Photo by Gabriella Bock
By GABRIELLA BOCK | Reporter
It’s been nearly a year since the Los Angeles electorate overwhelmingly voted to increase its own property taxes to fund Measure HHH, and the city must now begin to implement its ambitious initiative to ease LA’s burgeoning homeless epidemic.
Poised to bring in $1.2 billion over the next 10 years, the measure is set to drive the city’s strategy to construct an annual total of 1,000 units of permanent supportive housing—an increase from the current annual supply of 300 units—to a reality.
On Tuesday, Oct. 24, District 11 Councilmember Mike Bonin made a special appearance at the most recent meeting of the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club to share the latest updates on the city’s formidable fight to provide affordable housing for its most vulnerable citizens.
First out of the gate for city approval is a Thomas Safran & Associates project that would turn a former animal shelter at the corner of Missouri Avenue and Bundy Drive in Santa Monica into a mixed-use housing development.
The six-story housing complex would hold 81 units, and offer residents 50 parking spaces and a community garden.
Approved 10-1 by the West Los Angeles/Sawtelle Neighborhood Council, the proposed development would take over two-and-a-half years to construct, but for the city’s downtrodden and struggling families, a near three years is a long time to wait for a chance at receiving adequate housing.
In order to mitigate such immediate needs, the Department of City Planning has drafted an Interim Motel Conversion Ordinance that would quicken the approval process to allow existing motels and hotels to be retrofitted and used for supportive and interim housing for the homeless.
“Implementation is the hardest part of any policy,” Bonin reported to Democrats attending last Tuesday’s meeting at the Palisades Branch Library. “The cavalry is coming, but what’s more challenging is figuring out how we change the entire culture of our social service system.”
A plan for such changes will need to come soon, however, as the Measure H quarter-cent sales tax increase went into effect last month.
In March, LA County voters approved the tax hike as a way to raise as much as $355 million every year to pay for homeless services over a 10-year period.
The approved measure aims to help 45,000 Angeleno families and individuals move from homelessness to permanent housing in the first five years—and prevent another 30,000 more from becoming homeless in the first place.
Proposals from the councilmember’s office include transforming the appeal of existing homeless shelters so that they offer 24/7 access and allow pets and mixed gender families to stay with one another.
“We won’t ever see improvement if we are not changing the way we do shelters in Los Angeles,” Bonin explained. “As we implement, please don’t let us narrow the conversation to the longest term solution.
“We need to implement more immediate strategies or else the problems on our streets are only going to proliferate.”
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
