News

Mar 4

Homelessness in L.A.: A national disgrace that must be fixed

  Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, March 3, 2018. Los Angeles is in the midst of only its third significant rain event since February 2017 — but it’s nothing compared with what’s howling through the Northeast right now. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion. Over the last week, The Times editorial board published a six-part series on ...
Read More
Feb 24

High rents create a new class of hidden homeless in Los Angeles

  Kevin Recinos works full-time helping the homeless in Los Angeles as a Life Skills Coordinator, but when his rent increased by $200 per month, he himself became homeless. Now, he's one of the estimated 9,000 newly homeless in Los Angeles living out of their car. As he demonstrated how he gets his car ready for the night, Recinos lamented, "I realize this is ...
Read More
Feb 1

Federal grants for homeless services are flowing again after government shutdown

    Acting quickly after the reopening of the federal government last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has renewed grants totaling nearly $172 million for the five-county Los Angeles area. The funding will go primarily to agencies that provide direct homeless services, including outreach, case management and shelters. Separately, HUD has resumed funding for thousands of federal rental subsidies, ...
Read More
Jan 29

L.A. approves $120 million to encourage building faster, cheaper homeless housing

  Wanted: Fresh ideas to speed up the construction and lower the cost of housing for homeless people — without cutting quality. The Los Angeles City Council made that pitch formal on Tuesday, voting 14-0 to set aside $120 million, a substantial slice of the Proposition HHH homeless housing bond, for a pilot program that will ask developers for strategies to change ...
Read More
Jan 9

L.A. needs a homelessness czar

When the next major earthquake strikes, we’ll have the leadership we need. A top official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will aggressively oversee the federal response to the crisis, coordinating closely with local leaders. Why aren’t we addressing our homelessness crisis with the same degree of urgency?Granted, pervasive homelessness is a complex and deeply nuanced problem, one that is often ...
Read More
Dec 13

APLA Health and Supervisor Ridley-Thomas Cut Ribbon on New Community Health Center

  Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and APLA Health cut the ribbon on Los Angeles County’s newest community health center. APLA Health – Olympic Health Center will offer people living and working in West Hollywood, Hollywood, Miracle Mile and Central Los Angeles access to quality primary medical and mental healthcare; HIV specialty care and support services, as well as HIV and STD screening ...
Read More
Nov 17

California mayors call for more state leadership on homelessness crisis

With California gripped by a homelessness crisis, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and mayors of three of the state’s other largest cities called Friday for a statewide effort to remove obstacles to affordable housing and give cities more help in getting people off the streets. The issue was the focus of a panel discussion in Sacramento that also included San Diego ...
Read More
Oct 30

L.A. County declares a shelter crisis, providing flexibility in how it provides beds and assistance

County leaders on Tuesday declared a shelter crisis, giving the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority more flexibility in how it may spend $81 million in newly available state money for the homeless and the ability to bypass some regulations in order to provide emergency housing. The declaration, both symbolic and practical, applies to unincorporated parts of the county and to county-owned ...
Read More
Oct 17

Thousands of SRO hotel units in L.A. await conversion into housing for homeless people

The Times Editorial Board rightly chides Los Angeles city leaders for their anemic and bureaucratic approach to addressing the homelessness crisis with real-time housing solutions. However, you omit a practical, low-cost alternative: single-room occupancy, or SRO, hotels. By some estimates, there are as many as 5,000 un- or under-occupied hotel rooms in SRO hotels in Los Angeles that could be re-purposed ...
Read More
Oct 8

Innovative ideas to house homeless people faster and at a lower cost

  By City Hall standards, the proposal was audacious. A developer asked to borrow $64 million from Los Angeles and promised to match it with $16 million raised privately from people who want to invest in good works. The money would build 60 projects, providing housing for 1,980 homeless people, then be repaid in full three years later with 3% interest. For members ...
Read More

Pages

Subscribe to News