You’ve probably heard by now that homelessness in L.A. County went up 12 percent in 2019. There’s no doubt the news is frustrating.
Despite this news, we are undeterred and we are committed to bringing everyone in. You and the 83,000 others who are part of our movement will make sure that we do.
Last Friday, we hopped on a call with over 1,000 members of the Everyone In community to dig deeper into the results, answer questions, and discuss the action plan going forward.
Listen to a recording of the call below and follow along with the presentation on our Homeless Count page.
We talked about the driving force behind the homelessness crisis, the solutions that are helping, and the actions we can take to get more housing built faster. Here’s the first one: Call L.A. County State Assembly members and ask them to approve AB 1197 to help create more affordable housing across California.
Ben Allen’s office: (916) 651-4026
Henry Stern’s office: (916) 651-4027
For those who can’t listen to the recording above, here are some highlights from the community call:
Everyone In’s Chris Ko spoke about what caused the rise in homelessness in the last year. The answer is simple: Our housing crisis is causing homelessness faster than we have been able to fix it.
Up and down the state, we’ve seen double digit increases due to a lack of affordable housing, stagnant wages, and opposition to affordable housing construction.
Last year, outreach and case workers helped 21,631 people move from homelessness into permanent housing, more than ever before. That’s close to 40 percent of our 2018 homeless population. If no one had lost their home last year, our existing homeless population would have been cut in half.
That’s an extraordinary achievement. As L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas said on the call, “The answer is to double down. No retreat, only moving forward. This crisis is dynamic. The data is clear. We can and should do more.”
After talking through more of the results, we discussed the most important question. What now?
Now we fight harder. Because we can’t let our leaders off the hook and we can’t let our neighbors lose hope. Buried in the bad news there is proof, once again, that homes end homelessness.
This is a statewide crisis, though, that requires an urgent statewide response.
Call your state senators today and tell them you support AB 1197.
