Welcome to Letters to the Housed

by Paul Asplund

Why I'm Writing to You

Hi, my name is Paul, and since 2014, I've been working on the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, delivering services directly to people experiencing homelessness. I've seen what works and what doesn't. And what I've learned is this: we're doing it all wrong.

The system we've built to address homelessness—what some call the "Homelessness-Industrial Complex"—has failed completely. Failed so thoroughly that tens of thousands of our neighbors are dying premature deaths while billions of dollars flow through organizations designed to manage the crisis, not end it.

This failure isn't an accident. It's not due to lack of funding or good intentions. It's the predictable result of top-down solutions that ignore the wisdom and experience of the people they claim to serve.

It's what happens when we treat homelessness as a professional problem requiring professional solutions instead of what it actually is: a community problem requiring community solutions.

I've also seen what works. Community-based solutions that engage people with lived experience in their own recovery. Neighbors helping neighbors. Love in action. Mutual aid networks that operate on relationships, not bureaucracy. These solutions work because they're built on something the big organizations can never provide: genuine human connection.

My Story (And Why It Matters)

In the spring of 1988, I woke up on the floor of an empty house, on a bed I had made from bubble wrap and packing blankets I had stolen from the back of a moving truck. I was filthy, sick, and given up for dead by most of the people in my life—including me.

I was 26 years old, a drug addict who had lost everything. I had every opportunity to avoid homelessness—all the advantages that come with being white and middle-class. But addiction doesn't care about your privileges, and neither do the circumstances that can lead to homelessness.

What saved me wasn't a program or a policy. It was community. People who showed up consistently, who knew my name, who believed I was worth saving even when I didn't believe it myself. It took two years of daily support—meetings, sponsors, friends who wouldn't give up on me—before I could sustain my own recovery.

The most important person in that community was a man named Ed, a retired computer scientist who became my sponsor and stayed with me for 23 years, until his death. Ed was more than a mentor—he was the father I needed, someone who knew how to live and understood that to keep his own life, he needed to help others.

Ed taught me something crucial: recovery isn't a solo journey. It's a community activity. And so is ending homelessness.

What I've Learned in Ten Years on the Streets

Since 2014, I've worked with thousands of people experiencing homelessness across Los Angeles County. I've organized events serving hundreds of people at a time. I've hired people coming out of prison and people living on the streets. I've watched people transform their lives, and I've watched people die waiting for help that never came.

Here's what I know: the solution to homelessness already exists. It's not complex or expensive or dependent on new technology. It's the same thing that saved my life—community. Neighbors who know each other's names and show up when someone needs help.

I've seen this work in places like Skid Row, where residents have created sophisticated mutual aid networks where housed and unhoused neighbors work side by side. I've seen it in faith communities that understand their job isn't to fix people but to love them.

But I've also seen what doesn't work: billion-dollar budgets that produce the same outcomes year after year. Case managers who change every few months, breaking the relationships that sustain people through crisis. Service providers who see clients instead of neighbors, problems instead of people.

Why I Started Writing These Letters

Two years ago, I got fed up with the slow pace of change and the silos that keep us from working together effectively. The county failed to create platforms for community organizations to coordinate with each other, so I started Second Grace LA—an online community for people who want to end homelessness.

I also started writing and speaking about building community-based responses to homelessness. Because here's what I've realized: government programs and big organizations can't do this job. They're designed to manage the crisis, not end it. The real work of ending homelessness needs to be done person to person, by neighbors who are informed and empowered to help their neighbors in need.

We used to know how to do this. Faith communities still provide some of the best examples—places where each individual is welcomed, cared for, and loved without conditions. But we've lost the understanding that taking care of each other is everyone's responsibility, not just the job of paid professionals.

What I'm Not Going to Do

Let me be clear about something from the start: I will never blame people experiencing homelessness for their circumstances. Nobody grew up wanting to be homeless. This wasn't on anyone's vision board. But life happens—addiction, mental illness, job loss, family breakdown, domestic violence, medical bankruptcy—and if you don't have the safety nets that come with privilege, you can end up with no good choices left.

The problem isn't individual failure.

The problem is systemic abandonment. We've built an economy that creates enormous wealth for some while leaving others with nothing. We've dismantled the community structures that used to catch people when they fell. We've made it illegal to be poor in public while providing nowhere else for poor people to exist.

What's wrong in this equation isn't the behavior of people experiencing homelessness. It's ours. And it's on us—you and me, those of us privileged enough to wake up this morning with a roof over our heads—to change how we see and serve our most vulnerable neighbors.

Why This Will Work

I know what I'm proposing sounds idealistic. Individual action against a massive crisis? Neighbors helping neighbors instead of waiting for government solutions? Community love as public policy?

But I've seen it work. I've lived it. I've organized it. I've watched people who were written off by every system transform into community leaders. I've seen neighborhoods that were supposedly hopeless become models of mutual aid and collective care.

This approach works because it's based on something that can't be defunded or bureaucratized or politicized: the basic human need to belong, to be known, to matter to someone. When we create communities where everyone belongs, where everyone has something to contribute, where everyone is accountable to and for each other, we don't just end homelessness. We discover what it means to be truly human together.

Your Spiritual Journey Starts Here

You want a spiritual journey? Cancel the yoga classes, skip the meditation retreats, and join us in this work. This is the greatest thing we will ever accomplish together.

We can end homelessness. We can end the isolation and disconnection that makes people vulnerable to crisis. We can build communities that are resilient enough to stand by someone for however long recovery takes.

But it will take all of us, one person at a time, one day at a time, for as long as it takes. We must build communities strong enough to catch people when they fall and patient enough to walk with them until they can stand on their own.

It will work. I know because I've lived it, because I've seen it, because I've helped create it. But only if we do it together.

An Invitation

These letters are my invitation to you to see homelessness differently. Not as someone else's problem requiring someone else's solution, but as a community challenge that can only be addressed through community power.

I'm going to tell you stories that will break your heart and restore your faith. I'm going to challenge assumptions you didn't know you had. I'm going to ask you to see your unhoused neighbors not as problems to be solved but as community members with wisdom, skills, and experience that can benefit all of us.

Most importantly, I'm going to show you how to be part of the solution. Not as a volunteer who shows up when it's convenient, but as a neighbor who shares power and takes responsibility for the wellbeing of everyone in your community.

This won't be easy. Love never is. But it will change you, just as it has changed everyone who has chosen to walk this path with open hearts and open hands.

I'm so glad you've read this far. I promise this will be worth the effort.

Welcome to Letters To The Housed. Let's end homelessness together.

With hope and in community,
Paul

About Paul Asplund

Paul Asplund recovered from homelessness in 1988 and has remained housed for over 35 years. After careers in technology, hospitality, and entertainment, he found his calling working directly with people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Since 2014, Paul has led teams providing street-based services, organized large-scale community events, and helped build innovative programs that center community wisdom and lived experience. He is the founder of Second Grace LA, an online platform connecting community organizations working to end homelessness.

Paul has worked with low-income communities in Bolivia, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He is a passionate advocate for community-based solutions to inequality, poverty, and homelessness—all issues he believes are solvable through collective action and mutual aid.

He believes that everyone deserves the chance to flourish and that dignity, agency, and opportunity can change lives. He sees it happening every day.

Paul lives in Pasadena, California with his husband and their cat.

Site: https://www.secondgrace.la
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SecondGraceLA
Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/secondgracela.bsky.social
Substack: https://substack.com/@secondgracela
Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fuel-hope-with-second-grace-la-this-giving-tuesday
Join Us: https://secondgrace-la.mn.co/spaces/11666460/discovery
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/secondgrace-la/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secondgrace.la/
Email: hello@paulasplund.com
Phone: 424-382-5610

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