“In Los Angeles, we have made over 84,000 permanent housing placements just in the last five years. As a percentage of our budget, the City spends five times what the State spends on homelessness.
I welcome the Governor’s continuing focus on homelessness and his ambition to use his bully pulpit to inspire a more urgent and deeper commitment to confront this crisis at all levels. After several years of record budget surpluses in Sacramento, we are still waiting for a sufficient increase and a consistent commitment in California’s response to the number one crisis our state faces. This isn’t just about increasing the ambition of goals with Sacramento – it’s about the commitment of resources from Sacramento. Despite some good steps forward from the governor and legislature in recent years, this fight is still disproportionately shouldered by local communities with far fewer resources than the State.
Let me be clear: any additional delay at the direction of the Governor hurts our ability to get Angelenos living on the street into safe and stable housing now. And this is perplexing, after the City worked directly with and received positive feedback from state agencies and County partners to develop our plan. Having already waited 16 months for this funding, it cannot help people suffering to have the agreed funding timeline changed at the last minute.
Californians deserve a government that works in unison to bring urgency to this crisis. Lives are on the line and we can’t afford for this work to get mired in more politics and bureaucracy.” – Mayor Eric Garcetti
