Homelessness in Los Angeles County is tragic and complex, and solving it is a daunting task.
The only way to reduce homelessness is to provide housing and services that help people stabilize their lives. For nearly a decade, city and county leaders have been trying to do exactly that, thanks to voter support. In 2016, the city of Los Angeles passed Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure, which is building just over 8,600 housing units for homeless people. And in 2017, county voters overwhelmingly approved Measure H, which added a quarter cent to the sales tax to fund homeless services and rental assistance.
Did those measures solve homelessness? No. How could they do it? The homelessness crisis in Los Angeles County was decades in the making, the result of a failure to build and preserve affordable housing, the decimation of the mental health care system, and a government that was neither prepared nor interested in helping people leaving foster homes, jails and prisons with no lifeguards or housing. Sustained efforts and funding over time will be needed to reverse course.
But HHH is getting thousands of people off the streets of the city of Los Angeles and into housing, while tens of thousands across the county have gotten services or rental subsidies through Measure H. There are 75,000 people without housing in Los Angeles County, at last count. – although for the first time since 2018, that number is not No increase.
Measure A on the Nov. 5 ballot is the next step. I would replace the H and increase the sales tax by a half cent to pay for the housing and services homeless people desperately need.
We strongly urge voters to support him.
Homelessness is not like the Northridge earthquake: a freeway splits in half, you fix it and that's it. Homelessness isn't just a problem that can be eliminated, either: clear a sidewalk of campsites or RVs and people will disappear. They don't. They just move to another street. Solving homelessness requires a long-term investment.
Measure A would provide that investment. Currently, H generates about $500 million a year, making up most of the money the county spends on homelessness, and is set to expire at the end of 2026. Measure A would repeal H early and replace it with a half-cent increase in sales tax. . (For most county residents, it would be like adding a quarter of a cent. For five cities that had already been in the top sales tax bracket, a recent state bill allows their sales taxes to be are increased above that limit for homeless services.) Measure A would be a permanent tax unless repealed solely by another ballot measure. It would generate around a billion dollars a year.
Measure H did its job and continues to do so. On any given day, H-dollars can help more than 31,000 individuals and families obtain services, such as mental health treatment, drug treatment, and employment counseling, while they are in temporary and permanent housing or receive rental subsidies. It also funds housing navigators who help people find permanent housing and programs, such as legal assistance, eviction defense, and rental and utility assistance, to help people avoid losing their homes. It also provides services for all motels and hotels used in Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's Inside Safe program.
If A is not approved and H disappears at the end of 2026, so will all those services. That means people lose temporary beds and rent subsidies. Homelessness would get worse.
So why not just extend H? Because Measure A will fund everything H funds, and more. It will increase the amount of money spent on prevention services to prevent people from becoming homeless.
Measure A will also pay for the construction, purchase and preservation of affordable housing, something H did not do. About 35% of the funds will go to the newly created Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, which we strongly support in 2022 as a more effective way to build affordable housing throughout the county. At the time, we noted that the agency would seek voter support for a tax increase to fund housing development.
The measure is designed to improve H by setting measurable goals and adding two oversight bodies that guide spending. Among its functions will be to move funds from low-performing programs to high-performing programs.
The fact that Measure A does not have an expiration date will allow service providers to lease buildings for decades and allow for long-term financing of affordable housing, which the county will need to continue building for decades to catch up with the housing market. housing. shortage.
No one likes paying higher taxes, and certainly the sales tax is the most regressive of taxes. Proponents of Measure A estimate the average household would pay an additional $5 a month.
While there are many factors that influence whether a person becomes homeless, most are trapped in a crippling vortex of poverty and unaffordable housing. If we don't want more homeless people on the sidewalks, we have to invest in proposals like Measure A that have a chance of solving this horrible problem.
