Shelters won’t provide solutions
In Carolyn McGough’s article titled, “L.A. homelessness a prevalent issue,” (News, Oct. 15) it is stated that because of the rising number of homeless in L.A., more shelters need to be built in order to accommodate them.
In my sophomore year of high school, a group of friends and I volunteered at the Los Angeles Mission kitchen for about three weeks for a service project. There, we met Chef Nick who warmly welcomed us every night as we helped his crew serve the evening meal for the homeless. One striking incident that stands out when I look back on my time volunteering was when Chef Nick answered one of our questions with, “Oh no, we have plenty of empty beds. We don’t always have bodies to fill them.”
This might not be true every day or at every mission, but according to him, people can come into the program at the Mission, be clothed and fed and provided vocational training in any area of interest. So why are there empty beds? Well, there is one catch: You have to give up drugs and alcohol. The rising number of homeless in the Skid Row area and other regions in L.A cannot be solved by building more shelters. That is like bandaging a stubborn, bleeding wound.
Instead, two things must happen if our society is willing to do something to stop the rising homelessness. First, the homeless people themselves must want to stop living on the streets and be willing to give up their daily drug intake. They must realize that with a little help, both medically and financially, they can work their way up and live in a warm place of their own.
Second, people like the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority should better spend their time trying to help the homeless find ways to gain vocational training so they can start earning money.
There are plenty of graduates from the Mission every year who go on to work as clerks, drivers, electricians, technicians, operators, etc. These men and women were willing to give up their dreadful way of life in order to better themselves and, in turn, better society as a whole.
We could provide training in various areas of interest, provide temporary housing and allow some financial allowance to get them started. However, you cannot always help those who refuse to be helped.
The solution lies in helping those who are lost to find incentives to better their own lives. But before that, it is imperative that those living on the streets be willing to change their way of life.
Judith Perera
First-year, political science
Israel trips should change focus
The article on Hillel-sponsored trips to Israel only functions to perpetuate a one-sided view of a complicated conflict (“Hillel offers free trips to Israel,” News, Oct. 17).
What American Jews (like me) need is not indoctrination into the Zionist ideal of a Jewish “homeland” where the people who populated the land for centuries are even today denied access to the lands of their mothers and fathers.
We need a reality check, to see where Palestinians were forced from their homes in 1948 and 1967 in one of the most organized and largest ethnic-cleansing operations of the 20th century.
We need to see where expansion of illegal settlements continues the process of dispossession, and a massive, fortified wall separates people from the fields that provide their sustenance and their livelihoods. What Americans ““ and American Jews, most of all ““ need to see is how our tax money (billions of it every year) goes to fund the denial of basic human rights to an entire population by one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
If all the trip does is inspire students, like the one quoted, to “do more for Israel on campus,” then the trips need to be seen for what they are: propaganda, pure propaganda.
Mark Kaswan
Graduate student, political science