volunteers housing the homeless

Having been called into being as volunteers by the City of West Hollywood in 1987, we suffered the awful realization just two years later that West Hollywood, as a political entity, wasn't ready to defend a group that was helping the homeless. We were accused of perpetuating homelessness, encouraging criminal behavior, despoiling the neighborhood, and destroying property values -- all this for serving hungry people something to eat once a day -- and we were effectively run out of town and into Hollywood, suddenly an orphan group of volunteers but with a reputation in the media for having fought city hall and survived. From that point forward we have only gotten braver, because little by little we came to know that there were a lot of people like us in the community who wanted to do something "good" but didn't know where to begin. We have since fought any number of running battles just to keep going -- against neighbors and neighbors' groups, against politicians and other "social service agencies," and, just two years ago against a company which sued us for creating "a public and a private nuisance." When that happened we were defended pro bono for eight months by a partner and four associates of one of the largest law firms in town, and at the end of it the judge in the case threw it out with prejuidice. We are now stronger and more effective than we have ever been, and we continue to grow stronger still. We serve an ever-better meal, to between 150 and 200 people every night. We have two or three new volunteers coming to us every day, and our ability to network in the community at large is nothing short of extraordinary. As far as we know, no other ragtag grass-roots organization formed to help the homeless has lasted as long as we have and attracted so much support. And yet we are still at the takeoff point, in that every new volunteer who means it has a new idea as to how we can reach deeper into the community and how we can avail ourselves of its strength to do more for the weakest among us.

We will measure it one homeless person at a time -- who is no longer homeless but back with the rest of us: indoors, with a place to sleep at night, a place to wash and keep clean, a place to be warm and safe and to store clothes and other things, and a place to receive friends and family, as if having friends and family again wasn't just a matter of figuring out how to survive but a matter of living and enjoying life.

Getting fifteen chronically homeless people off the street and into permanent housing will (1) vastly reduce the amount of taxpayer money spent to take care of them IN the street -- in shelters, in emergency rooms and hospitals, in police stations and jails and prisons; (2) since the effort will be entirely volunteer and OF the community, it will draw the community as a whole into a closer relationship with the homeless generally and help to do away with the notion that we live in one world and they live in another; (3) it will save fifteen perfectly good people from a downward spiral from which most of us would be hard pressed to pull out and, in the case of a number of them, it will return them to a position of productivity alongside the rest of us: to jobs, to social and political interactions of all kinds, and (sure enough) to VOLUNTEERING to help others who are still on the downward spiral.

Success in 2050 would be the citizens of Los Angeles -- not the politicians, not the activists, not the social service agencies, but the citizens -- long since having awakened to the fact that life is only wonderful if the wonder of it can be shared and celebrated as widely as possible for the greater good. In the latter half of the Twentieth Century political and economic systems were created ostensibly to make that happen, and it simply didn't. Now we have another chance: not for ideological reasons or with a view to creating yet another enforceable system, but because there is no greater social logic than doing good for its own sake, we should all follow our instincts and pitch in. The number of volunteers who want to join the GWHFC is growing in geometric proportions. By 2050 will they and others like them have nothing more to do, because people will no longer be living in the street? Not a chance. But there is every chance that if we keep going as we are going now, we will be able to move the newly homeless off the street almost as fast as they come to it, and it will be easier to do it than it is now, because most of the community will be engaged with us in the process. We will ALL be volunteers.