LA settles long-running lawsuit over homeless encampments
Los Angeles city officials and homeless advocates Friday reached a settlement in a long-running lawsuit over how to handle the city's ongoing homeless crisis.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city leaders held a news conference to announce that the city will spend up to $3 billion over the next five years to develop as many as 16,000 beds or housing units for the homeless, enough to accommodate 60% of the homeless population in each of L.A.'s 15 city council districts.
The L.A. Alliance for Human Rights - a coalition of Skid Row-area business owners, formerly homeless and disabled city dwellers - first filed its lawsuit in March of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, accusing the city and county of L.A. of not doing enough to address the homeless problem downtown, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Today, we're gonna stay angry about too many Angelenos being on the streets," Garcetti said. "This fire that is raging across L.A. It is time to extinguish it once and for all. These blazes burn on every block, on every neighborhood in L.A."
As usual, the highly divisive topic was met with mixed reaction from both sides, even from the unhoused community.
"I've been dealing with this for five years and I'm still not placed," said Nicole Adriano, a local woman who lives in her car. "I'd be happy with anywhere. ... Just a roof over my head that I can come home to everyday and call it home."
On the other hand, Mike Mercier, who has been unhoused for 20 years had a short but sweet answer when asked if he would take an apartment should someone offer it: "Nope."
The settlement, however, does not include L.A. County, which is also a defendant in the suit, but city officials said the county will be responsible for providing services and housing for homeless individuals with serious mental illness, substance-use issues or chronic physical illnesses. City leaders said the county must provide services for that segment of the homeless population, since it has the medical and social-work facilities to do so, while the city does not.
The actual number of housing units and beds the city will be required to build under the settlement remains uncertain, pending the results of the recently conducted "point-in-time" countywide homeless count. According to the most recent homeless count, conducted prior to the pandemic in 2020, L.A. County's homeless population was 66,433, a nearly 13.% increase from the previous year.
Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, the director of L.A. Family Housing, said that they're working on building more homes than they ever have before, but even at that rate they still aren't able to keep up with the increase in demand.
"We know that housing and homes end homelessness," she said. "We do not have enough homes, and despite measure H and triple H (Tracking HHH) funds flowing, and all the production, both in services and housing going on right now - it still isn't enough."
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors issued a statement Friday applauding news of the settlement between the Alliance and the city, and saying it remains "steadfast in our focus on addressing homelessness as a regional crisis affecting people and communities in all of our 88 cities as well as in the unincorporated areas. "
L.A. County officials say that since the passage of Measure H in 2017, the county has provided housing for 75,000 people experiencing homelessness, and shelter capacity has increased by 60% over the past three years.
In February, U.S. District Judge David Carter ordered a series of mandatory settlement talks to begin after city and county representatives indicated they had no sense of when or if they might strike a deal that would lead to a shared agreement with the L.A. Alliance, homeless individuals and property owners which filed the suit.
Settlement talks eventually expanded from the original lawsuit focus of downtown's Skid Row area to the thousands of transients living under or next to the region's freeways, then ultimately to the county's entire homeless population.