Natalie Levine did not sleep on the street last night. We were able to place her in a temporary facility about an hour from Los Angeles. This is a reprieve that will, hopefully, buy time for a longer term solution. Lots of people and experts have reached out to help, and they are invaluable. As you might expect, the bureaucracy is just that, a bureaucracy. We experienced it first hand yesterday, when we bounced around looking for a shelter or any place that would take her.
I don’t want to sound like an easy critic of bureaucracy. The homeless problem is extremely complicated and it’s compounded by other issues, like mental health and life traumas. I got a little taste of this complexity over the past week. Maybe at some point, I will write in greater detail about it.
For now, our immediate goal was to keep Natalie off the streets, even for just a few more days. The amazing team at Cedars Sinai Hospital helped save the day—and the night.
I think one of the reasons many people in the Jewish community have rallied to Natalie’s cause is her Jewish neshama. In this short video clip, as we were waiting for a case worker, I asked her to go down her Jewish memory lane.
