News

Apr 20

Can L.A. really clear homeless people from skid row by October? Here’s what we know

  Can Los Angeles really clear the streets of skid row of tents and offer all the people living there shelter by October?   That might be the end result of a bold order issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter. His action comes at a critical moment for the Los Angeles homeless crisis.   Government officials are putting more money than ever ...
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Apr 19

L.A. Mayor Garcetti proposes nearly $1 billion to address homelessness, $24 million for basic income pilot program

  Faced with an out-of-control homeless crisis and an economy walloped by the pandemic, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday proposed spending nearly $1 billion in the coming year to get people off the streets and $24 million for a pilot program to give no-strings-attached cash to struggling households.   “Los Angeles will launch the largest guaranteed basic income pilot of any ...
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Mar 30

Need rent help? L.A. city residents can now apply for help from $235-million fund

  Los Angeles opened applications Tuesday to its $235.5-million rent-relief program, an effort to keep city residents housed and allow landlords to pay their bills after a challenging year.   The program, called the 2021 COVID-19 Emergency Renters Assistance Program, is funded through the December federal stimulus bill and distributed under state rules that seek to eliminate rent debt that lower-income tenants have ...
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Mar 23

Editorial: Want to lower the number who are homeless? Prevent people from falling into homelessness

  It will come as no surprise to anyone living in Los Angeles that the number of homeless people is staggeringly high. What might be surprising is the almost equally large number of homeless people who are successfully moved off the streets in the county of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, more than 20,000 homeless people ...
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Mar 15

Biden’s American Rescue Plan is a lifeline for low-income renters

  The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill signed by President Joe Biden last week, provides a range of benefits that will help lift millions out of poverty, especially children.   From emergency rental assistance directly helping low-income renters stay safe in their homes, to education funding, the aid that is most important to low-income renters have ...
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Mar 5

L.A. County won’t expand program to shelter homeless people in hotels

  Citing concerns about the budget, Los Angeles County officials said they don’t plan to expand the number of hotels they’re renting to shelter homeless people who are at risk of contracting COVID-19.   As of late last month, the county was renting 12 hotels with 1,350 rooms through a program known as Project Roomkey, according to a county report on the program ...
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Feb 15

Vaccinating the homeless population for COVID adds a whole new layer of difficulty

  For Lance Curtis, the journey to receive the COVID-19 vaccine began with a phone call from Los Angeles Christian Health Centers.   Doctors and nurses had culled a list of nearly 900 homeless people they wanted to vaccinate. Their outreach workers walked the streets of skid row preaching the gospel of Moderna’s two-shot salvation.   And they sought out people in the community’s large ...
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Feb 10

The history of homelessness in Los Angeles points to new approaches

  Homelessness in Los Angeles was already on the rise before COVID-19 struck. But the health and economic fallout of the pandemic has left many more low-income residents on the brink of housing insecurity.   While recent statewide legislation prevents evictions through June and creates options to help Angelenos pay back rent, the homelessness problem could worsen significantly as the pandemic and business ...
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Feb 4

This year’s homeless count was canceled. Is it time to rethink it?

  Los Angeles County’s annual homeless count is a civic ritual bringing thousands of volunteers together in a common cause. It is also a reckoning with the shortcomings of all that’s been done to salve the county’s most perplexing human crisis.   So its cancellation this year due to the risk of spreading the coronavirus has had a multifaceted fallout — a loss ...
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Jan 29

Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill to extend COVID-19 eviction protections through June

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed an emergency bill that will extend through June eviction protections for Californians suffering financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic, acting just days before an earlier moratorium was set to expire.   Newsom’s action on the legislation followed the measure’s approval Thursday by the state Legislature and was aimed at heading off what many state officials ...
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