Leaders Convene to Battle Vet Homelessness

LOS ANGELES—MWest Holdings president Karl Slovin and TruAmerica Multifamily CEO Bob Hart have partnered to find a solution to the 5,000 veterans living on the streets in Los Angeles. The two well-known Los Angeles landlords called on other major Los Angeles property owners to donate available units to the cause at a private and intimate event with Los Angele Mayor Eric Garcetti. Slovin and Hart say that it is the first of many roundtables dedicated to help solving the problem.

"There is a whole initiative to try to end veteran homelessness. There are about 5,000 veterans on the street of the 45,000 homeless people living on the streets in L.A. right now. They can't find housing; they can't qualify for housing," Hart tells GlobeSt.com. Slovin adds, "I have been trying to do something on homelessness for a long time. Obviously being a provider of market-rate apartments, and we are talking very high-quality market-rate apartments, I feel like we as landlords, and I am talking about all of us in the city, have a special responsibility to address the homelessness issue because we are providers of homes. I have been involved with the United Way of Greater Los Angeles for several years now raising money for the various homelessness initiatives that they have in process. United Way Los Angeles is really the main aggregator in the city of real dollars, and they have many service organizations that they push the money to to help the underprivileged in this city."

Slovin was inspired to host the roundtable after attending an earlier United Way event to raise awareness for the VASH program, a HUD-sponsored veteran housing program similar to section 8. At that event, Slovin realized that there were few true landlords in the room that could help. "The takeaway that I had from that meeting was that they had the wrong people in the room," he says. "I told the Untied Way that they had all of these great people on the civic side coming to give their time, but I looked around the room and I didn't see anybody that owned or controlled 1,000 units or more. I said, 'let's put together an event with the right people in the room that can really make a difference in a bigger way.' I worked with some folks from JP Morgan Chase to put together the right list. I asked Bob to co-chair—people know Bob better in the city than they know me—and Bob was very gracious and accepted."

Slovin and Hart partnered, again with the United Way, to host a second event with the "right" people and both raise awareness for the VASH program and encourage landlords to take in homeless veterans with VASH vouchers. "Karl and I were trying to round up other landlords to support the initiative and to donate money. The real idea was to end this problem and get real estate owners to consider letting homeless veterans with these vouchers stay in their housing." says Hart. Approximately 40 people attended the event and were asked to donate either units or funds. Neither Slovin nor Hart knew the exact amount of funds raised at the event, but said that it was only the beginning of what they hoped would be several similar events. "I am hoping that this is the first of many such meetings that we can put together with the folks in Los Angeles that really can make an immediate difference by providing units. It is one little step in a giant, giant problem," adds Slovin. "It is really exciting to me."