Wrapping the week with this: every city in the IGH report that's making progress gave people with lived experience actual decision-making power. Not advisory roles. Real authority. That's not a footnote.
That's the whole model. buff.ly/ULGj1nh
#EndHomelessness #HousingFirst #RadicalHospitality
The question has never been whether ending homelessness is possible. The question is whether we're willing to try. 100,000 people sleeping on our streets tonight deserve at least that much from us.
Full piece → buff.ly/ULGj1nh
@bryanstevenson1 @RevDrBarber
$387/month. That's the median income of an unsheltered person in LA. There is no apartment in any American city affordable on $387. This isn't a housing crisis. It's an economic crisis wearing a housing crisis's clothes. buff.ly/ULGj1nh #EndHomelessness #HousingFirst #SystemicChange
Buenos Aires redesigned their entire homeless response system during a national economic collapse — because the crisis made redesign more urgent, not less. LA's response to crisis is to plan Olympic encampment sweeps. @NOlympicsLA called the Super Bowl sweeps a "practice run."
Santiago: no constitutional right to housing. Built a dedicated Housing First construction budget anyway. 70–80% of participants off the streets. We have the framework, the funding, and the model. We chose cuts instead.
11 cities. 6 continents. All ending homelessness. LA just cut $200M from homeless programs. The same week. A thread on what the world knows that we won't learn.
buff.ly/ULGj1nh
#HousingFirst #EndHomelessness #SystemicChange
A shelter worker watched two men — 20 and 22 — handcuffed after returning from work. One deported. One disappeared.
Staff now escort residents everywhere. Bodyguards because the bus stop isn't safe.
What does it take for us to call this what it is?
buff.ly/FmTAaNt
#EndHomelessness #ICERaids
This week's piece on ICE enforcement in LA shelters sparked real conversation. Fear doesn't need enforcement to work. When people stop accessing services, the system wins without additional arrests.
And yet — every morning, she scans the block and they walk.
We will not stop. buff.ly/FmTAaNt
"The word sanctuary used to mean safety. Now it means target."
Full documented account: buff.ly/FmTAaNt
#EndHomelessness #SanctuaryCity #HousingJustice
Up to 40% of LA's unhoused community is undocumented. When shelters stop being safe, people stop coming in. Fear doesn't just traumatize — it kills.
ICE says it isn't happening. Shelter executives say otherwise. That gap IS the story.
buff.ly/FmTAaNt
in Jan 2025, the Trump admin rescinded "protected areas" policy — the rule keeping ICE out of shelters, schools, hospitals.
By June: 1,900 arrests in 3 weeks. 88 people a day. Shelter workers became bodyguards.
buff.ly/FmTAaNt
Every morning, a shelter worker scans the block before walking a resident to the bus stop. Not checking weather. Looking for government SUVs.
This is sanctuary in LA right now.
Six weeks. Six articles. One question: Could LA County's new homeless services department actually be different?
The honest answer: partially. Not enough. But more than nothing. Community voice shaped the budget. Not as much as we hoped. More than we feared.
Full series: buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
8 coordinators. 2,200+ faith communities. 4 million Angelenos served.
This is what "building bridges" actually looks like—and it survived the budget cuts.
What faith communities are doing this work where you live?
buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
#EndHomelessness #FaithInAction #RadicalHospitality
$200M budget shortfall. Programs eliminated. Federal policy reversals.
And yet—some of what we built in community co-design survived.
This is what Radical Hope looks like in practice. buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
#EndHomelessness #RadicalHospitality #HousingJustice
Part 6 of 6 — the final piece in my series on LA County's new homeless services department.
Read "What We Kept": buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
"The gap between what we designed and what survived is huge. But the gap between what survived and what could have been lost entirely gives me hope."
We belong to each other. The bridge is the work.
buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
What made it through:
✓ Community Liaisons — lived experience voices, compensated
✓ Client Portal — people access their own data
✓ Faith-Based Coordinators — 8 people bridging 2,200 congregations to county systems
The door is open.
buff.ly/0TxXkJ8
I'm not angry. But the people who gave their time and hope deserve to know.
So I wrote it down. Documented. Remembered. Waiting.
buff.ly/k79Aawp
#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice #RadicalHospitality
"They adjusted the bed rate. Not because they needed to be fair—they were losing facilities."
That's what survived from our equitable contracting proposal.
When adequate funding isn't there, what gets protected? What gets sacrificed?
buff.ly/k79Aawp
#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice
Programs cut entirely:
• Housing Navigation: $12.9M → $0
• Prevention Case Management: $2.8M → $0
• Legal Services: $746K → $0
• Safe Parking: $1.7M → $0
785 interim housing beds disappearing.
buff.ly/k79Aawp
The math: $443,000 of community-designed programs in an $843 million budget. That's 0.05%. The word in the budget is "inform"—not decide, not vote.
buff.ly/k79Aawp
We were asked to imagine a department that could end homelessness in LA County. We drew a flower with community at the center. Not an org chart—a bloom.
Almost nothing we proposed survived the budget.
Here's what happened. buff.ly/k79Aawp
Abstract poster with message of "What would a truly effective, accountable, community-centered homelessness response system look like?" by SecondGrace.LA
"What would a truly effective, accountable, community-centered homelessness response system look like?" That's what we were asked to design. Six prototypes. Evidence-based solutions. Specific implementation plans.
Then the money disappeared.
buff.ly/520QGHB
#HousingJustice #EndHomelessness
Supervisor Hilda Solis on LA's new homelessness department launching with a $219M deficit: "I am rather disgusted with the cutbacks. It is a new department with close to a $300 million deficit. And I know it is going to get tougher."
What we designed v. what we got: buff.ly/520QGHB
#HousingJustice
Every prototype addressed real problems with evidence-based solutions.
Every one would cost money that was evaporating while we wrote on butcher paper.
Part 4 of 6: buff.ly/520QGHB
#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice #LosAngeles
Six prototypes. Real solutions. Specific timelines. Success metrics.
→ Universal data access for unhoused people
→ Transparent funding decisions
→ Contracts that cover actual costs
→ Cultural care units for marginalized communities
buff.ly/520QGHB
Two months earlier: Trump ended Housing First funding. One month earlier: California cut $1B in homelessness funding to $0. Three months later: The new department launched with a $219M deficit.
We kept designing anyway. buff.ly/520QGHB
In September 2025, 100 of us gathered to redesign LA's homelessness response.
We didn't know we were designing a lifeboat while watching the Titanic sink. buff.ly/520QGHB
Fragile yet determined hands holding a single candle. Radical Hope in the Face of State Violence from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA
This week's question: Where does hope live? Not in institutions. Not in policies. Not in the "best of America's nature."
Hope lives in the small practices of care we maintain for each other when everything else collapses.
Full essay: buff.ly/aHvjMzv
