Hawthorne is the latest city to partner with Los Angeles County to provide a Pathway Home for its unsheltered residents. For Brian Chase, Marcel Gipson and Raymond Rubalcaba, this means getting a fresh lease on life after years of living on the streets.
Pathway Home, an encampment resolution program, is a critical component of the County’s comprehensive response to the local emergency on homelessness the Board of Supervisors declared early this year. By leveraging emergency powers and partnerships with local jurisdictions, Pathway Home enables people living unsheltered in encampments to come indoors by offering immediately available interim housing paired with a comprehensive suite of supportive services, such as mental and physical health care, to help them regain personal stability and ultimately move into permanent housing.
Partners in this Pathway Home operation included the Office of Supervisor Holly Mitchell; the City of Hawthorne, including its Police and Public Works Departments; California Department of Transportation (Caltrans); the LA County Chief Executive Office and County Department of Mental Health (DMH); the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA); the nonprofit service providers Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse (L.A. CADA), Mental Health America of Los Angeles (MHALA), and PATH.