This past week the Long Beach City Council approved the Housing Element of the General Plan presented by City staff. The decision was somewhat contentious as those who advocate more housing for low income populations were upset that staff did not include in the recommendation all their “suggestions”, as detailed in a sixteen page letter from Suzanne Brown, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). The main contention of the LAFLA is that Long Beach does not have enough “affordable housing.” I quote “affordable housing” because of the broad scope with which it can be defined — depending on one’s agenda. For LAFLA the agenda is to increase the number of units available in the City of Long Beach for those at the lowest end of the income scale. In her sixteen-page missive to members of council, Brown details the need to add several thousand housing units in Long Beach for those earning less than $30,000 per year.
The Housing Element approved on Tuesday did not incorporate the recommendations Brown and other low income housing advocates wanted; this upset those advocates who felt that just because the recommendations were made by them, city staff needed to incorporate those recommendations into the Housing Element. Well, myself and others recommend that we have more than enough low income units in this town and creating more will only harm our city and its resources. Our recommendations are that if you build them they will come, and are evidenced by having tens of thousands of low income residents and units in Long Beach already. The number and percentage of low income units in Long Beach is disproportionate to those units in surrounding cities, we do not need more. Unfortunately our recommendations were not incorporated into the Housing Element as the city will not be decreasing the number of such units in the city, but we will live with what came out of council.
On Wednesday Supervisor Don Knabe gave his State of the County address to over 1,000 people at a luncheon hosted by the Greater Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. In his address Knabe spoke at length about the state of healthcare in our community and county. He spoke of the numerous hospitals that have closed; the emergency rooms that are on divert much of the time and the continued pressures being put on our hospitals that are still open. As he put it, if you are in an accident, no matter what type or how much insurance you have, you are in the ambulance-emergency room lottery. Which is the closest hospital to where your accident occurred that is accepting patients? And once you get to the emergency room, what is the wait for you to be treated?
Our emergency rooms are crowded with non-emergency medical situations, and non-insured, non-paying patients filling the exam rooms and waiting rooms for colds, flu, asthma, sprains, and other non-emergency medical conditions that most of us would visit our family practitioners for treatment. Go on a ride-along with a fire department crew and see how many times they respond to a 911 call that is someone looking for transportation to a local emergency room for a possible broken wrist or dehydration. Hang out in the emergency rooms of St. Mary’s, Memorial and Community Hospital and see how many stumble down drunks who cut their heads are dropped off by LBPD, how many patients come in for treatment that amounts to an aspirin and fluids, how many patients are clogging the system for bee stings or minor stove burns — how many of those patients live in low income housing units, have no insurance and no intention of paying their medical bills for the visit.
In the past budget cycle, Long Beach Chief of Police Tony Batts was grilled over the amount of overtime his department spends. Go on some ride-alongs with LBPD units and see how they spend most of their patrols and calls. As you read this, there is a chance two officers are in a waiting room waiting for a detainee to get treatment, depending on the severity of the injury and which emergency room they are in the officers can spend hours waiting instead of patrolling. If this happens near the end of their shift they are being paid overtime to babysit a belligerent drunk or meth addict who is a danger to himself and others, but cannot be taken to jail until treated. These individuals waste time, money and resources of the police department and of the healthcare industry and there is a decent chance their housing is subsidized by your tax dollars as well thanks to the advocacy of groups like the LAFLA.
Our hospitals have become dumping grounds for our low income residents. Little or no insurance, no MediCare or MediCal coverage, no legal residency status, none of these is a barrier to obtaining quality healthcare from our local hospitals. Everyone is seen, everyone is treated, regardless of income, ability to pay, legality of residency, race, sexual orientation, gender or any other demographic you can label; if you are in need of medical assistance and walk into one of our community’s hospitals you will be treated — no guarantee on how long it will take to get the treatment, but you will be treated. And if you cannot or will not pay, the hospital and doctors and service providers will eat the cost of treatment.
There is a direct correlation between our Housing Element and the number of low income residential units we have, and the health of our healthcare system. Why do you think so many hospitals have closed in Los Angeles County, because we have so many middle and upper income families with health insurance? Or because each of the cities that have experienced the closures have significant numbers of low income housing units that attract and house low income families using the hospitals as family doctors? Our local hospitals are under significant financial pressure to maintain services and programs and to be able to continue to deliver quality healthcare to those in need. Ms. Brown, the LAFLA and others, including some members of the Long Beach City Council, want to further burden our emergency rooms and hospitals, create more financial pressure on their ability to operate and increase the wait you may experience when you have a true medical emergency by increasing the number of low income residents in Long Beach.
Currently the City of Long Beach has well over $110 Million in State and Federal funding for low income housing; the funds are available through the Long Beach Housing Development Company per a city memo dated July 3, 2008. Yet the city is still taxing new developers and businesses to add money to the housing trust fund for low income housing, and considering even higher fees. According to the 7/3/08 memo regarding the additional fees (taxes) being considered that LAFLA and others want directed to more low income housing units, the City Council “if it is interested” could direct staff to use the fees “for a number of other community priorities including public safety, street and sidewalk repairs, and other unfunded capital needs.” Sounds like infrastructure to me, and it seems to me our city needs to fund infrastructure repair and replacement.
The City currently is in a very bad budget situation and the General Fund is in trouble. Low income housing advocates are asking the City Council to increase taxes on local developers and businesses to build and provide more low income units which will attract more low income residents to our city. Our city’s healthcare delivery organizations are facing extreme capacity and financial burdens mostly caused by uninsured and non-paying patients clogging their facilities for minor and non-emergency medical issues. Our public safety personnel are being used to transport low income and uninsured residents to our emergency rooms, creating staffing burdens, overtime costs and gaps in service for real emergencies. Our city has over $110 million already available for low income housing needs but is being pressured to spend its own money from the strapped budget. I am missing something in all of this, apparently.
I fully understand, accept and encourage our City and community to assist those in need. I also understand that by following the recommendations of the low income housing advocates our city will see an increase in those who are in need, without any increase in revenue to pay for them. Our city needs businesses to provide jobs, our city needs jobs to provide buyers for retail sales, our city needs retailers to provide taxes for our city coffers. Long Beach has one of the lowest per capita retail spending rates in Los Angeles County, this hurts local businesses and the local economy. Adding more low income housing units will not increase per capita retail spending, it will lower it and therefore create a less desirable market for potential retailers looking to locate here. There has been a lot of discussion lately about the decline, or perhaps lack of ability to rise, of Pine Avenue and the numerous vacant store fronts. How is increasing the number of low income residents going to decrease the number of vacant store fronts on Pine Avenue? How is increasing the number of low income residents going to pay for additional overtime for police and fire personnel whose activity levels will go up in corresponding levels? How is increasing the number of low income residents going to increase the number of physicians, nurses, staff and revenue for local hospitals so they can adequately treat the health care needs of our city?
My stance of this is entirely politically incorrect in a city that is as heavily Democratic and liberal as Long Beach. But politically incorrect or not my position is fundamentally sound economically and sociologically. Increase the number of available low income units and you will increase the number of low income residents. Increase the number of jobs and businesses however, and you will increase the number of working residents, increase the number of middle class residents and increase the amount of tax revenue for our city. Our city currently has sufficient financial resources and housing to accommodate low income residents, to increase either is to kill future economic development and growth in Long Beach. We are at a tipping point, do members of council want Long Beach to slide downward into fewer jobs and businesses, fewer healthcare options, slower responses from public safety personnel; or do they want to see an increase in the number of businesses, jobs, retailers and subsequent revenue?
Why should the City of Long Beach spend one dime of General Fund money on this issue when it has over $110 million all ready available from the Federal and State governments? Will it fix our streets and sidewalks? Will it open any businesses? Will it provide private sector employment? Will it relieve pressure on our healthcare system? Will it make you and your children safer? Instead of using General Fund money to add to our problems, City Council should instead look for ways to use public resources to make our city healthier, physically and financially. I applaud the City Council for its vote on Tuesday and not caving into the political pressure and demands of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and others. I urge them to continue to resist such pressure and maintain a steady course of using existing funds from the Federal and State treasuries for low income housing aid and assistance.
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