RL1 - Analysis of Two Recent Articles on Homelessness.

Zamna Avila's "Being Homeless is Not a Crime" can be read as a primer on how the city manages the homeless issue, with all of the different departments, bureaus, and elected officials offices involved. It begins with a mystery: Neecee, a homeless woman, has lost all of her belongings while she was taking a shower at a friend's house. A witness says that  "the city took her belongings", and thus the article via a series of interviews explores the possibility (or lack of)  a public worker taking away someone’s property, as well as general sampling of public opinion. As the title suggests, there is no inherent crime in being homeless, however some locals feel entitled to not dealing with homelessness directly, turning a blind eye to their problem.

The editorial "Three nights and thousands of homeless to be counted on L.A. County's streets" is credited to the entire L.A  Times Editorial staff. Given its’ nature, it acts more of a message to the public rather than straight reporting. It is first a portrait of a census, and lastly a fact sheet and a opinion piece. Half of the article is written in the future tense, using the elements of fiction to illustrate what is going to be the largest census count of homelessness in the city’s history. Then it describes the very survey the volunteers are going to be using, which is more detailed than ever before. The second half is in present tense, describing the severity of our city’s homeless problem and makes the case that without said information (in its only quote by Homeless Authority Executive Director Peter Lynn), “Homeless Services Authority officials can't unilaterally move workers to underserved areas or erect housing on their own.” The editorial says that it’s smart for the city to spend more money to gather more detailed census data.

Reading both articles, I'm getting the impression that there is progress being made in how the city deals with homelessness, despite being out of touch with the homeless population. The angle present in both of these articles hint that the public may be generally misunderstanding and perhaps apathetic to this issue. The Random Lengths describes in its reporting the lengths it takes to get a picture of how the city treats homelessness, by having someone pose in the interest of local businesses to see whether the city responds any differently to them than if otherwise. As a newspaper serving the local community, it takes an issue raised by a local, and runs the gamut of city services to see how they deal with this hyper-local issue. Given its different nature, The L.A. Times editorial is more broad-minded and offers less points of view. Both articles give me the impression that the general public must step up to do more to deal with homelessness.