LA passes a $100 million plan to help homeless

LA is finally deciding to pay attention to its growing situation of homeless people in Skid Row. Researchers quote anywhere over 90,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County with anywhere from 20,000-45,000 homeless people living in the 50 block radius known as Downtown's Skid Row. Los Angeles has one of the highest concentrations of homeless people in America.

Today, the city of Los Angeles passed a $100 million plan to start cleaning up Skid Row. At first, some of the money will be put towards more temporary housing shelters. $80 million will be put into a fund for future permanent housing and rent support.

It sounds like a small step, but I guess anything is better than nothing for now. The city appears to have taken a blind eye to the situation in the past, but it has not been getting better.
Crime and drug abuse runs rampant and police have little tolerance for the homeless. It is also reported that over 10,000 children make up the 90,000 homeless people that live in the county of Los Angeles.

Independent programs such as Chrysalis and The Midnight Mission have made their own progress in helping to try and get people off the streets of downtown.

For more information check out these sites:
-San Francisco Examiner article "L.A. Approves $100M County Homeless Plan" 4/5/2006
-NY Times article "In Los Angeles, Skid Row Resists an Upgrade 7/15/2003"
-Wikipedia article "Skid Row"

(photo courtesy of http://www.geographing.com/LACA.htm)