Published: 7 July 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ART HAD BEEN LIVING with his mother for more than 30 years when she lost her apartment a little over a year ago. Though the mother was able to move in with one of Art’s brothers, the 49-year-old former tennis coach had nowhere to go and started sleeping in his car.
That meant a nightly struggle to find a place to park — and sleep — undisturbed. Sometimes he would park in a supermarket lot, only to have employees attempt to tow his car or call the police. And there was nowhere to take a shower or use the bathroom.
“Your rhythm is out. You feel almost like a zombie,” Art recalled. “The day just continues rolling into the next day.”
Things turned around for Art, who asked to be identified by his first name only, after Jewish institutions in this Southern California city invited him and other homeless people here to sleep on their property.
Through a program called Safe Parking LA, founded by three congregants at a local Reform synagogue, parking lots that otherwise would sit empty overnight are turned into safe spaces for the thousands of city residents who sleep in their cars because they do not have access to housing.
“They offer a little sanctuary,” Art told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in early March over dinner at Ikar, the synagogue that provided the parking lot for his overnights until the recent move to the treatment centre Beit T’Shuvah.
FULL STORY Jewish groups turn parking lots into safe lodging for thousands of LA homeless (Times of Israel)
Photo: A homeless woman is seen sleeping on the street, May 16 (Apu Gomes/AFP)
