news & events
SHARE!’s Brian Ulf Addresses Homelessness with Palisades Task Force
By ULY TINOCOAssistant Editor, Palisadian-Post
The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness hosted its first virtual community meeting of the year on Monday. January 23. to discuss homelessness and affordable housing.
PPTFH invited Brian Ulf— board president of SHARE! Collaborative Housing—to tell attendees more about the nonprofit’s solution to confronting homelessness.
“With Los Angeles struggling to find cost-effective housing and supportive services for its reported 44.000 unhoused people, local communities are faced with the unavoidable need to become part of the discussion.” according to PPTFH. “One nonprofit organization has developed a public-private partnership solution to affordable housing. SHARE! “Collaborative Housing places extremely low-income people into single-family private homes and mom and pop investor-owned apartments, while providing mental health or other disability support services.”
PPTFH Co-President Sharon Browning introduced Ulf. reporting that he has spent over 40 years as a principal shareholder and broker in the commercial real estate industry, negotiating over six million square feet of lease and sales transactions across the United States.
He currently serves as board president of SHARE!—which stands for Self Help And Recovery Exchange. SHARE! utilizes single-family homes to house individuals: the individuals manage the families’ houses, and peer staff provide supportive services.
Interested individuals contact SHARE!. SHARE! then validates their income to see if they qualify and places them in a housing situation that is appropriate for their financial situation. Individuals must be 18 years of age or older to apply.
Ulf described the available homes as an “Airbnb-type setting.” where individuals have access to internet, cable, utilities, and more.
“There, right now. are 10.000 houses for lease in LA County.” Ulf explained. “We go out and we find these privately owned single-family homes. Each resident that comes into our home has a rental agreement with the homeowner … There’s six to eight people who live inside these homes.
“Similar to when you went to college, your parents didn’t put you down the street in a single apartment by yourself. They
put you in a dorm where you had roommates, you had others that were like minded, you kind of created a family in your dorm … and when you form these relationships. you can see the benefit.”
Ulf said the individuals participating are responsible for paying rent, attending support groups, and “acclimating to and being a part of the community’, honoring their new neighbors. By modeling these behaviors for others in the group, they feel motivated to do the same.
Before a group moves into a home. Ulf said SHARE!’s peer-bridgers visit neighbors to let them know six to eight new people will be moving into the neighborhood and about the work the nonprofit does.
When asked if lack of mental illness is a criterion to be taken into account, Ulf said no.
“Everybody that’s in there has some son of trauma, [and] uses services … mental health services.” Ulf said. “The degree of what service you get is based on what your acuity scores are or how you’re going to fit into the family.”
He said SHARE! helped house over 400 people last year “efficiently, effectively, and immediately.”
See the full article here
Follow SHARE! on social media:
Please consider donating by using the Donate button (credit/debit cards accepted). Thank you!
