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The death of her son alone would have been enough tragedy for a lifetime. Emily lost her boy to a bus accident on Christmas in 2001, which devastated her. Financial ruin almost followed, but Emily worked hard to keep her head above water, even as she grieved. She sought solace in her family and moved in with her older son, which allowed her to find her footing temporarily.

“I fought homelessness for years,” says Emily. “And it was like a slow divorce…I could see I was failing and I didn’t know what to do.”

In the midst of her sorrow, she could at least count on good finances—she worked as a notary public and started a business besides. Her business did so well that, after three years, she moved out of her son’s apartment and into her own, just as her son was getting married.

But Emily hadn’t even finished mourning before she weathered another blow: the financial crisis of 2008. Her business took a hit, and after years of instability, she lost her home.

Emily had endured more loss than she could bear alone. In her 50s, homeless for the first time, and severely traumatized, Emily once stood on a highway overpass and contemplated ending her life. Instead, she checked into a mental hospital, which recommended the services of LA Supportive Housing.

In supportive housing, Emily received mental health services to cope with her hardships. She had a bed, wholesome meals, and access to a health clinic in case she got sick. Perhaps most importantly, she had hope.

“Whatever it is you have to do, I said to myself, whatever it is, you’re gonna get better,” she says.

The housing facility empowered Emily to become more independent, and today, she’s able to hold down a job. She’s even giving back: Emily teaches a class at the Center for Supportive Housing to help others improve their public speaking skills, and she’s also spoken to national legislators, pushing for better support for unhoused people.

“Don’t think it can’t happen to you,” she tells people. “It happens overnight. The question is, if it does happen to you, what would you like your homelessness to look like? Do you want it to be on a street corner, or a place for you to live and heal?”

Last year, voters from every demographic and every zip code in Los Angeles County came together to pass the largest effort to end homelessness in our nation’s history.

$1 billion in bonds to fund supportive housing development and services ranging from job training to mental health treatment. We have never shown more unity than we did that day.

But it’s hard to look at our streets today, teeming with tents and heartache, and think “we did it!”

Homelessness is one of the most complex, vexing challenges in our community. It touches every neighborhood and has come to define tens of thousands of lives. We were never going to solve it by just passing a ballot measure.

Over many decades working with our colleagues in government, community leaders, other nonprofits and service providers, and people who have themselves experienced homelessness, we have worked to develop strategies that are demonstrably effective. They work. Supportive housing, for example, is 90 percent successful at reversing chronic homelessness.

With your help, we have the resources to implement these solutions on a scale that has never before been attempted. We can build a Los Angeles where homelessness is temporary and rare.

But none of this is possible without you.

And not just you, but your neighbors, your friends, and the rest of the 1.5 million people in 88 cities who voted for these measures. If we can’t hold that historic groundswell of support in place, we will fail each other and the homeless individuals we serve.

Today, the United Way of Greater LA is launching Everyone In, a historic campaign to keep L.A. united and hold our city accountable to the promises that we made to ourselves last year.

Will you help us keep an eye on the politicians who won’t act? Will you show up at community meetings to say, “yes, I’m happy to have a supportive housing building in my backyard!” Will you make calls and knock on doors and speak up when someone claims it’s too hard or all homeless people are drug addicts or crazy or just don’t want to work?

Ending homelessness in L.A. is going to take all of us and a realistic amount of time to do it.

But when we’re done, it won’t be a temporary fix. We will not shunt people into places where we don’t see them because we couldn’t help them. This is more than possible—and we are already making it happen. Each and every day.

Homelessness is the greatest moral challenge we face in this city and we have the power to end it. But it’s going to take real commitment.

Everyone in.

In November 2016, voters in Los Angeles gave our elected officials a clear mandate and deadline for addressing homelessness in our city: Build 10,000 units of supportive housing within 10 years. Since then, the ball has been in City Council’s court and Angelenos have been waiting for a clear plan of action. We know that in order to make good on our commitment to helping our homeless neighbors, we need our elected officials to act with urgency and with an eye towards long-term solutions. Supportive housing is 90% effective at reversing homelessness, which is why we collectively chose to put $1.2B behind it through funding from Proposition HHH. Now we need our elected leaders to start approving new sites and units in their districts.

On February 21, City Council President Herb Wesson took a significant first step forward and launched a new initiative to approve 3,330 new units of supportive housing within three years. He has committed to authorizing the construction of at least 222 units of supportive housing in his own district and is calling on his colleagues in City Council to do the same before July 1, 2020. “With each councilmember’s pledge, Los Angeles is sending a message: actions speak louder than words in the fight against homelessness,” said Council President Wesson as he announced the 222 initiative. “Homelessness is not an issue we will solve overnight, but it is one we will continue working on around-the-clock.” Now, the rest of City Council has the opportunity to follow Wesson’s lead and ensure that every district is doing its part to address homelessness by building the supportive housing we so desperately need.

So far, councilmembers Nury Martinez, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Jose Huizar, Mike Bonin, Paul Krekorian, and David Ryu have joined Council President Wesson and pledged to approve at least 222 units of supportive housing in their districts. They’ve also taken the opportunity to speak up on the importance of operating with both urgency and consistency, across the entire city. “We did the glitzy part, but now we have to get the work done, brick by brick, block by block,” said councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

The 222 pledge gives us hope that we can start counting on our elected officials to have a little courage and work together and do what it takes to meet the deadline of 10,000 new units of supportive housing in 10 years.

“We see too much fearfulness by elected officials and neighborhood leaders and others that if you provide services to the homeless, if you build housing for the homeless, somehow that’s going to create additional problems for the neighborhood,” said councilmember Paul Krekorian. “I’m here to say, this is the solution to problems in the neighborhood.”

Has your City Council representative taken the 222 pledge yet? Check our scorecard and find out. If they have, thank them. If they haven’t, ask what they’re waiting for.