LA to tap $100M to fight homelessness

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Eric Garcetti and several other elected officials stood outside City Hall on Tuesday — a few feet from several homeless people dozing on a lawn — to announce plans to declare a state of emergency on homelessness and spend $100 million to eradicate it.

New studies have indicated that the city’s homeless population has increased more than 10 percent over the past two years. The emergency declaration and the funding will require action by the full City Council. Officials didn’t say exactly where the money will come from, but council President Herb Wesson promised it would be found “somehow, some way.”

Huizar spokesman Rick Coca said afterward that officials anticipate it will come from the city’s general fund, adding “a more robust financial forecast for the city” is anticipated in the months ahead.

Councilmen said they hope to have a draft strategic plan on homelessness by December. Experts blame that crisis on several factors, including the long recession, the city’s gentrification and its rapidly rising rents and home prices. Those events have combined to push the homeless population steadily higher since 2013, to a figure now estimated at 20,000.

The first rollout of funds — projected for Jan. 1 — would go toward permanent housing and shelter, according to Wesson’s office. Garcetti had already announced plans Monday to release nearly $13 million in such newly anticipated excess tax revenue for short-term housing initiatives. The bulk of that money would be dedicated to housing homeless veterans.