March 15, 2018 

City News Service 

 

A Los Angeles City Council committee discussed a major proposal last Wednesday that seeks an emergency plan to provide a safe place for the city’s entire population of homeless people, which at last count numbered more than 34,000.

 

The motion, which went before the Homelessness and Poverty Committee was introduced last month by Councilmen Mike Bonin and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who said there is little evidence that anything is being done to create more or better shelters for the homeless in the city and that a true sense of emergency is needed to deal with the problem.

 

The motion says the city’s 2016 Comprehensive Homelessness Strategy resolution — a $1.85 billion outline for homeless initiatives over a 10-year period — called for an expansion and “dramatic transformation” of the region’s emergency homeless shelters. But that “has not happened,” according to the councilmen.

 

“In fact, there is scant evidence of any progress, no apparent plan or strategy to make progress, and no evident sense of urgency or attention to any efforts to make progress,” according to their motion. “Even though officials have repeatedly declared a ‘state of shelter emergency,’ there is no institutional or organizational sense of emergency to move thousands of people off the streets immediately, or even in the next several weeks or months.”

 

The motion seeks a number of actions from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which coordinates homeless services for Los Angeles County. The agency would be asked to provide several comprehensive reports within 14 days, including the framework for an Emergency Response Homeless Plan, outlining what steps and what funds would be required to provide an alternative to homeless encampments for 100 percent of the homeless population by the end of the year.

 

A spokesman with LAHSA last month told City News Service the agency had “no position” on the motion.

 

According to the motion, the Comprehensive Homelessness Strategy resolution called for the expansion and “dramatic transformation” of emergency shelters into crisis and bridge housing opportunities, which offer less restrictions than traditional homeless shelters along with 24-hour service. Traditional shelters typically require anyone staying there to leave each morning and not allow them back in until the evening hours, which can discourage participation

 

Homelessness in the city of Los Angeles jumped by 20 percent in 2017 while the county saw a spike of 23 percent compared to the previous year, according to the results of the 2017 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. In the city, the total number of homeless went up to 34,189 and the county number increased to 57,794.

 

The city’s biggest response to the problem of homelessness the last few years was the passage in 2016 of Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure to fund permanent housing for the homeless, but the units will take years to approve and build.

 

“Los Angeles must provide genuine alternatives to sidewalk encampments — urgently,” the Bonin/Harris-Dawson motion states.

 

The motion would also require LAHSA to provide information on how many homeless people are currently being provided shelter or housing, how many it aims to house by the end of this fiscal year and the next three fiscal years, what steps have been taken to replace barracks-style shelters with 24-hour crisis housing and bridge housing, and what steps have been taken to recruit houses of worship and other nonprofits to provide shelter beds.

 

The motion would also direct the Los Angeles homeless coordinator to provide a list of every public facility in the city legally eligible to be used to provide shelter, temporary housing or safe parking.

Category: Community