Approximately 744,000 people slept on our nation's streets in January 2005, according to a report issued recently by the Homelessness Research Institute of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Although data included in the study covers just one month in a given year, it establishes a baseline for communities to analyze progress, uncover trends and formulate solutions that address the needs of homeless people.

But no one needs to remind Israel Gaither, the National Commander of The Salvation Army, and Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of Los Angeles, to look for solutions. Commissioner Gaither leads an organization that provided lodging to more than 10 million people across the nation in 2006. In Southern California alone, The Salvation Army housed 320,153 people in its own facilities, and 2,715 people in non-Salvation Army facilities, such as motels, during 2005.

Villaraigosa recently announced a proposal to spend $4.6 million to fund 372 new emergency shelter beds and increase the capacity of court system alternatives for Los Angeles’ homeless population.

The two men sat down together for the first time in a late December meeting that coincided with Gaither's end-of-the-year visit to the organization's Southern California Division. Following the discussion at City Hall, the leaders agreed to find concrete ways to work together. As a result, two of the mayor's senior advisors met with social service experts at the Southern California Division last month to brainstorm solutions to the issue of homelessness.

During the meeting at City, both leaders acknowledged homelessness won't be eliminated overnight. Gaither told the mayor that “we need people like you to rise above politics. We need deep change in our culture. The key to ending the homeless condition is by addressing the problems and barriers that keep homeless men and women from achieving self-sufficiency.”

For 120 years, The Salvation Army has been an important member of the community, especially in providing help to the poor and homeless. The Salvation Army Los Angeles Harbor Light Center started in the heart of downtown L.A.'s Skid Row in 1947. In 1988, the Southern California Division recognized a critical need for emergency shelter for homeless people in Los Angeles County. It opened Bell Shelter in January of that year utilizing 45,000 square feet of vacant warehouse space in a building originally constructed in 1943 to store supplies for American troops.

The Salvation Army Way In Youth Shelter & Drop-In Center, located in Hollywood, has been working for more than 10 years to bring the escalating rate of runaway and homeless teenagers down, and to be a second home to Los Angeles youths in need.

Veterans – who make up approximately one third of the nation's homeless – find shelter at The Haven, operated by The Salvation Army on the campus of the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration complex.

There are many other ways that The Southern California Division serves the homeless in Los Angeles. Programs are designed to go beyond 'just shelters' and integrate long-term solutions such as vocational assistance, substance abuse rehabilitation, case management, ESL classes, HIV/AIDS education, computer training, and life skills classes.