@SecondGrace.LA

I'm not angry. But the people who gave their time and hope deserve to know.
So I wrote it down. Documented. Remembered. Waiting.

buff.ly/k79Aawp

#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice #RadicalHospitality

"They adjusted the bed rate. Not because they needed to be fair—they were losing facilities."
That's what survived from our equitable contracting proposal.

When adequate funding isn't there, what gets protected? What gets sacrificed?

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#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice

Programs cut entirely:
• Housing Navigation: $12.9M → $0
• Prevention Case Management: $2.8M → $0
• Legal Services: $746K → $0
• Safe Parking: $1.7M → $0

785 interim housing beds disappearing.

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The math: $443,000 of community-designed programs in an $843 million budget. That's 0.05%. The word in the budget is "inform"—not decide, not vote.

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What We Lost: The Prototypes That Didn’t Survive from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

We were asked to imagine a department that could end homelessness in LA County. We drew a flower with community at the center. Not an org chart—a bloom.

Almost nothing we proposed survived the budget.

Here's what happened. buff.ly/k79Aawp

Abstract poster with message of "What would a truly effective, accountable, community-centered homelessness response system look like?" by SecondGrace.LA

"What would a truly effective, accountable, community-centered homelessness response system look like?" That's what we were asked to design. Six prototypes. Evidence-based solutions. Specific implementation plans.

Then the money disappeared.

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#HousingJustice #EndHomelessness

The Six Prototypes: What SPA 4 Designed from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund

Supervisor Hilda Solis on LA's new homelessness department launching with a $219M deficit: "I am rather disgusted with the cutbacks. It is a new department with close to a $300 million deficit. And I know it is going to get tougher."

What we designed v. what we got: buff.ly/520QGHB

#HousingJustice

The Six Prototypes: What SPA 4 Designed from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund

Every prototype addressed real problems with evidence-based solutions.
Every one would cost money that was evaporating while we wrote on butcher paper.
Part 4 of 6: buff.ly/520QGHB

#EndHomelessness #HousingJustice #LosAngeles

Six prototypes. Real solutions. Specific timelines. Success metrics.

→ Universal data access for unhoused people

→ Transparent funding decisions 

→ Contracts that cover actual costs 

→ Cultural care units for marginalized communities

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Two months earlier: Trump ended Housing First funding. One month earlier: California cut $1B in homelessness funding to $0. Three months later: The new department launched with a $219M deficit.

We kept designing anyway. buff.ly/520QGHB

The Six Prototypes: What SPA 4 Designed from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund

In September 2025, 100 of us gathered to redesign LA's homelessness response.
We didn't know we were designing a lifeboat while watching the Titanic sink. buff.ly/520QGHB

Fragile yet determined hands holding a single candle. Radical Hope in the Face of State Violence from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

This week's question: Where does hope live? Not in institutions. Not in policies. Not in the "best of America's nature."

Hope lives in the small practices of care we maintain for each other when everything else collapses.

Full essay: buff.ly/aHvjMzv

Poster with quote: Ai Weiwei: "Freedom is not a gift. It must be wrestled from the hands of banality and the quiet complicity with power." from SecondGrace.LA

Ai Weiwei: "Freedom is not a gift. It must be wrestled from the hands of banality and the quiet complicity with power."

No government is coming to save us. Our response must come from somewhere else entirely.

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#RadicalHospitality #SystemicChange #MutualAid

Baldwin wrote: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Minnesota is facing it right now. The rest of us need to be ready.

What are you doing locally to prepare?

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#RadicalHospitality #MutualAid #CommunityAction

Full essay—with links to support organizations in Minnesota and LA doing the work right now:

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#RadicalHospitality #ImmigrantRights #MutualAid

Hope lives in the small practices of care we maintain for each other when everything else collapses.

Respond locally. Help people within arm's reach. Build networks that hold each other when the state shows up with battering rams.

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James Baldwin: "I can't be a pessimist, because I'm alive. To be a pessimist means you have agreed that human life is an academic matter."

Hope isn't optimism. It's looking directly at brutality and still choosing engagement over withdrawal.

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Radical Hope in the Face of State Violence from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

3,000 federal agents are occupying Minnesota. Masked ICE agents conduct warrantless raids. Men are taken from bus stops in unmarked vehicles. This is state terror. And it demands radical hope.

Poster with message: "We were born for times like these." by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

This week: despair, hope, and the long arc.

Next week: LA's new Dept of Homelessness and Housing. Brutal months. Lots to reassess.

Stay safe. Stay hopeful. We belong to each other.

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#RadicalHope #EndHomelessness #SystemicChange

The peace gesture with message: "The world I see, far beyond today's headlines, is one of peace, tolerance, love, understanding." by SecondGrace.LA

"The world I see, far beyond today's headlines, is one of peace, tolerance, love, understanding."

This is Radical Hope. Not naive—strategic.

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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #SystemicChange

What's keeping you hopeful right now?
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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #Immigration

The world I see, far beyond today's headlines, is one of peace, tolerance, love, understanding. This is my version of Radical Hope. The arc is long. The hope is radical.

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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #Immigration

I've marched since the '80s. Been tear-gassed, beaten by cops. My rage ran my life for too long. Now all my raging happens at this keyboard—and I share it with you.

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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #Immigration

We Were Born For Times Like These (Right?) from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

This week I felt despair for the first time in decades. Watching ICE raids in Minnesota—where I grew up—hit me hard. But my friend Noah reminded me: we were born for times like these.

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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #Immigration

Poster with a message "I've never known why I care about other people, and I can't shut it off, even when it's tearing me apart." by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

"I've never known why I care about other people, and I can't shut it off, even when it's tearing me apart."

If you're feeling it this week—you're not alone.

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#RadicalHope #SocialJustice #Immigration

Dan Pallotta's AIDS Rides raised $236 million for HIV/AIDS.

His Breast Cancer 3-Days raised $333 million.

Both shut down because the public was outraged he spent 40% on "overhead."

40% on infrastructure that made $569 million possible.

This is what we're up against: buff.ly/D1VmC7g

A vibrant, beautiful woman with her back to camera struggles to make sense of the unnecessary paperwork needed to secure funding.

There ARE alternatives. Trust-based philanthropy. Community-led funding. Mutual aid.

But first, we have to name the problem.

Read the complete series: buff.ly/D1VmC7g

Subscribe. Share. Let's build something different.

#EndHomelessness #CommunityAction

"We always make sure that program officers are feeling good, that they like us, because otherwise we could jeopardize funding."

This is funder fragility. And it's killing our movements.

#RadicalHospitality #SocialJustice

The nonprofit starvation cycle:

→ Funders expect low overhead
→ Nonprofits underreport real costs
→ Organizations can't build infrastructure
→ Programs suffer
→ Funders blame nonprofits

Repeat until burnout.

#NonprofitWork #SystemicChange

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Complete Series from Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund of SecondGrace.LA

I spent a decade in homeless services. Here's what broke me:

The funders who said they wanted innovation—but punished investment in capacity.

Who said they trusted us—but required surveillance-level reporting.

🧵 Thread on why the revolution will not be funded...

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