LOS ANGELES HOMELESS STUDENTS : NUMBERS RISE TERRIFYINGLY : RESOURCES

LOS ANGELES HOMELESS STUDENTS NUMBERS RISE TERRIFYINGLY

In recent times I've met some adults at the library who are enrolling at certain community colleges in the county of Los Angeles for the benefits of being a student.  These include:

Being able to park without harassment by police. i.e. a homeless student sleeping in their vehicle.

Free breakfast or other meals.

Free public transportation passes.

Free laptop computers.

Free showers - sometimes limited to those taking an exercise or gym class or using a campus gym.

Classes can include non-credit classes, certificate programs supposedly aimed at available employment; one need not be taking credit classes in order to eventually earn a degree.

This shows that at the community college level, it is understood that students living in poverty need basic-needs support in order to obtain education which may be necessary to compete for work.  However, some of these full grown adults have simply found another means for their survival and do the same enroll and then dump out routine semester after semester. That strikes me as taking advantage of the college - or whomever the funder(s) is.  

Some time ago I got up on my soapbox and ranted about the homeless student situation in Los Angeles and I recently reread what I wrote.  I was stunned by my own expressed anger.  That anger has not gone away, but maybe back then my sense of injustice also revealed an idealism I no longer have.

So this morning, I asked Google, about the Los Angeles homeless student situation. Based on the Los Angeles Times report as of April 2026 (though stats from a couple years ago were used by researchers)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-04-01/la-county-student-homelessness-study

Excerpt: The number increased by 28%, to 61,249 in the 2023–24 school year from 47,689 in 2022–23, according to the studies.

Key drivers include a shortage of affordable housing, economic hardship, limited federal funding for schools and longstanding inequities affecting people of color and people with disabilities.

https://www.lacoe.edu/services/student-support/engagement/homelessness

This is the link to the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which has links to 'help'.

Excerpt: LACOE HEP works to help districts and charter schools maintain compliance with the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act, an integral part of the Every Student Succeeds Act. 

According the the summation provided by Google AI:

Key Data on LA Homeless Students (2023-24): Surging Numbers: The number of homeless students has seen a sharp, rapid rise, representing the highest rate in the past five years.

Demographics: Latino students are disproportionately affected, accounting for 3 out of every 4 students experiencing homelessness.

Black Students: Approximately 11.5% of homeless students in LA County are Black, which is slightly higher than the state average.

Living Situations: Most students categorized as homeless are in "doubled-up" situations (living with others due to economic hardship), rather than on the streets.

Some years ago I volunteered informally to support a so called Summer Reading Program at a branch of LAPL.  The librarians told me that they were surprised at the huge increase in attendance and also that children's parents or other adult family members where staying and participating with their children rather than awaiting the children.  Activities often included snacks. Students received, at program/summer end, backpacks, shoes, school supplies. (Not much reading was actually going on in the arts and crafts aspect of the program.)

That summer there was also special program to help teen students get job experience. It was considered to be gang membership prevention in the City of Los Angeles. It was held at various parks including a park close to that LAPL branch.

One day they had a little fair during which various local politicians had tables. I went to the fair and saw that families were being given a free evening meal and some basic activities, such as good old-fashioned games. Music was blaring. These feeds were happening at least five evenings a week for about six weeks.

Soon enough I realized what was happening.  The same families were coming to the library for the Summer Reading Program Events.  They were actually spending long hours - days on end - in the parks.  At night some were in their vehicles and some were sleeping on the floors of more fortunate families, often renters in older neighborhood buildings.  

Then the evictions started for building tear downs.  Whole families were coming into the library to ask the librarians where they could find housing.

It's my suspicion that the 2025-2026 statistics, if they were available, would reveal a tripling of the statistics used for this LA Times article.  

C 2026  Christine Trzyna

DEVALUED PENNIES : WHY THE REPORTAGE ON PENNIES IS ALL WRONG : CONSIDER YOUR PIGGY BANK : OPINION BY CHRISTINE TRZYNA

DEVALUED PENNIES : WHY THE REPORTAGE ON PENNIES IS ALL WRONG : CONSIDER YOUR PIGGY BANK

Ever buy an expensive coat and think "but it's a good investment because I'm going to get years of wear out of this?"  You're not thinking about single use, you're thinking about REUSING the item.

Let's say the coat is a stretch for you, your budget, because it's a couple hundred dollars. You start thinking about the classic cut, the winters ahead, and that, so long as you don't get too fat or too thin, you can wear that coat hundreds of times.  If you wear that $200 coat fifty times a winter, for five winters, you can see how little it costs PER WEAR. ($200 divided by 250 =?)

You might also do this when you thrift shop and are buying used clothing. You might think "Someone else shrunk these pants and they are not new off the rack, but at only $10, if I wear these pants ten times that's only a dollar a wear.  (Jeans that fit are often a great value per wear. The designers changing the essential shape of them, the length, the width of the leg by year is the only thing that makes a purchase of jeans questionable value-wise.)

So what I'm getting at is THE COST OF MANUFACTURING A PENNY IS NOT THE POINT AT ALL. It's the FACT that pennies are reused thousands of times.  If they were not, we would not have so many years of them STILL IN CIRCULATION. Pennies may cost more to make them than a penny, but if you consider REUSE they are a terrific value.

The devaluation of the dollar makes the value of pennies so devalued some people don't think we need them. But that is not the point.

We do. We do not need prices or taxes rounded up to a nickle.

Once there are no more pennies, the nickles will be next to be exterminated.

Here is a true story.

When I got my dog, and had to watch for hazards such as broken glass, rotting meat on discarded chicken bones, and so on, while walking her, I began to find pennies.  I stooped to pick up her poo. I stooped to pick up pennies.

I had a piggy bank in my closet and I threw the coins in there and forgot about them.

I was using a library further from home than most people would travel. The library closest to me had become scary, requiring constant security and visits by the police. I traveled to this other library which was quiet and underutilized until about three in the afternoon, when the school children came in. That branch was supporting seventeen schools!

One day the head librarian, anticipating a lack of funding for their summer reading program, told me that she was not going to be able to give participating children the things she had in the past. They usually got back packs, school supplies, even new shoes for gym. I said I would try to help.  I called office supply stores and tried to get the school supplies, but was told they needed months to process such requests.

One day I walked into a 99 Cents Only Store on the way to that library. I asked for the manager and she was willing to give me things people had returned.  However, while some of these things might work as prizes, there weren't school supplies.

I went home and while laying in bed, trying to figure out how to get what was needed, I remembered my piggy bank.

I'd never counted how many pennies I'd stooped to pick up while walking my dog.  I opened the piggy bank and there was over $40 in it! (40 X 100 = ?)

I called the manager at that 99 Cents Only Store and asked her if she would be willing to take this amount to provide me the school supplies. She was. I warned her it was all pennies.

I turned over the piggy bank and she gave me so many boxes of crayons, pens and pencils, color markers, notebooks and diaries, and so on that, when I got this all to the library, I was told that it would be enough for several summers. Maybe even years.

That was the true value of pennies.

C 2025 Christine Trzyna