Listening Across Communities: Building Dialogue Around Homelessness in Los Angeles County
Across Los Angeles County, communities are working to understand and respond to homelessness in ways that reflect their local experiences and needs. Residents, advocates, service providers, and people with lived experience all bring important perspectives to these conversations.
Creating space for these voices to be heard is an essential part of developing thoughtful and effective responses.
ARDI launched the Community Solidarity Group (CSG) Design Series to facilitate community discussions on homelessness, belonging, and the barriers that keep neighbors geographically, socially, and economically isolated from each other. These sessions aimed to foster honest dialogue, active listening, and mutual understanding across racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and cultural identities and lived experiences. Hosting these sessions reflected a commitment to include the voices of those most affected by homelessness, enabling them to help shape the policies and systems that affect their lives.
ARDI Community Meeting CSG Design Series at the A C Bilbrew Library on August 18th, 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Best)
Addressing homelessness in Los Angeles County requires more than programs and policies. It requires trust, shared understanding, and space for communities to speak openly about their experiences and concerns.
At the same time, public agencies face competing priorities and limited capacity, making it critical to design engagement processes that are both meaningful and practical. The CSG Design Series was created to help bridge this gap.
The goal of this initiative was to listen, learn, and gather community insight to inform the development of a homelessness advisory body that reflects the perspectives of residents, advocates, service providers, and people with lived experience. By engaging communities early in the process, the County could better structure community engagement in ways that build trust, support collaboration, and ensure that lived experience informs decision-making.
Creating Space When It Matters Most
ARDI Community Meeting CSG Design Series at the Montebello Library on August 20th, 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Best)
The CSG Design Series was designed to create spaces where people who work with or are affected by homelessness could come together to share perspectives and reflect on their experiences.
Participants included community residents, nonprofit organizations, advocates, service providers, and individuals with lived experience. These conversations allowed participants to explore how homelessness intersects with community belonging, access to resources, and the barriers that can leave neighbors socially, geographically, or economically disconnected from one another.
Rather than beginning with a predetermined structure or set of solutions, the Series focused on developing an approach that centered on how communities want to engage with the government. Participants were invited to speak candidly about their experiences and offer ideas about how community voices could more meaningfully inform future County decision-making.
This approach helped ensure that the perspectives of people closest to the issue are part of the conversation from the beginning.
Designing an Advisory Body Rooted in Trust
A central purpose of the CSG Design Series was to help shape the development of a new homelessness advisory body.
Traditionally, advisory groups are formed first and then asked to gather community feedback. ARDI chose to approach this process differently. The Design Series invited communities to help inform what the advisory body should look like before it is formally established.
Each session began with shared context, including an overview of current County efforts related to homelessness and how existing systems operate. From there, participants engaged in facilitated discussions about belonging, community engagement, and what would make an advisory body effective and representative.
Participants have emphasized that being included early in the process makes a meaningful difference. Their feedback helped inform conversations about the advisory body’s purpose, structure, and membership as the County prepared for its anticipated launch in early 2026.
Reaching Communities Where They Are
ARDI Community Meeting CSG Design Series at the A C Bilbrew Library on August 18th, 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Best)
Meaningful engagement often depended on meeting people in spaces where they feel comfortable and represented.
To support this approach, ARDI partnered with trusted community organizations to host population-focused sessions. Partners such as Proyecto Pastoral, the Los Angeles Black Workers Center, Little Tokyo Service Center, and API RISE helped bring together community members who may not typically participate in County-led initiatives.
Hosting sessions through these partnerships enabled conversations to take place in familiar, welcoming environments. It also helped ensure that the process reflected the diverse experiences and perspectives that exist across Los Angeles County. These partnerships deepened the discussion and broadened the range of voices contributing to the process.
Communities Showing Up for Dialogue
The Design Series took place during a time when communities across the country were navigating complex conversations about homelessness and how best to address it. Despite the challenges surrounding the issue, people continued to show up for dialogue.
More than 180 community members participated in the sessions, both in person and virtually. Many returned for multiple conversations, contributing thoughtful reflections and insights shaped by their lived experiences and professional work.
Participants brought a wide range of viewpoints to the discussions. Together, these conversations helped highlight both shared concerns and opportunities for stronger collaboration across communities. Their continued participation reflected a collective interest in building understanding and identifying ways communities and County partners can work together moving forward.
Learnings & Key Insights
As the Community Solidarity Group (CSG) Design Series came to a close, ARDI gathered feedback and reflections from community members across Los Angeles County. Throughout the conversations, participants shared that trust and transparency were needed to sustain engagement with the County.
Participants from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences shared personal stories, concerns, and ideas about homelessness and belonging with one another. These conversations helped build understanding across communities and created space for honest dialogue, which enabled residents to build bridges.
Several key themes emerged across the sessions:
ARDI Community Meeting CSG Design Series at the South Whittier Library on August 25th, 2025. (Photo: Lindsey Best)
These insights helped shape ARDI’s planning and partnership with the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing as both teams prepare for the launch of the Community Solidarity Group.
As Los Angeles County continues to confront the complexity of homelessness, the Community Solidarity Group Design Series underscores a simple but critical truth: durable solutions are built with communities, not for them. By creating space for honest dialogue, centering lived experience, and translating community insight into structure and strategy, this effort reflects a broader shift toward co-creation, accountability, and shared ownership of outcomes. These conversations do not end with the close of the series and lay the groundwork for an ongoing partnership between residents and the County, one that is essential to advancing equitable, effective, and responsive approaches to homelessness. In this way, the Design Series is not just a moment of engagement, but part of a longer trajectory toward a system that listens, learns, and evolves alongside the communities it serves.