About Silver Lake Love
Chi “Fuzzy” Ip founded ‘Silver Lake Love’ in 2015 with the goal of raising awareness and improving the lives of underserved, underprivileged and highly vulnerable individuals living in Los Angeles; especially those of veterans, women and children. His work has grown from a modest grassroots campaign in Los Angeles to projects and efforts in New York, San Francisco, and Texas.
Ip received his Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Ip grew up in Los Angeles in poverty, without a father and without positive parental influence. Due to the financial crash of 2008, he experienced homelessness and was forced to temporarily live in his car in order to make ends meet. Because of his upbringing and unique life experience, he personally and profoundly understands the devastating emotional, social, financial and psychological effects of not having a stable, loving and nurturing environment and has dedicated his life to helping those in similar situations escape the grips of poverty through Silver Lake Love.
“Everyday, we’re presented with a choice: doing what’s right or doing what’s easy. Choosing to do what’s right has a profound relationship with kindness, empathy, and compassion. It’s easy to feel anger or hostility towards an individual and blame them for being responsible for their situation. It’s much harder to find the empathy and compassion to inspire that individual to make a better life. Even if it does not work 10 times in a row, its the active hope that it could work the 11th time that is the hard, but right thing to do. Even if I only inspire one person to do the right thing, then Silver Lake Love is a success.” – CHI ‘fuzzy’ IP
Philosophy
Silver Lake Love is a local grassroots nonprofit organization that addresses the humanity behind homelessness in Los Angeles. Los Angeles has the highest count of chronically homeless individuals in the United States.
Silver Lake Love attempts to address the often overlooked emotional and morale causes of homelessness that often deal with love, acceptance, dignity, respect, and the right to be recognized as a fellow human being and citizen of the earth. We aim to combat the structural dehumanization of the homeless. We work to help homeless individuals feel seen, feel heard, and feel cared for.
We believe our mission compliments the many other organizations in Los Angeles that offer solutions related to housing, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, temporary shelters, and job training.
We believe that the most productive methods of combatting the homelessness problem is a multi-faceted approach and we are committed to doing our part.
Silver Lake Love is founded on the principle that everyone matters. We pose the question: At what point does the dehumanization of the homeless impact the vicious cycle of homelessness? The lack of respect and recognition of those without homes have the power to breed much anger and bitterness, which forms a snowballing effect of further promoting the negative energies that lead to chronic homelessness. Everyone matters.
Help us promote this message. To get involved, contact us at: info@silverlakelove.org