LA County Prepares to Intensify and Refocus its Fight Against Homelessness

As Los Angeles County prepares to intensify and refocus its efforts to fight homelessness, the Board of Supervisors approved a $532.6-million spending plan that significantly expands permanent and interim housing solutions and increases funding for local cities in the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

About 87% of the spending plan, $466.75 million, will come from Measure H, a ¼-cent sales tax approved by county voters in 2017 specifically to address and prevent homelessness. The remaining $65.86 million represents state funding.

The spending plan is a significant portion of the county’s overall spending to address homelessness, which exceeded $1 billion in the current 2021-22 fiscal year. The spending plan approved for FY 22-23 includes:

• $227.3 million for permanent housing, which accounts for 42.7% of the total budget. This includes a significant increase in permanent supportive housing services to continue serving about 13,300 individuals and families and begin serving an additional 7,700 individuals and families.

• $163.3 million for interim housing, which accounts for 30.7% of the total budget, to help sustain about 5,000 of the county’s total portfolio of interim housing beds, including 400 new beds for people needing high acuity care, some of which will be on the county’s first site with 24/7 admissions. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2021 Housing Inventory Count, the region’s shelter capacity on any given night is about 25,000 beds.
• $20M to go directly to local jurisdictions to be used for their unique local needs, more than doubling last year’s amount.

The Homeless Initiative, a part of the county’s Chief Executive Office, serves as the central coordinating body for the county’s effort to prevent and address homelessness. It directs strategies and funding for street-based outreach, interim housing, permanent housing, and supportive services for people experiencing homelessness, as well as to prevent people from becoming homeless, including by facilitating affordable housing development. 

As it kicks off the second half of Measure H’s 10-year term, the Homeless Initiative is beginning to implement a new framework for tackling the crisis, as reflected in this spending plan. That new framework calls for:

• Maximizing the capacity of mainstream government systems, such as the health care and social services systems, to serve as the first and largest safety net for people who are vulnerable, especially those with housing insecurity.
• Ensuring that the county’s rehousing system remains a system of last resort, focused primarily, but not exclusively, on helping people who have been persistently underserved, those with the most complex challenges who require ongoing, focused and resource-heavy intervention to help them get off the streets and into housing.
• Forging stronger partnerships with cities, including by pooling resources to develop more permanent housing, and by coordinating with them when encampments are being decommissioned to provide pathways to housing and services.

Acting on Supervisor Hahn’s motion, the Board directed the Homeless Initiative to submit, by January 2023, 1) funding recommendations for FY 2023-24 and an analysis of any impact to programs and services, and, 2) recommendations for mid-year adjustments to FY 2022-23 strategies to align with the Homeless Initiative’s new framework and the proposed FY 2023-24 funding recommendations.