983 Too Many

If you live in Pasadena you probably already know about Union Station Homeless Services. Here's a branch of Union Station I happened on the other day: the Euclid Villa Transitional Apartments. I didn't know what it was at the time. I thought it was a pretty house, and I could tell from the signs on the porch that it wasn't a private home. I took a picture, came home and looked up the address.

According to the website, families living there "pay 30% of their income for rent, while gaining the skills, stability and confidence they need to secure permanent housing."

You can't learn everything from a website, and homelessness is a complicated issue. But that sounds sane to me. A homeless person who ends up at Pasadena's Union Station is lucky, if you can call that lucky.

In searching for other organizations in Pasadena that serve the homeless, I found the Ecumenical Council's Friends In Deed. Their site says, "The official homeless count of 2008 in Pasadena found that 983 homeless adults and children live on the streets on a given day." This tells me the homeless percentage of our population is low compared with Los Angeles, for example. But one homeless kid is one too many.

It's our town. These are our neighbors. What other organizations do you know of that serve Pasadena's homeless?