A Town Hall Meeting for the Homeless

Posted by: Monica Gagnier on May 12

When I arrived for my volunteer job at The Well in the Desert in Palm Springs this morning, I learned that I’d only be working an hour because a town hall meeting was going to be held by board president Arlene Rosenthal with the Well’s clients.

I used to cover two or three school board or zoning board meetings a week back in the 1970s, when I was a typesetter and stringer for The Burlington County Times in Willingboro, N.J. I also covered my fair share of corporate annual meetings when I was a business reporter, from 1982 to 1999.

But I don’t think I’ve covered a meeting since I became a copy editor in 1999. I even had to borrow a notebook.

One of the main topics at the town hall meeting, which was held in the cafeteria where the Well dispenses hot meals each day, is whether the census count of homeless people in Riverside County that was reported in today’s Desert Sun is correct.

According to the census, homelessness in the Coachella Valley, where Palm Springs is located, is up 16%, while the number of people living on the streets or in shelters in Riverside County, which also includes California’s “Inland Empire,” dropped 25% from two years ago, when the last count occurred.

When the latest census took place in January, there were 3,366 homeless people in Riverside County, of which 43%, or 1,400, live in the Coachella Valley.

Given the 13.3% unemployment rate in Riverside County, the Well’s Rosenthal was skeptical that the number of homeless people has declined from two years ago.

She asked the 100 or so people attending the Well's town hall meeting to raise their hands if they had spoken to a Riverside County census taker in January. From where I was sitting, it seemed as if half the Well's clients raised their hands and half didn't. I didn't have time to count because Rosenthal quickly moved on to other topics.

One of her main priorities is to find a new space for the nonprofit because it has to leave its current home in a former Jaycees building on East Baristo Road by December. She asked the Well's clients to be on the lookout for rental commercial space that isn't near a park, school, or residential neighborhood because this could create opposition in the community. "We're going to have some trouble because of who we are, no matter where we go," she said.

Rosenthal asked the Well's clients to assist the organization in its search for a new home. "We've talked to four landlords that didn't think food service [the Well's main activity] would work for them," she said. "But as the economy worsens, and it will, more things will open up. Please keep your eyes open."

As the high daily temperature rises above 100 degrees in the Coachella Valley and climbs to as high as 120 in August, life gets harder for the homeless. As of June 15, the Well will become an "official cooling center" designated by Riverside County, Rosenthal reported.

She also let Well clients know that the congregation of Reverend David Pelletier, a Well board member, will be offering bingo and movies for the homeless this summer at the Metropolitan Community Church of the Coachella Valley in Cathedral City.

The other good news that Rosenthal had to report was improved relations between the Well and the Palm Springs Police Dept. Pelletier, whom Rosenthal called "Pastor David," is developing a training program to increase the sensitivity of police to the homeless, whose ranks are swelling in the Coachella Valley to include many formerly middle-class folks.

When Rosenthal opened the meeting to questions from the Well's clients, she didn't get any. I was a bit surprised by the lack of response until I noticed some attendees looking anxiously at the raffle ticket they had been given upon entering the cafeteria.

The meeting ended on a high note as a lucky Well client won a bicycle in the raffle, which was designed to encourage attendance at the town hall meeting. I guess it's universal: No one likes meetings, and doughnuts or a door prize helps lure us in.

Addendum: When I ran into Rosenthal after this blog entry was published, she said the reason there were no questions at the meeting is that many contentious issues have been resolved in previous pow-wows, which I did not attend, and that it was unfair of me to assume that the bicycle raffle was the main attraction of the town meeting I did attend.

Fair enough, but I wouldn't mind a new bicycle myself. Around Christmas, I toyed with buying a shiny new Electra Gypsy, and even put a down payment on it, but I couldn't justify the splurge.