Mayor, City Council Propel Emergency Housing Success: Full Utilization of Vouchers Attained, Securing Additional State Funding for City Initiatives

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass Feb. 26 announced that 3,365 emergency housing vouchers have been used to bring unhoused Angelenos into permanent housing. This comes after Mayor Bass and the Los Angeles City Council made a direct effort to expand the capacity of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles or HACLA by increasing staff and reorienting priorities. The mayor also announced that Los Angeles successfully secured its seventh Homekey Round 3 grant with nearly $7.2 million in new funding for interim housing, bringing a total of 367 new units funded for a total of $105.8 million.

As of Feb. 26, Mayor Bass and city councilmembers are in Sacramento to share the impact of investments thus far in the work to confront the homelessness crisis. Their trip will build on that momentum by working to secure  state funding and flexibility as Los Angeles continues to confront the homelessness crisis, build more housing and advocate for expedited reimbursements to help address past city emergencies like COVID-19 and the storm earlier this month.

“Our priority always has to be to save lives, and when we work together, across all levels of government, we can make real progress. With more than 40,000 unhoused Angelenos on our streets, it was unacceptable that we had voucher holders unable to come inside,” said Mayor Bass. “In January of last year, we worked with HACLA to increase its capacity and I’m glad that we are now at full voucher utilization. We cannot standby and allow business as usual to kill unhoused Angelenos.”

The City of Los Angeles, in partnership with Hope the Mission, was awarded $7,158,774 to repurpose an existing motel into a 22-unit interim housing community to serve youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness last week. Los Angeles has secured seven awards for the Los Angeles Housing Department and HACLA totaling $105.8 million. This funding will deliver a combined 367 interim and permanent housing units for people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. The state also announced funding for the County of Los Angeles outside of the city limits, which will provide an additional 337 units of housing.