Increased Funding Could Alleviate Homelessness In LA

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved two actions Tuesday that will allocate more funding to services for the homeless, one affecting Rapid Re-Housing in Santa Monica, and one that will pour $2.3 million into various projects around the county. 

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is one of the organizations that will receive some of the allocated funds, and their plan is to attack the issue of homelessness from multiple directions. The organization will focus primarily on issues involving both permanent and temporary housing for those without homes but will work with other organizations in order to combat the mental and physical health issues many homeless people endure.

Skid Row, which has the largest concentration of homeless people in the nation, is one of the areas that will receive the lion's share of the increased funding. Skid Row residents, however, did not have a general consensus on how to go about solving the issues associated with the area. The opinions of the residents ranged from a widespread effort to clean the area to increased mental health care for those on the streets with a mental illness. 

LAHSA Executive Director Peter Lynn noted that his organization is aiming to help the issue of homelessness by providing the homeless opportunities to live in stable homes before gently weening them off of the subsidy related to those homes. This type of approach in theory allows someone living on the streets the ability to find a place to work with the end goal of living in a place without any funding from the government or special programs. 

The last data available from LAHSA's homeless count showed that over 58,000 people lived in L.A. County without a permanent roof over their head, but with the increased funding from the Board of Supervisors, LAHSA hopes that that number will decrease.