[homeles_ot-l] FW: Policing Our Way Out Of Homelessness

[Tim D. Aubry]

FYI.   

Tim Aubry 
Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services 
University of Ottawa
________________________________________
From: Evie Gogosis [mailto:GogosisE at smh.toronto.on.ca] 
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 10:59 AM
Subject: Policing Our Way Out Of Homelessness

Hi everyone,

Please forward to those who may be interested.  

Thank you.
Evie



Policing Our Way Out of Homelessness?

Policing Our Way out of Homelessness? The First Year of the Safer Cities
Initiative on Skid Row has been published by the UCLA School of Law.

This report by the UCLA School of Law evaluates the first year of LA's
Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) on Skid Row. SCI is an initiative of
increased police presence meant to clean up the Skid Row area and lessen
the crime rate there. A major component of the initiative involves
"Streets or Services", allowing those arrested for minor offenses to
graduate from a service program. Included in the report-an overview of
the homeless situation around Skid Row (characteristics, demographics);
access to shelters and housing (supply of shelters, vacancy rates,
geography and concentrations of shelter beds), a review of SCI (police
policies and practices in the Skid Row area, crime rates, types of
crimes, social services success), and more. 

Selected Findings:

*21% of the homeless population in the City of Los Angeles is sheltered,
compared to 57% for San Francisco, and more than 90% for Philadelphia,
Denver, and New York City and 54.8% of the homeless population
nationwide. 
*In LA County, there are 3.6 homeless individuals for every shelter bed
or housing bed. 
*While Skid Row accounts for 7.6% of the homeless population of the City
of LA, the area accounts for 43% of LA County's emergency shelter beds. 
*The Safer Cities Initiative produced 750 arrests per month in the Skid
Row area, with more than half of these (about 55%) drug arrests; the
remaining half were for other non serious, non-violent offenses. 
*5% of those arrested were admitted to the Streets or Services program,
and 0.3% of people arrested completed the 21 day program. 

Bill Pitkin, Director of Research
Joseph Martinez, Research and Policy Analyst
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
523 W. 6th Street Suite 345
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213-808-6220 
research at unitedwayla.org 
http://www.unitedwayla.org 



 <<United Way Report 2007.pdf>> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20071001/da64d260/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: United Way Report 2007.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 218154 bytes
Desc: United Way Report 2007.pdf
Url : http://list.web.net/lists/private/homeles_ot-l/attachments/20071001/da64d260/attachment-0001.pdf