![]() Her group manages low-income housing, including a community of tiny houses built by the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity that opened in 2021. I mean, by definition, it’s a housing issue,” said Shannon Nazworth, who runs Ability Housing, the region’s only nonprofit developer of low-income housing. Homeless advocates and local builders say the problem is a collective one that requires more government incentives in the form of cash or zoning breaks to build affordable places to stay. Homeless people on the street said in interviews that they are regularly pushed out of public areas by police. This year, the City Council passed an anti-panhandling ordinance. Homeless advocates scrambled to find hotels and other emergency housing. Sifakis worked with the city and local homeless providers to place people in a warehouse he owns after the city broke up an encampment of about 100 to 200 people in 2021. The backlash against homeless people is partly the result of their increased visibility in the downtown area, which has fewer residences than other parts of Jacksonville and can look more desolate when office workers are doing their jobs from home. Many have mental health issues that he’s “basically never seen before - I mean, on this level, you know, schizophrenia, bipolar, all kinds of disorders.” He knows the official homeless numbers are down but he is seeing more unhoused people who he believes are going uncounted, he said. But he’s sick of cleaning up messes and needs a clear sidewalk when his counseling business opens every day, he said. Jones, who was once homeless himself, said he sympathizes with his unhoused neighbors. One recent morning, around the corner from Watson’s home, Michael Jones was using a leaf blower to clear a man from his front sidewalk. Her downtown neighborhood is a gathering place, in part because it’s near shelters and a free health clinic that caters to people who lack homes. Her only complaint: Too many homeless people congregate in the area, making her feel unsafe. So Watson was willing to fork over an extra large security deposit to overcome credit issues and about half of her income every month in rent, more than she was paying elsewhere, to stay close to work. But it has a kitchen, a micro balcony and a washer and dryer, and it’s “brand spanking new,” she said. It’s spare, with barely enough room for her to lay a mattress on the floor. As a result, his homes tend to be more affordable for people at lower-income levels who do not meet federal definitions of poverty.ĭestanee Watson, a 29-year-old receptionist, is renting one of Sifakis’ apartments, a 320-square-foot shipping container, part of an experimental 18-unit building in the heart of downtown. His company builds in older neighborhoods, with existing roads and sewer lines, and seeks zoning that allows higher density, which lowers his costs. Los Angeles and other big cities should follow Jacksonville’s lead and beef up their supply of “the missing middle” housing: duplexes, townhouses and small apartment buildings in walkable neighborhoods, Sifakis argued. levels of street homelessness mostly because it has more available housing. ![]() ![]() Like many of those places, warm-weather Jacksonville doesn’t have L.A. ![]() But poverty, drug use and crime are challenges for many American cities with far fewer homeless people than L.A. The public tends to blame L.A.’s high levels of homelessness on poverty, drug use, crime or even Southern California’s warm weather. County has about eight or nine times the number of homeless people per capita compared with Jacksonville’s three-county homeless services area, based on local estimates and census data. Volunteers and outreach workers counted 1,247 people on streets and in shelters during the region’s most recent homeless census, a pittance compared with the more than 75,000 estimated to be homeless in Los Angeles County’s most recent census. “We’re kind of, you know, at a fork in the road here, and either we start building more affordable housing, and we cut this off, or we could go either way.”įor now, that’s a distant scenario. “We can’t be L.A.,” said Cindy Funkhouser, president and CEO of the Sulzbacher Center, the city’s largest homeless services provider.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |