- [Mark] Hi everybody.
Today I'm joined by city of Los Angeles
Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson.
I gotta tell you I watched the Oprah story last night.
(Marqueece laughs)
And I was totally blown away.
I was very much impressed. - Wow, that's very kind.
That's very nice. - I think it's really great
that you comment that your background
wasn't in politics.
But today we're gonna talk about homelessness in Los Angeles
ending homelessness in Los Angeles.
Which, as somebody who once lived homeless in Los Angeles,
I am proof it can be done.
- Um hmm um hmm, well the city of Los Angeles
for a long time has never dealt
with homelessness in a strategic fashion.
We've reacted to this, reacted to that,
sort of get this encampment out of here
and deal with these people over there
and it's sort of been spot.
Other than that, we get sued,
and then the city has to respond
to the lawsuit and so that's another reaction.
So we've never really had a strategy.
Now, thanks to the homelessness and poverty committee
on the city council, city of LA, the county of Los Angeles
actually each have strategies to deal with homelessness.
They agree with each other and to plan
to end homelessness not just manage it.
- I have to say, cause I used to actually work
in homeless services here as a case manager.
And some of the things that
I was frustrated about
with exactly what you're talking about,
the lack of coordination.
I was in a meeting last week
put on by the Hilton Foundation where all
the stakeholders were there.
And I was blown away because all those issues I had
people were at the table working together,
solving those issues, making things user friendly,
working on peer support, working on oh my gosh.
- So it's a good time I think the crisis proportion
of homelessness has gotten everybody
to the table in a way that they might not
have been before.
Also, the problem with Los Angeles a lot of times
is it feels like far flung suburbs or small cities.
Homelessness is a problem that connects
almost every mile of this city,
and so when something like that happens,
it's an opportunity to get everybody together
and work smart and really leverage
the benefits of being such a large city
like Los Angeles is.
- Can you tell me a little bit about Prop HHH?
Why people should vote for it?
- HHH is the bee's knees.
It is the best thing going, look.
HHH is a down payment on a solution to homelessness.
It allows us to put a big dent
in a way that everybody will feel.
So if you're a homeowner and you
got homeless people living on the corner.
Living at the freeway underpass near your house,
or in a vacant lot near your house,
HHH will actually deal with that.
In a substantive way in terms
of making so that those people aren't there.
It'll create 10 thousand units
of permanent supportive housing.
That's housing where homeless people
are taken off the street.
Services that they need are in the facility
that we move them into.
So that if it's possible for them
to get to self-sufficiency they can do that.
If they need long term health care,
mental health care is a big category.
They can get that as well.
HHH does that, it's a small ask of the voters.
An average of about $30 a year.
For the average homeowner in the city of Los Angeles,
that is a fraction, that's like a trip to Starbucks
every couple months.
- Right
- That we're, that is being asked.
But voters should know,
we spend 857 million dollars a year
on homeless people now.
If HHH passes we think we can cut that
in half maybe even more.
- Right, it takes a while but this is
from my understanding, and somebody that lived
in city of Los Angeles for over 30 years.
And works in homeless services.
It's a huge step in the right direction.
And one of the
feedback that I get was, well it's gonna
take some time.
- It will.
- It takes ... you're building apartments.
You're building housing.
It doesn't happen overnight.
And the alternative
of doing nothing, - Right.
- just makes no sense to me.
- Well and I wanted to sub use people
to cause sure the apartment structures
that we start today, will take about four years
to get to the point where somebody can turn
the key and be in the apartments.
But two things people should remember.
One they're projects already in the pipeline.
Right now the way the funding structure
is set up, there's only in resources
to produce about 300 units a year.
Immediately, there are units in the pipeline now
that they get funding and they go.
So they'll be done 18 months, two years at the most.
Then you can also do rehabs on these.
So we have a motel for example right here in
the neighborhood that we're in now that can be converted.
The conversion takes 90 days.
It doesn't take very long.
As building something from the ground up.
So it's not quite true
that it's gonna take four years.
It'll take fours before we get to
the rapid speed that we need.
But we will get new units on right away
and almost to every part of the city.
- According to some of the stakeholders
that I've talked to behind the scenes,
that 10 thousand units will literally
end chronic homelessness in Los Angeles.
- 10 thousand units we think takes care
of the entire population of chronically homeless people.
- Oh my gosh, vote! Vote! - Yes, absolutely.
- Vote!
- Here's the thing, here's the thing.
It's on the last page of a very
very long ballot. - I was just going there!
(Mark laughing)
- So I'm asking people start at the back.
I actually think the things
that's there at the front of the ballot
are much easier and much simpler;
President, Senate, easy.
Go to the back of the ballot,
page 29, we're right there, measure HHH.
Make sure you punch yes for us.
- Yeah. Make sure you punch yes.
Thank you everybody.
- Thank you.
(tranquil music)