Keanakay Scott cried when she read a story about a public meeting over a proposed emergency shelter and permanent housing for the homeless. One of the local homeowners who attended the meeting later told LAist that he thought authorities should build a “reservation” for homeless people “somewhere out in the desert.” Scott has been homeless for a decade. She said the story “broke” her.
“I went over to my supervisor crying, and I’m just like, ‘I’m a person. And what did I do for these people to hate me?'”
Scott decided to write an open letter to the people who are against housing the homeless in their neighborhoods. She sent us the letter and we decided to publish it because it’s a perspective we don’t often hear, and a voice too often absent from these debates.
Here is her letter, reprinted in full: