Los Angeles County Homeless Centers Approved
Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-1 to approve a $100-million plan to build five regional stabilization centers throughout the county for homeless people, including those being discharged from hospitals and jails, the Los Angeles Times reports (Di Massa, Los Angeles Times, 4/5).
Los Angeles County officials said the centers could alleviate the problem of "dumping" by hospital and law enforcement agencies in downtown Los Angeles.
The plan calls for a shelter in each of the county's five districts to serve as a 24-hour drop-off point where hospitals, police and care providers could take homeless people. The centers each would have 30 beds for short-term stays and offer mental health and substance abuse services (California Healthline, 3/24).
The plan will use $80 million from the county's general fund to establish emergency, temporary and permanent housing for the homeless, and nearly $20 million more could be used annually to continue reducing the homeless population.
The county also will use $21.5 million in annual funding from Proposition 63 to pay for housing for mentally ill homeless people. Proposition 63 levies a 1% tax on California residents whose incomes exceed $1 million annually to fund mental health programs (Anderson/Sheppard, Los Angeles Daily News, 4/5).