RESEDA RESIDENTS OF REFLECTIONS ON WYANDOTTE SENIOR BUILDING "SCARED TO DEATH" OF HOMELESS RESIDENTS? GIVE US A BREAK!

Daily news article by Melissa Palmer linked here. Read it first, then here are our comments:


The question of if senior residents should have been informed:

Seems NOBODY wants homeless people to move in with them or in their neighborhoods. You may have lived in a neighborhood or a building for years but just get evicted and have nowhere to go. If you're like some of us your neighbors won't know you anymore and neither will your oldest friends. Kicked to the curb by society exactly where do you go, especially if you've lived in the San Fernando Valley. Most Valley Homeless do not want to go to skid row. The fear of being downtown keeps a lot of Valley Homeless in local parks and cars.


WHAT ABOUT THE PRIVACY OF A PERSON WHO HAS BEEN HOMELESS? Does anyone get how that label prevents you from finding work when you're able bodied? Are building owners and managers supposed to tell this personal business to any other tenants? We don't think so. It is also not right for building owners and managers to tell residents which people are getting Section 8.

("Chronically Homeless" to describe anyone who has been without a permanent place to live for a year is ridiculous. Most shelters can't get it together to get someone WITHOUT ANY MENTAL ILLNESS OR CRIMINAL RECORD housing in a year so it's all to easy to be considered "chronically" homeless.)


Let's say what if these seniors who are already in a building with HUD and HACLA reducing their income were informed. Exactly where, with rents up everywhere and waiting lists to get into low income buildings going to flee? Probably nowhere.


People who have seen a doctor and been given prescription marijuana "Medical Marijuana" are legal to smoke or ingest it. The smell does bother some people, as does the smell of cooking ethnic foods, smoking cigarettes, pet odor, etc. We're not without sympathy for the sensitive, but there's a difference between someone who smokes legal and someone who smokes illegal.


Obviously community rules about noise and so on should be observed, but we wonder about the stereotype of senior citizens, that they're all sickly and early to bed and early to rise. WE AGREE WITH SUPERVISOR ZEV YAROSLAVSKY that homeless people need to be housed in their own community. Sometimes with all the changes that lead a person to become homeless changing community is one more big stresser.


Though the statistics on homeless vary about how many are on the street due to mental illness or drugs, WE BET IF WE GOT THE TRUTH OUT OF THE SENIORS IN ANY SENIOR BUILDING WE'D FIND OUT THERE ARE MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE AND DRUG ADDICTS IN THEIR OWN FAMILIES.

We say SNAP OUT OF THE DENIAL! GIVE PEOPLE A CHANCE! YOU MAY BE THE NEXT PERSON WHO NEEDS A CHANCE!