In my final blog for National Hunger and Homelessness Week, I want to highlight homelessness where I live-Los Angeles. Not only is Los Angeles famous for Hollywood, smog, traffic and sunshine, it also holds the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of homelessness in the US. While there are about 750,000 homeless people across the country, there are about 74,000 homeless people scattered throughout this sprawling megalopolis. The situation is further compounded by the limp resources and attention devoted to this issue by the city’s politicians. The majority of homeless and at-risk services are provided by exemplary groups such as Lamp Community, located near Los Angeles’ Skid Row (and featured in our upcoming film, the Soloist).

Lamp Community is addressing homelessness by providing permanent housing for homeless with a mental illness because they are the most most alienated and ignored population. The organization believes that enabling people to transition from the streets to safe, welcoming housing will help them to become fully participating members of society. They also provide a variety of support services to help people become fully engaged citizens such as mental and physical health care, drug rehabilitation, job training and employment, money management and apartment maintenance. Their housing-first motto has successfully enabled over 1,200 individuals to transition from the streets to a real home. takepart to learn more about the Lamp Community and how you can get involved.

(photo by St Stev)

This Fall DoSomething.org and Participant’s upcoming film The Soloist are partnering up for Feed the Need, an initiative to get kids across the country to help fight hunger in their communities.  With the goal of collecting one million pounds of food, high schools, middle schools, orchestras and church groups across the country are running food drives to bring hope to communities in need.  Here’s High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu to explain:

takepart by starting your own drive. Find a local participating food bank near you with the widget below and follow these simple steps from DoSomething.org.

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28536735 GOOD, Kenneth Cole Productions and MySpaceTV have launched On Skid Row, a five-part documentary series that will shed light on a place that is invisible to most people; a place where 9,000 homeless people, whose average age is 9, live in abject poverty, card board boxes, surrounded by feces, urine, rats, prostitution and crime; where mentally ill are dropped off to fend for themselves. And this isn’t a far away place in the third world. In the words of the writer and narrator Sam Slovick, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, this is the first “Third World city in America.” This is Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the notorious neighborhood, which, ironically, is right next to LA’s financial district. On Skid Row is produced by Good Magazine, will be screened on MySpaceTV, and is sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions. So and check out Part One of On Skid Row on MySpaceTV, at GOODMagazine or at Kenneth Cole Productions’ Awearness Blog. And to find out other ways you can to help alleviate homelessness, check out HELP USA.