Los Angeles panel to propose homelessness ’emergency’

Los Angeles officials said Tuesday that they will declare a state of emergency over homelessness, and proposed spending $100 million to reduce the number of people living on the streets.

City Council President Herb Wesson, members of the council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee and Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the plan outside City Hall — as homeless people dozed nearby on a lawn.

Garcetti, who has promised to release a “battle plan” on homelessness, said he wants the city to spend $100 million per year on services, according to a letter he sent Monday to City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana. The city of Los Angeles hopes this huge amount of taxpayer’s money will actually do some good.

Garcetti past year pledged to end the problem of homelessness among veterans by the end of 2015.

The city of Los Angeles already spends about $100 million a year, largely on police enforcement, in dealing with homeless issues, but relies on Los Angeles County to help facilitate housing and services for the homeless. Wesson didn’t specify where the money would come from, but he said budget analysts would find it “somehow, someway”.

“A hundred million dollars won’t even buy all the homeless pillows”, she said, contrasting LA’s proposal with New York City’s $41 billion affordable housing plan unveiled past year .

Councilman Gilbert Cedillo told the LA Times that the problem of homeless people must be fixed in order for the city to be “great”, host the Olympics and otherwise show “itself off to the world”. “And that – we really haven’t invested in”.

Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson said that, no matter how “irritating” it can be, they need homeless activists to put pressure on them.

Wesson today addressed those concerns, saying that “as a moral society, we have an obligation to provide shelter for the shelterless”.

“This city has pushed this problem from neighborhood to neighborhood for too long, from bureaucracy to bureaucracy”, Garcetti said during a news conference.

More than 25,000 people are homeless within the city of Los Angeles, according to the latest 2015 count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.