LA City Council Members Devote Funds For Homeless Relief Efforts
MOOR graphic by SAMMIE CHEN
KYLE ANG
SHELLEY LIN
Staff Writers
According to the Los Angeles Almanac, 254,000 people, including young children, have experienced living on the streets of LA County and approximiately 82,000 people are homeless on many nights. On Sept. 22, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and seven City Council members decided to donate $100 million to shelters to improve their living conditions, with an additional funding of $13 million in the upcoming months to support welfare houses as well.
“These are our fellow Angelenos. [They] have no other place to go and they’re literally here where we work, a symbol of our city’s intense crisis,” Mayor Garcetti said, according to LA Times.
Gil Cedilla, chairman of LA’s housing committee, declares that some of the profit will be utilized to install streetlights, hire guards, and open church parking lots for individuals living in cars. John Maceri, executive director of social services group Ocean Park Community Center, also encouraged support services for both mental health and substance abuse care. According to the LA Times, Maceri believes that the problem is not just housing the homeless, but keeping them housed.
“[Homelessness] cannot be solved just by giving spare change, but by creating an environment that leaves nobody behind. I’m glad that we’re putting money into institutions and I hope that we do fund services for mental and substance care [in order to] better the well-being of the homeless and increase our city’s productivity,” junior Jessica Yee said.
The council members of Los Angeles are asserting a more aggressive approach to the growing number of the homeless. Though homelessness in Los Angeles is an increasingly challenging problem, Jay Handal, chairman of the West L.A. Neighborhood Council, believes that the funds will be a step toward improvement.
“It’s going to take a whole lot more than $100 million, spent wisely, to fix the problem we’ve created for 40 years. But this is a good start,” Handal said, according to the LA Times.