Civic Engagement Project 3170
Homelessness in Los Angeles
What is Civic Engagement?
Civic engagement by youth.gov article is defined as working to make a difference in the civic life of one’s community. It also involves developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference.
The article ThoughtCo. defines civic engagement as participating in activities intended to improve the quality of life in one’s community by addressing issues of public concern, such as homelessness, pollution, or food insecurity, and developing the knowledge and skills needed to address those issues. Civic engagement can involve a wide range of political and non-political activities including voting, volunteering, and participating in group activities like community gardens and food banks.
My definition of civic engagement is participating in your community in order to create a change within the community and to help better the community in a positive way.
A social issue in my community is the growing amount of people who are homeless. There are a lot of people who do not have a place to live in and end up homeless. They camp in the streets, having to take up sidewalks and small hills in the neighborhood. There are also not enough shelters for the homeless to sleep in, which forces them to find a location to live in. I think that this social issue does affect the community I live in. Sidewalks are being blocked, not allowing for people to walk safely on the sidewalk. There also is an increase of trash on the side walks and overflow of public trash bins.
The first source is the article Study: Los Angeles Homelessness Rises Sharply as housing Crisis Deepens by Fars News Agency. This first article states that in 2019 there were over 60,000 people who were homeless, living in the streets of Los Angeles. The rise in homelessness can be due to an increase of rent and a shortage of affordable housing. Another article by Caroline Tracey L.A. 'Trash Club' Helps Unhoused People and the Community states that the city cleans and sweeps shelters displacing the residents. It also states that homeless in Los Angeles increased by 32% between 2018 and 2020. The Echo Park Trash Club helps clean up the trash build up in encampments like under the bridges of the freeway in order to prevent encampments of being "swept."
I think that this issue is important to me and my community because the amount of people that are camping on the streets and the side of the freeways have increased in the community. The freeway behind the block that I live in has many homeless people camping on the side of the freeway and they cross the freeway and walk along the side of freeway to get to the spot where they live and it can be dangerous. I have also seen many encampments in Los Angeles that are being swept because of the accumulation of trash in the sidewalks and on the side of the freeways. I chose this issue because in the neighborhood that I live in I have seen a lot of encampments building up on the side of the freeway and I have seen the homeless run across the freeway and walk along the side the freeway to get where they need to get and it has become dangerous. I personally do not like to see that there are so many people whop are homeless and then seeing there living space get swept because of trash build up. They are then left to having to find somewhere else to live. I think that homelessness is an issue that should continue to be fixed.
Tracey, Caroline. “'Trash Club' Helps Unhoused People and the Community.” MSN, Public News Service, 28 Nov. 22AD, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trash-club-helps-unhoused-people-and-the-community/ar-AA15c4NL.
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