Page 12 ARREST IN HOMELESS KILLING The police have detained a man in connection with the latest stabbing death of a homeless man in Orange County as a task force investigates if there are any links to the slayings of three other homeless men.
Mayor Stack, who is also a county freeholder, is the chairman of a new county task force on the homeless.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who made reducing chronic homelessness a priority upon his election, created a task force two years ago that focused on homeless veterans and was headed in part by Robert V. Hess, who retired as an Army sergeant in 1979 and is the commissioner of the city's Department of Homeless Services.
The mayor said the city would team up with the federal Department of Veterans Affairs and nonprofit groups to create a task force that would find homeless veterans and help them get access to government services, medical treatment and permanent housing.
Maryam Zar was the founding Chair of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH), which formed in October 2014, to help address local homelessness with a strategy founded on law enforcement coupled with the offer of available services to homeless people living in the community of Pacific Palisades.
In Los Angeles County, a task force is addressing the risks facing homeless encampments along 172 miles of waterways deemed especially vulnerable to flooding: the San Gabriel and Los Angeles rivers, the Rio Hondo, Big Tujunga Wash and the Arroyo Seco.
A study released last month by a local task force found that at least 200 adults and children go homeless each year in Jefferson and nearby Clarion County.
The task force further recommended adding hundreds of subsidized homes for mentally ill homeless people, particularly those with criminal records, and creating a management position to oversee the housing programs.
More than a week ago, the homeless man who was cleared by DNA tests led detectives from the Brooklyn North homicide task force to focus on a 5-foot-3-inch, 130-pound panhandler, Vincent Johnson, 31, the investigator said.
In Surrey, a special RCMP task force is now patrolling the makeshift shanty towns lining the street near homeless services like the Lookout Society.
Some task force members already play an active role in ensuring the well-being of their homeless neighbors, whose stories reflect the wide range of problems that force them into the streets.
