Photos By LIISA SPINK With personal belongings close by,
a homeless person finds room for a make-shift bed on Broxton Avenue
in Westwood.
By Matt Goulding
Daily Bruin Contributor
As the sun goes down on Gayley Avenue in Westwood, Theodore
Burnley opens up his old black suitcase, removes a few messy scraps
of a sandwich and quietly begins dinner.
In between bites, Burnley stops to pursue a man walking up to
his navy blue BMW.
“Sir, can I help you by cleaning your windows
today?”
The man barely takes time to mumble a refusal as he gets in his
car and speeds away.
“Oh well, I missed a car,” he said. “I guess
you can’t get them all.”
After 30 years of homeless life on the streets of Los Angeles,
Burnley has grown accustomed to hardship. As a gunner in the
Vietnam War, he lost effective use of his right leg after blowing
out his knee on a land mine.
“See, feel that. You know that’s not the real
thing,” he said while stroking over the injured area.
It has been more than 30 years since the accident, but Burnley
is still fascinated by the metal disc that was inserted in place of
his mangled knee.
Discharged from the service in 1968, Burnley returned to his
native Detroit, but soon found he could no longer perform in his
old job as a cross-country truck driver because of his injury.
Marriage problems soon followed. By the end of the year, Burnley
had left for Los Angeles, leaving his ex-wife and four children in
Michigan.
“If I don’t have a job or a home, why would I stay
there? I don’t want to live in the snow,” said Burnley.
“At least it’s always sunny here.”
If you are his friend, you probably know Burnley as Teddy Bear,
a name that only seems fitting for a man with a positive outlook
and a gentle demeanor.
 A homeless man sleeps under a tree on campus. Bob
Erlenbusch, Director of the L.A. Coalition to End Hunger and
Homelessness, said Burnley is just one of thousands of homeless
people in the area who together make up one of the county’s
largest urban homeless populations.
“Los Angeles and New York have the sad distinction of
having the largest number of homeless people in this
country,” Erlenbusch said. “On any given night there is
between 50,000-80,000 homeless people in Los Angeles
County.”
With only 13,000 beds provided by local shelters, this leaves a
lot of people searching for alternative places to sleep, he
said.
Alleys, bridges, and benches become coveted spots for those
unfortunate ones who cannot secure a shelter bed.
Who are these people that perpetually occupy the streets of this
city?
Erlenbusch said that at least 35 percent of L.A.’s
homeless population are war veterans like Burnley, most having
fought in Vietnam or Desert Storm. Forty percent are mentally ill
and nearly 50 percent have an alcohol or drug problem.
Though these percentages and characteristics seem to correlate
with popular homeless stereotypes, Erlenbusch said most people
don’t realize that 30 percent of Los Angeles’ homeless
community have attended college, and in many cases, graduate
school.
“Judging from my 18 years of experience and from all
current indicators,” I would guess that 2-5 percent of
UCLA’s students are homeless,” Erlenbusch said.
“Most of those are probably living out of their
cars.”
According to the Office of Academic Planning and Budget,
students are required to provide an address on their applications
in order to receive acceptance from the school.
Factors including the thousands of students who attend the
university make it impossible to determine whether they actually
live at the addresses students give on their applications.
Although the Westwood and UCLA communities see few homeless
individuals in their neighborhoods, some people see the problem as
far reaching nonetheless.
Len Doucette distributes the homeless newspaper Making Change
twice a week on North Campus and is also responsible for organizing
a homeless poetry reading on campus this Thursday.
“It shows that homeless people aren’t just dumb
people sitting on the streets,” Doucette said of the event.
“They are sensible and intelligent people. It is some of the
most stimulating and powerful poetry you have ever
heard.”
Doucette said he hopes the event, which will take place from
12-2 p.m. in the Public Policy faculty lounge, can help raise
student consciousness about issues homeless people face.
This event is just one of many taking place across Los Angeles
as part of the Homeless Awareness Week.
The 45 volunteers who run the UCLA Hunger Project are aware of
the problem with homelessness and are working to change it.
These students spend their free time in shelters teaching job
skills to the unemployed and in food banks serving warm meals to
the hungry, according to Fannie Huang, community service
commissioner.
While raising consciousness is an important step in confronting
the problem of homelessness in this city, Urlenbusch said increased
funding for social programs ““ such as affordable housing and
mental health care facilities is a crucial part of the
solution.
He said that the city of Los Angeles, however, has not been
supportive.
“Whereas New York city spends up to $600 million dollars
on homeless people each year, the city of Los Angeles does not
spend a single dime of their own money,” he said.
Instead, Erlenbusch said the city relies on state and federal
aid, and this funding is far from sufficient.
Burnley, who now subsists on meager veteran’s checks and
the money earned from washing windows, said that he deserves better
from the government.
“I’m messed up now because of Vietnam,” he
said. “You come back and the country says “˜Thank
you’ and that’s it. They don’t give a damn about
us.”
Worked up in the moment, Teddy Bear put his hand to his tattered
UCLA ball cap and struggled to hold back his tears.
“I’m sorry, I can’t talk about this for too
long,” he said. “It’s just hard.”
For others, like 31-year-old Brian Smith, time on the streets
offers a life of simplicity that isn’t always negative.
“I really haven’t had that bad of a life,”
Smith said. “I get up with the sun. I hang out in Westwood
and I go to bed at 8 after listening to a little jazz or gospel
music.
Despite the overwhelming difficulties that the homeless face,
Smith, whose future aspirations include obtaining an education at
UCLA, remains optimistic.
“The problems in my life are things that I’m not
that worried about,” he said. “God will see me
through.”