LA Awarded $1.7 Million From State To House People Living In Encampments

The city of Los Angeles was awarded $1.7 million from the state to rehouse 65 people living in encampments, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.

The funding is part of a total of $50 million awarded to 19 communities in California to give shelter or housing to 1,401 people experiencing homelessness.

“Tackling the homelessness crisis is a matter of life and death,” Newsom said. “California is taking on the unacceptable status quo with a historic response to house thousands of our most vulnerable community members at an unprecedented rate, and swiftly addressing the encampments that pose the greatest threat to health and safety.”

The grants are part of a goal declared by Newsom in September to remove 100 encampments. His office said that since then, the state has removed 431 encampments and offered housing and services to the former residents, and the state expects to clear 1,000 encampments by the end of the year. 

The current fiscal year includes a historic $12 billion allocated to address the statewide homelessness crisis. The Encampment Resolution Grant Program provides grants to local jurisdictions to fund their own projects that rehouse people living in encampments.

The grant program also allocated $3.6 million to Orange County to rehouse 60 people and $1.3 million to Long Beach to rehouse 40 people, according to the Governor's office.

“With this important grant from the State of California, Long Beach will be able to rehouse 40 of our residents experiencing homelessness -- with the dignity, compassion and urgency that this work requires,'' said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. ``I am thankful for Governor Newsom's leadership on the state's comprehensive response to the homelessness crisis.''

The $50 million was also distributed between Richmond, Fresno, Oakland, San Jose, Redwood City, Petaluma, Tulare, Salinas, Eureka, Berkeley, Vista and San Rafael, along with the counties of Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and Marin.

“The 19 communities selected to receive this funding are committed to human-centered, scalable and replicable projects, and represent urban, rural and suburban communities across California,'' said Lourdes Castro Ramírez, secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency and co-chair of the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. ``We look forward to supporting these community-led efforts that connect housing, services and human supports, and to scale successful strategies and approaches with future funding as proposed in the Governor's (California) Blueprint budget.”