Homelessness and LAHSA

“I understand that, and I just want to name that there have been times where I have tried to get flexibility on dollars around some of our homelessness sites for clean teams And I have been denied several times in council.”

“Because it would— so just as it— just to frame it, when we have an interim housing location like what I have in Sylmar, we have on-site case management people that are assigned to helping to address the circumstances and needs of the individuals in those facilities.”

“This is item 63. Colleagues, the structure of our regional homelessness response is changing. While we continue to rely on county departments for critical public health, mental health, and substance use services, the county has moved their funded programs and contracts previously administered through LAHSA into their new Department of Homelessness Services and Housing.”

“Colleagues, tomorrow when we are discussing ULA, I hope that you remember that technically what we are putting in front of ourselves is whether to cut 30% of our funding that we as a city ourselves, um, have been acquiring in order to address the homeless crisis.”

“Administrative functions are not dollar for dollar. That’s why it’s so problematic. And in terms of the stepping up for the investment, no one’s letting HMIS go. It’s not federally allowed. It also— we can’t run the homeless service system without it.”

“If I could just, um, I, I think what you’re saying, Councilmember Park, is absolutely right. And I think the county does have significant responsibilities for providing support to our highest acuity residents in our shelters and across our— and on our streets, which they’re not providing.”

“We already have protocol for evacuation, evacuation of unhoused individuals. And let me just say, we should not have unhoused individuals who need to be evacuated in very high fire severity zones, period.”

“I’m looking at the list of, um, the venues list. And there are absolutely going to probably be hundreds, if not thousands, of unhoused people who are going to be here.”

“You know, if you expand the catchment zone in my area, you’re going to ostensibly bring folks from Olympic-related areas into the area, but we’re already full and we don’t have enough space for the folks who are homeless, uh, around those, those areas.”

“I am proud of the work that we’ve been able to do. I’m proud of government and community working together. Since I got here in 2022, we’ve really been working on homelessness, and I’m proud to say we’ve successfully brought down homelessness in our district by 29%, and we’ve gotten over 2,000 people in permanent housing.”

“In part, you have to understand, the public has to understand, that we just got hit really hard by the federal government as well. So many of those vouchers that we thought we had went away. And now they’re shifting from permanent housing to look at interim housing.”

“Other than the fact, I think, with the RAND report, you know, when it was quoted in the LA Times, they acknowledge that homelessness has gone down.”

“This resolution condemns the action and commits the city to fighting back on behalf of our homeless neighbors.”

“Are there streetlights out? I bet you there are near these locations. Um, and so just have a better coordinated, um, method of addressing some of these issues, because as you said, there might be graffiti and vandalism happening at that local shelter, but I guarantee you there’s other activity happening in that area.”

“We are facing significant headwinds from the uncertainty surrounding federal funding to the broader challenges facing our homeless response system.”

“I don’t know if it’s worth presenting that as a whole at some point, other than it seems rather futile, I know, in some ways, but just to explain to the system and the general public the, the cliff of newly emerging homelessness that will come out of this, these sets of crises.”

“I understand the snapshot, but the details. This is how much we owe, this is how long we owe for each service provider and how long it’s— because this is what I’m hearing from service providers, that they’re owed money from LAHSA, all right?”

“Colleagues, 3 months ago I voted against the contracts related to the Measure ULA Eviction Defense Fund and homelessness prevention programs because I did not believe the level of transparency and accountability the city should require when distributing public funds had been met.”

“What I think is that you’re— that there’s no question that public financing of programs to help the homeless people are imperative.”

“It was, it was a great time. But one of the things I learned is that, you know, we were creating these beautiful policies based on best practices, and I had my own experiences with homelessness, but I didn’t understand how things worked on the front lines.”

“On the inclusive— I’m sorry, one last point on the inclusivity update and the requirements. I had never seen this before, but unhoused individual hires, so the commitment is 2, but so far it’s 1.”