On a typical serene and sunny summer Sunday afternoon in Santa Monica, City Councilman Richard Bloom invited the important and the motivated — often the same person — to his home on a tree-shaded street to renew an aggressive campaign to meaningfully lift up the homeless.
A 10-year veteran of City Hall with decades of family law practice dominating his C.V., when Mr. Bloom says he invited his Westside friends and colleagues, they form a gigantic circle of the influential and the empathic.
After a mandatory stop at the sidewalk-adjacent check-in table, casually attired guests breezed through a smart, still understated, open-air home, brimming food tables at the ready — a tropical setting tailored for near-seaside living.
Descending into a lushly green step-down garden, guests clinked glasses and compared similar viewpoints before the afternoon took a sobering turn for the serious.
Mr. Bloom is no City Councilman you would blindly pluck from a fedora.
Within the past year, Mr. Bloom has largely stepped away from his law practice to devote his most productive energies to curbing the low-flying phenomenon that is homelessness.
He is an officer of Path — People Assisting the Homeless, epath.org — a 25-year-old organization that offers transitional housing and placement for the homeless.
Why gather?
“An opportunity for people to get together, and in some cases to be introduced to what we are doing and help us out in a financial way,” said the normally natty Mr. Bloom, today in a colorful sport shirt that swung free, summer slacks and relaxing footwear.
“The issue of homelessness is larger in L.A. than in any other city in the country. We have the largest homeless population, and we have such a long way to go.
“That is why you can’t stop moving forward.
“Events like this make sure more people understand and that more people are vested in positive solutions.”
A Slight Improvement
The encouraging news from an in-city survey taken in Santa Monica earlier this year suggests that the homeless population has receded by 8 percent from the last count two years before.
About 1300 persons a night are homeless in Santa Monica.
What is a reasonable objective for Santa Monica in effectively rescuing its homeless community? Mr. Bloom was asked.
“I am not sure that is a fair way to characterize it,” he said. “When I think about homelessness now, in my new job, I always am thinking of the regional picture.
“No matter what we do in Santa Monica, we are only chipping away at a significant but relatively small part of the problem.
“The key for us is to start seeing numbers drop on a regional basis, and it is not happening at this point. The regional survey results are due to be released in about a month.
“There are reasons. We are not doing a good enough job with the chronically homeless. The second issue is the economy. We have a huge number of people on the doorstep of homelessness. More people are living in cars than ever before.”
Mr. Bloom said that “while positive things are happening to help the homeless, the counterweight to that is the recession. So it is hard for us to gain traction.
“A year ago, before the economy really tanked, we were totally focused on the chronically homeless, those who have been on the street a year or more and suffered more than one incidence of homelessness.
“Now, we still are focused on the chronic population but also on those who are in danger of becoming homeless.”
