Video captured a homeless man jumping on the hood of a car before smashing its windshield at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, and it’s just one of the countless scenes across Los Angeles and California in which homeless people suffering from addiction or mental illness vandalize property, assault people or sometimes even commit murder.
The woman who shot the video happens to be a therapist who treats the unhoused.
“It was obviously a cry for help,” Madeleine, who only wished to be identified by her first name, said. “It felt like he was at the end of his rope.”
The man in the video was later identified as 30-year-old Adam Noel with a lengthy criminal history. He was charged with felony vandalism but let out of jail the next day.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
“We don’t know where he is now,” Kerry Morrison, who founded Heart Forward LA, a nonprofit to address mental health system reform. "My ideal scenario would be that there would be a crisis team who would immediately be mobilized to connect with him directly.”
But getting him the services he needs and helping him stick with them will be hard to do even though there are numerous agencies and nonprofits in the Los Angeles area, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on homelessness.
An Los Angeles County audit found over $50 million in homeless funds was unaccounted for, and an Los Angeles city audit found $513 million earmarked for homeless programs was never spent.
“I can’t imagine there will be enough (services) but what I do hope is that there will be more,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said.
Homeless advocates, including Madeleine the therapist, have a message for the mayor and other politicians.
“Other cities have figured this out. We are a city full of brilliant, creative people. I think we can really put a dent in this issue,” Madeleine said.
