Homeless in Los Angeles: You Get What You Pay For.

There's a poster in the breakroom at work advertising a 5k family walk to fund raise for homelessness in Los Angeles on November 17th. Over 5,000 are expected to walk in what's being deemed LA's first walk of this sort. Approximately 35,000 are expected to march in DC, which celebrates its 10th anniversary for this same type of event.

I just hope more people come out and even more reach into their pockets to donate. After all, you get what you pay for.

Even the homeless know this all-too-real maxim. A recent article found that the homeless near skid row were given the opportunity to receive free snacks--soda, chips, candy--in return for signing petitions to qualify initiatives to be placed on the California ballot. Can't quite call it an incentive to sign, but free snacks to a hungry soul, I'd work for food.

Wouldn't it be nice if free food was available year-round to the homeless of skid row so that the incentive wouldn't be so enticing? You get what you pay for.

In related news, At&T is offering free Wi-Fi at more than 600 locations around Southern California "to help residents in Southern California in any way [they] can . . . By enabling free Wi-Fi at hundreds of AT&T hot spot locations, we’re hoping to provide families and friends with another way to stay connected — and to reconnect — throughout this difficult time.”

It's a bit ironic that LA is the homeless capital of the nation, but only now does AT&T consider offering free Wi-Fi so that families and friends can stay connected.

It's more ironic when you consider that some of the initiatives signed by the homeless of skid row deal with Internet gambling.

And the irony becomes sickening when one realizes that LA is notorious for dumping its mentally-ill homeless population on the streets of skid row, which some argue is a way to bring the issue to the spotlight and cleanse homelessness from the area to make way for new higher-cost housing (aka gentrification).

This could be AT&T's noble attempt to assist victims of the brush fires, but some think it may be a way to rectify bad press after the company tried to charge a family for not rescuing their sattelite dish of their charred home. Publicity . . . you get what you pay for.

Southern California Edison is one entity that could follow AT&T's lead, though. A recent LA Times Cover Story stated that at least 5 of the 12 brush fires that ravaged California were started as a result of downed power lines in remote areas. They're saying the cost per mile to replace above ground lines with underground lines is about $1 million (and this is in non-remote areas). Of course, Edison will replace the lines if ratepayers are willing to front the bill. I can almost hear my Nana, "Who put the damn things there in the first place?"

I don't think ratepayers will go for a hike in rates, but maybe Southern Californians can attempt to place an initiative on the ballot so that Edison picks up some of the cost. At least we know the homeless population would have our backs. Now, if only we had their back all year 'round.

"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one directly, affects all indirectly." MLK