Mayor Karen Bass is scheduled to meet with three cabinet secretaries and White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients in Washington Monday as the leader of a delegation of mayors seeking assistance from the federal government to reduce homelessness.
The group of 48 mayors, including Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock, is set to meet with Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and acting U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Adrianne Todman Monday.
The group is also set to meet with Zients and other key White House officials Monday including Tom Perez, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, Neera Tanden, Biden’s top domestic policy adviser, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young.
Bass is leading the delegation in her role as chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Homelessness.
The delegation will lobby to expand veteran eligibility for housing vouchers, lift the cap on project-based vouchers to allow cities to build more affordable housing and urge federal leaders to increase funding for housing choice vouchers, a spokesman told City News Service.
“We have found that there is policy, old, outdated policy that actually contributes to veterans, people who fought on behalf of our country to be on the street,” Bass said Sunday on the CNN political interview show “State of the Union.”
“For example, a veteran in many cases has to choose between their veteran benefits or housing, because if they take all their benefits, then their income is so high that they don’t qualify for housing. And that is just unacceptable.
“Housing is there, but they can’t access it so we’re calling on our federal partners to close that loophole, so that veterans can get their benefits and be housed.”
The mayors will appear at a news conference Tuesday and meet with Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, Patty Murray, D-Washington; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Tina Smith, D-Minnesota; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island; and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon; and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York; House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana; and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles; Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands; Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts; Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma; and Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut.
Bass is set to return to Los Angeles Friday.