Mayor Karen Bass and a delegation of six City Council members Wednesday will wrap up three days of meetings with national leaders in Washington, D.C. to advocate for additional resources for the city — one day after Bass said the delegation has put a “fix in motion” after learning L.A. could be at risk of losing more than $100 million in Veteran Affairs benefits.
The delegation — including Council President Paul Krekorian and council members Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez, Heather Hutt, Traci Park and Hugo Soto-Martinez — is in Washington to meet with White House officials and members of California’s congressional delegation.
Meetings will conclude Wednesday evening, and some council members will leave that night and others the following morning, according to Bass’ office.
Bass and council members have been staying at a hotel near the White House, and will return to L.A. just as they arrived — traveling on economy tickets, according to Bass’ office. The funds for the trip came from their respective offices.
During Tuesday’s meeting with Secretary Denis McDonough of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he informed the city leaders that Congress wants to “claw back” money to balance the federal budget — but that a “legislative fix could save it,” Bass told KNX News.
That appears to be already in the works, following the delegation’s meeting Tuesday with Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California. The city contingent has more meetings scheduled for Wednesday with other members of the L.A. area’s congressional delegation — at which the veterans issue will likely be prominent.
“In addition, we learned that many cities have not utilized their (housing) vouchers,” Bass told KNX. “So, needless to say, I wanted to be the first in line to make sure that L.A. gets any unused vouchers that other cities don’t need.”
“… I’ll tell you why,” she added. “There isn’t any city around that is dealing with the numbers (of homelessness) that we’re dealing with.”
Krekorian, meanwhile, told City News Service on Tuesday afternoon that it was “another busy day for us.” He said city leaders had “detailed conversations” with McDonough and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.
Los Angeles has a quarter-million veterans, and too many of them are living on the streets, Krekorian said. The talks with McDonough served as an opportunity to speak in depth about how to best provide job opportunities, housing and other services for veterans, he added.
“With regard to HUD, we had discussions about hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding related to housing the unhoused and providing greater affordability,” Krekorian said.
The council president reiterated it’s important for the delegation to be there, advocating on behalf of the city, because “nature abhors a vacuum, and so does Washington.”
“If you are not here, and if you’re not advocating for the people of Los Angeles, then somebody else will be here advocating for the people of other cities. So in order to make sure that Los Angeles is treated fairly and equitably, it’s important that the leaders of our city be here to have those face-to-face discussions,” Krekorian said.
Soto-Martinez told City News Service on Tuesday that Bass’ relationships with leaders in Washington — the mayor is a former member of the House of Representatives — are “shining through.”
“Oftentimes when you meet folks, you have to build relationships and get to know them — but in every single meeting we’ve been at people know her (Bass). She has a ton of credibility, and so we’re going (straight) into the needs of Angelenos,” Soto-Martinez said.
As a result of the trip, the City Council canceled its regularly scheduled meetings for Tuesday and Wednesday. The council will resume meetings on Friday, according to Krekorian’s office.