Doug McCormick to Step Down as PPTFH President

By JENNIKA INGRAM | Reporter 

In a farewell letter, Doug McCormick announced he is stepping down as president of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness, effective June 1.

“I’m deeply humbled to have been part of a group that has been so effective,” McCormick wrote to the Palisadian-Post.

Sharon Browning and Sharon Kilbride will serve as co-presidents of PPTFH for the first time in the organization’s history. The two president-elects are already underway functioning as co-presidents and will officially take office on June 1.

“Sharon and I work well together and we’re excited about serving the Palisades community and we want to take the task force to the next level,” Browning said. “We hope COVID-19 will not curtail our ability to continue to service the community.”

The two are sharing the position to give the job the attention it needs, Browning explained to the Post.

McCormick shared in the farewell letter that he and his wife are moving to Ventura to support their young granddaughter and her parents.

“We lived in the Palisades for 40 years and loved every minute of it,” he said. “But I’m especially proud of the work we’ve done together as a community to help homeless individuals off the streets and into housing.”

PPTFH saw a humanitarian problem for our community, McCormick explained to the Post, “and developed an approach to solving it, instead of complaining that others weren’t doing enough, and created a public-private partnership that has been a model which other neighborhoods have asked to copy.”

McCormick noted in the letter that other areas, including the city of Malibu, have looked to PPTFH as a model.

During COVID-19, McCormick stated that the idea of “Safer at Home” has a new meaning for those who don’t have a home to go to, referring to the 44 homeless individuals on the streets of the Palisades.

PPTFH continues to reach out and make contacts, serve lunches and perform wellness checks, including looking for signs of COVID-19. The task force made 108 on-street contacts, and 46 were unduplicated, according to the progress report.

The letter also commented on the subject of using Palisades Recreation Center as a homeless shelter.

“Many of you are aware of the issues surrounding the mayor and city council’s decision to use the recreation centers as homeless shelters,” McCormick wrote. “PPCC wrote thoughtful letters to them asking how they proposed to address various practical issues about the idea, not the least of which was the need to test individuals each time they came and went.”

The PPTFH board reported advocating for transparency and community involvement.

McCormick told the Post that he is honored to have worked with The People Concern, Los Angeles Police Department and more than 40 volunteers who “continue to be so intelligently committed to this issue” during his time with PPTFH.

“I will miss them all,” he concluded.

Although the PPTFH meeting that was scheduled for May is postponed, the committee plans to meet in July, if orders in place at the time allow them to do so.