Fund Outreach and Organizing for Echo Park Lake

Ashley Bennett learned what it meant to be homeless at the age of 6 years old when she and her mother fled a domestic abuse situation, and began living out of their vehicle. She has seen first-hand how the housing market and social safety net have failed unhoused people in Los Angeles. Last year, Ashley was given the opportunity to turn her passion for fighting homelessness and helping unhoused people into a career when she was hired by the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a government agency that aims to assist people by connecting them to services and moving them into housing. As a LAHSA case-worker, Ashley was a tenacious advocate for her clients, helping move over 60 people into housing in just eight months.

As an organizer and founding member of Ground Game LA, Ashley also understands that it takes more than services to attack social problems like homelessness. Those people who are directly experiencing homelessness need to have a seat at the table in crafting the policy response to the problem, and to have that voice they need to develop political power and social capital. In her free time, Ashley has worked with her clients to help develop leaders who can begin to challenge those who are opposed to the solutions that unhoused people themselves say they need.

One of those opponents was City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell. When residents of an encampment in Echo Park Lake demanded that O’Farrell meet with them to address the counter-productive harassment they were experiencing from law enforcement and other city employees, Mitch lashed out. Instead of responding to his constituents with respect, he has refused to meet with them. He also pressured LAHSA’s executive staff to fire Ashley, which they did in early February.

We’re now raising funds from supporters who agree with us that unhoused people need to be not only served, but organized. We want to create a full-time organizing position for Ashley so she can continue to do the work she has already been doing, organizing for power in unhoused communities. Please help us support founding member Ashley Bennett, and the unhoused people she is organizing with. Your contributions will help us support a permanent organizing program focused on building power for unhoused Angelenos who will win a desperately-needed seat at the table in crafting our City and County’s response to homelessness.