Roots of the San Francisco Dilemma

San Francisco, like Los Angeles, is important for its “bellwether” quality. Both West Coast cities tend to manifest societal problems before the rest of the country, and sometimes they come up with solutions that the rest of America can look to for an example. What...

Single Room Occupancy — Problems and Promise

The concept of single room occupancy (SRO) dwellings has a long and varied history in the United States. More than 10 years ago, Los Angeles County’s homeless population had already reached “epidemic proportions” and the city was trying to transform the...

Time, Space, and Homelessness

In in 1989, in Austin, Texas, Richard R. Troxell, President of House the Homeless (HtH), started Legal Aid for the Homeless. His specialty is helping disabled people apply for the benefits to which they are entitled, because otherwise they don’t have a snowball’s...

Another Voice of Experience

Recently, House the Homeless outlined the thoughts of a man who has spent 20 years working in organizations to aid people experiencing homelessness in Seattle. Today, we look at someone who has spent almost that long as a professional writer whose main topic is the...

Memoir of a Homeless Czar

Actually, in King County, Washington, there is no such thing as a “homeless czar,” and that might be one of the problems, according to Mark Putnam. Until last month, he was executive director of All Home, the coordinating board that serves the whole county. Before...