As part of their trip to Sacramento to meet with state legislators and advocate on behalf of the city, Los Angeles leaders Monday announced 3,365 housing vouchers to benefit unhoused Angelenos.
According to the Bass’ office, the voucher award comes in response to direct efforts to bring online more permanent housing through the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles by increasing staff and prioritizing goals.
Additionally, Bass noted the city secured a $7.2 million Homekey Round 3 grant last week, which is the seventh award the city has secured from the state.
Bass and a delegation of City Council members — including Council President Paul Krekorian and council members Bob Blumenfield, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Monica Rodriguez and Eunisses Hernandes — traveled to Sacramento to build on state investments so far to address the homelessness crisis.
Other goals of the trip include various discussions with state leaders, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom and members of his cabinet, to obtain funding for more housing and advocate for expedited reimbursements for past emergencies such as COVID-19 and recent storms.
“Our priority always has to be to save lives, and when we work together, across all levels of government, we can make real progress,” Bass said in a statement. “With more than 40,000 unhoused Angelenos on our streets, it was unacceptable that we had voucher holders unable to come inside.”
She added, “In January of last year, we worked with HACLA to increase its capacity and I’m glad that we are now at full voucher utilization. We cannot standby and allow business as usual to kill unhoused Angelenos”
Council President Paul Krekorian said in a statement that their trip was about securing funding to expand on proven programs for the unhoused, and build more affordable housing for working Angelenos.
Councilwoman Nithya Raman, the chair of the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said, “This is why I insisted on working closely with HACLA in the committee, setting a clear goal of 100% utilization, and working in partnership with HACLA staff to ensure that we were able to successfully meet that goal.”
The city partnered with Hope the Mission to use the $7.1 million to repurpose an existing motel into a 22-unit housing community to serve unhoused youth, or those at-risk of being homelessness. The total $105.8 million is expected to deliver a combined 367 interim and permanent housing for homeless individuals.
“These state funds are absolutely vital to our efforts to bring Angelenos inside. I want to again thank the Newsom administration for their continued partnership to address the homelessness crisis,” Bass said in a statement. “We will continue to call on our federal and state partners to increase our voucher allocation and other resources to bring more people inside.”
Blumenfield noted that the city must take advantage of “every state and federal resource on the table, and leave not rock unturned.”