Homelessness fight’s budget

Mayor Garcetti’s proposal points the city in the right direction. But some of its funding sources are iffy.

It’s one thing for elected officials to declare war, essentially, on homelessness in Los Angeles, as they did in January when they unveiled sweeping plans to combat this intractable problem. It’s another thing to find the money to put those plans into effect. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposed budget, the first since the city’s Comprehensive Homeless Strategy was approved, finally identifies where some of that money could come from. Although it’s just a start, he’s heading in the right direction.

The city, the county and the state all have roles to play in trying to house the 44,000 homeless people in L.A. County — for example, the state and the county are responsible for providing the mental-health, substanceabuse and job-training services needed by many of those living on the street, as well as addressing the problems in the prison, jail and foster-care systems that result in so many people becoming homeless. The city also funds some services related to homelessness, but it plays a large role in providing the actual housing, whether by subsidizing existing units or building new ones.

Garcetti’s budget includes $138 million to address homelessness — about four times what the city allocated last year. A little more than half would come from the General Fund, and it would be spent on rental subsidies and services administered through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and various city departments. However, the other $67 million — which would be put toward housing for homeless people and affordable housing — is slated to come from two sources that are more politically problematic.

The first is the sale of surplus city-owned properties. Garcetti has identified eight parcels worth $86.5 million, some of which could be sold and others developed into housing. If the council does, in fact, spend the proceeds from those sales on housing instead of other needs, it would demonstrate that elected officials are finally giving homelessness the priority it deserves.

As for the properties where city officials choose to build housing — whether affordable units for low-income Angelenos or permanent supportive ones for the homeless — it’s an open question whether the neighboring communities will welcome those developments. Most of the properties are zoned for commercial, industrial or public facility use, and so may need city approval before being used for multi-unit dwellings, setting up another front for potential fights. City leaders need to tell the public more about their plans for where they want to build and what those developments would entail.

The second new source of funding is a “linkage fee,” or an assessment on developers. The rationale is that new commercial, industrial and market-rate residential developments increase the need for affordable units, but without subsidies those units won’t be built. And while the fee would increase the already high cost of office and residential space in L.A., at least the money would be dedicated for use on housing.

Linkage fees have not been popular with developers in the past. But San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego all have linkage fees, and the idea can work in L.A. too. (Garcetti says that some local developers now support the idea.) Although the details matter, they will have to wait until the city completes the study on linkage fees that the mayor ordered — and the council funded — earlier this year.

Garcetti has touted new sources of revenue before that did not come to fruition in the time frame he predicted — such as a fee on short-term vacation rentals. To give the two latest ideas their best shot at becoming a reality, city leaders need to marshal their political will to make a compelling case for why these steps can make a meaningful difference in alleviating the problem.

The $138 million is a fraction of the nearly $2 billion the city has estimated it will need over the coming decade to create enough housing and services for homeless people — and that’s just for the ones here in L.A. City, county and state officials are considering other revenue sources too, including possible sales tax increases and bond issues that voters would have to approve. But before they do, the mayor and city council members must make it clear that residents and developers alike have to be part of the solution to the problem of homelessness. That means developers paying fees to help create a desperately needed supply of subsidized housing, and residents accepting that getting homeless people off the streets means getting them into homes in their neighborhoods.