Elise Buik
President & CEO at United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

In March 2005, Elise Buik made history by becoming the first female president and chief executive officer of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles (UWGLA). Under her leadership, UWGLA raised $58 million in its 2006/2007 campaign year. A native of Atlanta, Elise was initially attracted to Los Angeles because of its weather but ended up falling in love with the community and the immediate impact she was able to make at UWGLA. Prior to joining UWGLA, Elise spent seven years in the private sector as the marketing manager for a medical software company. She joined UWGLA in 1994 because of her strong belief in the organization and her personal desire and responsibility to improve the quality of life in Los Angeles County. Beginning her....

This is the story of a father and son called David and Michael.

David is a truck driver. He spends long hours in the driver’s seat, but the job brings in a steady wage. Michael is a junior in high school. His grades are good – so good that his father hopes he’ll become a lawyer someday. Ever since Michael was born, the two of them have lived together in the same small apartment in South Los Angeles. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s comfortable and it’s their home.

Then, one day, David doesn’t feel well. When he goes to the doctor, he learns that he has cancer.

Thankfully it’s not life threatening, but it’s still very serious and he needs treatment right away. Unfortunately, driving a truck doesn’t come with benefits. The medical bills slowly pile up, eating into David’s savings until nothing is left. Because of all the time off he needs while receiving treatment, he loses his job. Before long, they can no longer make rent on the apartment they’ve called home for Michael’s entire life.

Fortunately, they have a small support network. For a few weeks, they stay with family and friends, couch surfing until their welcome wears out or the landlord threatens eviction for overcrowding. But, when their options run out, the pair is forced to sleep in their car.

Michael eats at school and uses study periods to finish his homework. But the stress of their situation takes its toll, and his grades start to slip. David’s health is holding for now, but every day is a struggle. They’ve fallen so far down, it’s hard to see how they can ever get back up.

Sadly, this story is far from unique. In Los Angeles County, where one in four children lives in poverty and the social safety net has all but disappeared, this is what homelessness looks like.

How did we get here? Let’s look at the statistics.

Los Angeles has the largest affordability gap in the nation, which means the city’s housing costs far outstrip its incomes. Rents have doubled in the last 18 years, while wages have actually fallen after adjusting for inflation.

If you live in L.A. and work full-time, there’s a 30 percent chance you earn less than $25,000 per year. It’s hard to imagine surviving in L.A. on that little, given the cost of living. But for the 200,000 households that exist on less than $10,000 per year, it must seem like a small fortune.

In the fields with the most openings, such as the service sector, 8 out of 10 jobs pay less than $12 an hour and typically don’t come with benefits. For the 1.6 million people in our country like David, who don’t have health insurance, every day is like a game of Russian Roulette, hoping against hope they won’t get sick or injured.

Given the added pressure of the current economic crisis it’s no wonder that, in a Gallup Poll, one third of L.A. residents who responded said they were worried they might not have a place to live at some point in their lives. Or that almost half of the poll respondents had taken in a friend or relative who would have otherwise become homeless.

Three years ago, United Way took on a new mission to create pathways out of poverty and improve the quality of life for all in Greater Los Angeles. As part of that mission, we chose to focus on the major building blocks to a healthy life: housing, healthcare, education and income.

These blocks depend on each other. It’s hard to learn if you’re sick and even harder to get a well-paying job if you didn’t graduate from high school. These blocks are also the foundations for rising out of poverty; without health care, affordable housing, a good education and a well-paying job, it’s almost impossible to break the poverty cycle.

Fortunately, when it comes to homelessness, we know what works – getting people into housing first and supporting them once they’re there. We’ve seen a drastic reduction in the number of homeless people in cities like Portland, Oregon and Washington D.C. because of investments in permanent housing with supportive services (e.g. mental health and drug abuse treatment) for the chronically homeless, as well as quickly finding permanent housing for homeless families.

In 2007, United Way launched HomeWalk, a 5K walk to increase awareness of the crisis of homelessness and raise the funds to do something about it. In the last two years, thousands of people have walked, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund housing first programs that are helping get homeless families and individuals into permanent housing (last year’s HomeWalk helped 2,300 families and individuals move off the streets and into housing). It’s a long road to help move 48,000 homeless people into permanent housing, but it’s an important first step. The walk has also been set up to be an educational journey with true stories from local homeless individuals and families about how they were helped from a place of hopelessness to one where there was not only hope, but a secure future thanks to successful programs like supportive housing. HomeWalk is a journey to embrace solutions to ending homelessness and remind our leaders how important it is to solve this crisis.

This year’s HomeWalk will take place on Nov. 7, 2009 at Exposition Park in Los Angeles.

It’s been over a year since David and Michael were homeless. With the help of a United Way nonprofit partner, father and son found housing and David was able to secure another full-time job. He gets his health checked regularly and, so far, things are looking good. Michael took extra classes over the summer to make up for his poor grades, and he’s still on track to graduate on time. After a long, dark road, this small family is finally coming back into the light.

While “housing first” programs help people move out of homelessness, access to affordable housing could keep them from becoming homeless in the first place. But those investments must be part of a bigger picture that also focuses on fixing our nation’s health care, investing in employment services and improving our education system.

Public dollars and public will are needed to make that happen. And that is never easy to achieve. If we work together, we are capable of great things. Ending homeless can be one of them.

The previously published version of this story contained numbers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)'s 2007 Homeless Count. The number has been updated to reflect the recently-released results of the 2009 Homeless Count.