing the homeless subcommittee is made up of two segregationists responsible for banning me and thousands of other working poor citizens from employment. The day will come when these people stand trial.
Do you have to be vaccinated to be an escort these days?
Former sex worker is proudly in my byline. Is paying client in yours, anon?
Mandates and vax passports are pushing people further into the margins of society and into the talons of predators like Ed Buck. Wake UP!
Get vaccinated William! WAKE UP!
It’s over. Honk!
I keep asking ….. How does Beverly Hills it handle it??
Not very pleasantly.
sounds like a winning strategy to me.
They drop them off in weho.
Get them off the streets and away from our families.
Yes, kick the can down the road, and pretend like it is not a WeHo problem, or a regional problem, and that no homeless people are former residents of the City of WeHo. Let’s pay for the food lines over the border, into Hollywood. Oh, wait, we are already doing that.
Former residents can get medical care and temporary housing. The rest need to go. Or more will be coming back.
OK, good luck regulating that. Tell us all how that should be done, please. The fact is, we have people suffering on our streets, and for a city who’s large base of constituents claim to be “liberal,” their attitudes change, when it affects their neighborhood, their property values, etc.. It is so much easier to just write a check.
What would you propose Randy?
The vast majority of homeless people are severely mentally ill–in large part because they have refused to take the medications that would solve many of their problems. Most mental illness is very treatable today with medications and therapy. The crazy people on the street need to be institutionalized until the time comes when they are able to live with the rest of us.
YES.
People who utilize Hart Dog Park (next to the old Standard Hotel) are terrorized on a daily basis by an out of control homeless guy who charges towards people daily threatening to kill everyone and their dogs. Several businesses have constantly complained about him too, and people visiting the city and staying in local hotels are understandably frightened when they experience him screaming in their faces. The police pick him up for a night and he’s back at it again the next day. The City Council and many city departments are aware of him and haven’t done anything. When he… Read more »
This is depressing news. Another show meeting for a show process conducted by public relations experts illustrating studies and surveys that lack basic problem solving expertise in a reasonable time frame. Despite many of its presumably self bestowed awards, West Hollywood should have been capable of demonstrating novel approaches in a timely manner but they continue to flounder. The community requires and deserves common sense municipal governance action regarding this issue and public safety far more than pet harebrained initiatives that glorify individual council members.
Problem Solving #101= Craft a plan, put it into action and share the results.
Oh great. Lets have a “Virtual Community Update Meeting”.
Take them off the streets. Get them the help they need…….but they cannot sleep on our streets.
The more comfortable cities make it to be homeless, the more people become homeless.
Whatever they are doing it seems that it’s not working. The problem is only getting worse. Time for new ideas.
The last two years of COVID have been a huge challenge to have actual personal out reach to our local homeless population. But I think we need to think about what “success” will look like; providing housing for those who will accept it does not necessarily mean the West Hollywood will ever free of homeless until we have regional leadership rather than the well meaning but haphazard approach by different jurisdictions. Most people I know want the City to deal affirmatively with our homeless in a compassionate manner and act pro-actively to keep WeHo residents in their homes.
Success was possible before needing to use the pandemic as an excuse. There were relatively few individuals which for all practical purposes could have been properly treated and reoriented into society. The problem has become exponentially greater for the individuals and the community to deal with. There are stages and issues requiring treatment and adjustment before moving them into housing. If untreated, they bring their problems and issues with them and the housing will likely revert to slum locations. Please be realistic.
We’ve have been and are compassionate. What we are is..no longer patient. The vast majority of homeless are mentally ill or addicts of some sort. Fight to CHANGE THE LAWS to have these individuals placed into an facility where they can get the help they desperately need. Leaving them to wander neighborhood streets is not doing them any good and it’s not doing society any good.
I agree with you and the prior commentor; but West Hollywood alone can’t institutionalize homeless people. We need to figure out how to make the community safe while still providing for those that we can help. We just can’t kick them across Doheny because Beverly Hills will kick them right back.
Time to hold the Planning Director accountable for illegal zoning restrictions that prevent the siting of an emergency shelter. #NO MORE KEHO N WEHO!