<p>Westwood?s colorful collection of indigents tends to shape most students? view of Los Angeles? homeless population. <br/>It?s easy to think, for instance, that the panhandler on Broxton Avenue is representative of the 80,000-plus people who spend any given night in the streets, parks and shelters of our city. <br/>The real picture, however, is strikingly different. <br/>The homeless, by and large, are not people who have chosen to drop out of society, but rather folks who have fallen on hard times. <br/>Once we see that, it?s clear that social services, just like those we give to the elderly and the poor, are necessary to improve their lot. <br/>Los Angeles County has the largest homeless population of any urban area in the United States. <br/>An estimated 254,000 men, women and children in the county experience at least a night of homelessness each year, according to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center. <br/>?People tend to think that homeless people are just these insane people,? says Rene Choi, a third-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student and director of the Hunger Project, a student group that provides social services to the homeless. <br/>Really, she says, ?the people you see in shelters are people like you or I who?ve made bad decisions or had bad luck.? <br/>Choi has a point. On certain nights, 40 percent of the homeless are families, usually headed by a single mother with an average of two children. A lost job, domestic violence, disability or just too low an income ? not irresponsibility ? are common reasons for folks to end up on the street. <br/>And that stereotype that the homeless are lazy? It?s false. <br/>Nearly 20 percent of them are currently employed, and 41 percent show employment in the last year. It?s not like they?re not trying; they just can?t make enough to afford housing in a city where the average rent is nearly three-quarters of minimum wage income. <br/>As many in the city are calling for a solution to the homelessness problem, we should remember these facts about the homeless. <br/>Apparently, the LAPD hasn?t remembered. In October, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton ordered a crackdown on ?street-sleeping? in Skid Row, causing the homeless count there to drop substantially from 1,876 in mid-September to 1,447 in early October. <br/>Bratton may indeed be polishing up the area by enforcing drug laws and shooing away ? or even occasionally arresting ? the homeless who camp there during the day, but instead of helping the homeless to better their lives, Bratton?s policy is only dispersing them around the city. <br/>Anecdotal evidence reported by The Los Angeles Times has shown an increase in homelessness on the West side. Not surprisingly, the newcomers say they have come from downtown. <br/>This crackdown, which has been lauded by some, is no real way to help the homeless. <br/>The public needs to demand more outreach services such as job training, money-management workshops and addiction-treatment services, along with more affordable housing. Only this will solve the homelessness problem. <br/>If we were down and out, we?d expect the same from our countrymen. <br/>In the early 1990s, when Bratton was New York?s police chief, New York City witnessed a significant drop in its homeless population. <br/>This turnaround occurred not just because Bratton swept the homeless off the streets, but because then New York City Mayor Ed Koch gave them a place to go with his Housing New York Program. <br/>In the mid-1980s, the program invested $5.2 billion in the creation of 150,000 affordable housing units across the city. <br/>Some of this housing included on-site support and counseling for mentally-ill residents and nearby job-training programs for residents who were able to work. <br/>If Los Angeles is to help its homeless, it must invest in a similar program. <br/>The program would not be a handout to the undeserving, but rather an important social safety net, ready and able to catch those who have been so unfortunate as to fall. <br/>If we lived as the homeless do, we would be grateful to have a net so sturdy. <br/><hr><i>For information on what you can do to help, e-mail Reed at . Send general comments to .</i></p><br><br><a href='; target='_blank'>;