A City Council committee in Los Angeles declared Tuesday a state of emergency on homelessness and pledged to commit $100 million to work against it. Wesson didn’t specify where the money would come from, but he said budget analysts would find it “somehow, someway”.
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“We must do everything we can now to get people off the streets and into housing with the resources we have available”, Garcetti said.
He said these and other initial steps could “give us the momentum needed to make real progress over the coming year”.
Garcetti, who is campaigning to attract the 2024 Olympic Games to Los Angeles, added that the homeless problem goes back years and has been marked by futile fights between city and county officials over who bears responsibility.
There was no word on where the $100 million would come from.
The plan, which was announced on Tuesday, is expected to complement Mayor Eric Garcetti’s plan to combat homelessness.
A recent homeless count taken earlier this year showed a rise in homelessness, with 25,686 homeless people living in Los Angeles, compared with 22,993 in 2013.
Living on the streets since January, Floyd Perkins said he comes to the lawn every day because he believes he won’t be hassled by the police on the City Hall property.
In a letter to City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, Garcetti introduced him to the plan that proposes $5 million for short-term rental housing that could rehouse around 1,000 homeless people for six to nine months and a proposed $5.1. million for the same temporary housing for homeless veterans.
“The city has pushed this problem from neighborhood to neighborhood for too long”, Garcetti, a Democrat, said at a news conference.
“They can spend billions on getting the Olympics”, she said.
Wesson today addressed those concerns, saying that “as a moral society, we have an obligation to provide shelter for the shelterless”. The city of Los Angeles hopes this huge amount of taxpayer’s money will actually do some good.
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Since 2013, the year Garcetti became mayor, the homeless have increased by 12%.
