L.A. County now has 58,000 homeless people. So why are there thousands fewer shelter beds than in 2009?
“Live from skid row, it’s Tuesday night!” Pastor Dan shouted, beginning two hours of Christian music and prayer for worshipers arrayed on metal chairs in the spacious, white-walled chapel at the Union Rescue Mission.
Once the playful service ended, worshipers folded and stacked their chairs and began to unfurl cots. There weren’t enough for everyone.
“Blankets and sheets on the floor,” the resident concierge at the chapel doors told latecomers who had waited outside for admission. “Blankets and sheets on the floor.”
By lights out, 1,300 people were bedded in the five-story building in the heart of skid row, women overflowing into the chapel and men on mattresses on the floor of the day room.
The crush of bodies at the Union Rescue Mission is asnapshot of the deficiencies in L.A.’s shelter network.