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The number of homeless residents dying in Los Angeles County doubled from 2013 to 2018, according to a report released Tuesday by county public health officials.

The number of deaths soared from 536 to 1,047. The death rate, which accounts for increases in the homeless population, also increased in that time period—by more than one-third, the report found.

“Homeless people are in fact dying at a higher rate because they’re homeless,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, referring to a lack of access to health services in the homeless population.

The leading cause of the increasing mortality rate? Drug and alcohol overdoses. Other main causes cited in the report include: Heart disease, transportation-related injuries (primarily among pedestrians and cyclists), and homicides, among others.

The report was presented Tuesday to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which had directed the health department to look into the coroner’s data related to homeless deaths. The results are sobering.

“We’re seeing two or three people every day coming through our office,” Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. Jonathan Lucas told the board.

The report is the first “comprehensive analysis” of deaths among people experiencing homelessness in the county.

“A principal finding is that the overall homeless mortality rate has steadily increased over the past six years,” the report says. “Put simply, being homeless in LA County is becoming increasingly deadly.”

The health department’s analysis found that homeless people died on average 22 years earlier than the general population. The average death age for homeless people was 51, compared to 73 for the general population.

The research also looks at the mortality rate among homeless people by race. From 2016 to 2018, white homeless people had the highest rate of deaths. But those rates decreased over the last two years, while the death rate among black and Latino homeless populations surged.

“This may have something to do with who’s getting placed in housing,” says Ferrer. “Our recommendation is going to be to look at how people are getting placed in housing and make sure those opportunities are open to everyone.”

The report also recommends that supervisors establish a “homeless death review team” to better understand the contributing factors of homeless deaths—and to prevent them in the future.

Supervisor Hilda Solis said Tuesday that the study is a “call for everybody to get engaged.” She specifically called out the business sector because many homeless residents reside on sidewalks in front of businesses.

“It isn’t just the county’s responsibility,” Solis said. “It’s a human responsibility,”

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve up to $24.3 million in funding to repurpose a building on the Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles for housing for veterans.

That represents about 70 percent of the cost for the project, called Building 207, which will create 59 units of permanent supportive housing for homeless and chronically homeless senior veterans. Work is expected to begin in the summer of 2020, and wrap up by the end of 2021.

Reusing this existing building has been framed as the first piece of a much bigger puzzle at the VA property.

Last year a partnership among Century Housing Corporation, U.S. Vets, and Thomas Safran and Associates was selected to redevelop the 400-acre campus along Wilshire Boulevard with housing for veterans.

The rest of the work is expected to roll out in phases. Right now, the developers are still doing community outreach for the next phases.

The Building 207 project has also received $8.2 million from Measure HHH funds, which go toward building permanent supportive housing for the homeless, and $5.75 million from the county, according to West LA Veterans Collective. It has also been designed to hold community space, a library, a gym, case management offices and landscaped outdoor areas.

The plan to retool the campus emerged after the Department of Veteran’s Affairs settled a lawsuit in 2015 brought by a group of disabled veterans who claimed it was misusing the campus. The veterans cited the long-time practice of leasing large segments of the property for commercial use instead of for housing or services for veterans.

A 2016 blueprint for the future of the campus featured housing, veteran-focused services, and open space.

The last remaining Measure HHH money is tapped.

City leaders signed off today on funding commitments totaling up to $358.1 million for 2,998 units of affordable and homeless housing planned across Los Angeles, from the San Fernando Valley to South LA.

“Today’s City Council approval of funding for a new round of Proposition HHH projects is a big step in the right direction—because it means we have quality, lasting supportive housing in the pipeline for every council district. That was the promise we made to voters,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. “I am more determined than ever to get them built as quickly as possible.”

So far, the housing has not built fast enough.

Voters in the city of Los Angeles passed Measure HHH—a $1.2 billion bond to subsidize the development of 10,000 units of affordable and permanent supportive housing—three years ago. Only 1,260 units are under construction. Zero units are open.

That’s according to an audit of HHH spending released last week by the city controller, who blamed a number of factors on the slow build-out, including high construction costs and “a lengthy approval process mired in red tape.”

Meanwhile, the homeless population in the city of Los Angeles has ballooned, spiking 16 percent since last year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

The total number of HHH-funded units in the pipeline now stands at 8,625. Of those, 6,858 are supportive units, meaning they’ll come with on-site services, which can include treatment for substance abuse and mental health and life skills development and job training.

The funding commitments approved include $120 million for winners of the city’s “Housing Innovation Challenge,” a competition that challenged developers to come up with “unique” and “alternative” ways to build affordable housing more cheaply and quickly.

They also include the first Measure HHH project in the 12th council district, where developer Affirmed Housing Group, Inc. has plans for 64 apartments with on-site services for formerly homeless residents on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Chatsworth. That project is estimated to cost $28.6 million, with $8.3 million coming from Measure HHH.

The plans have drawn protests from some residents, citing concerns about impacts on property values and crime, the Los Angeles Daily News has reported. In a letter to the City Council, opponents said the project would be too big and too close to Chatsworth Park Elementary School.

But the project has supporters too.

Marsha Novak, of the San Fernando Valley-based Interfaith Solidarity Network, told the City Council that opposition to the project is “full of prejudice and myths.” It would be an “embarrassment,” she said, for the 12th district to be the only council district without an HHH project.

In a letter to the council, Chatsworth resident Pilar Schiavo said it’s time that the 12th district “step up to be part of the solution to the [homeless] crisis and also get the tax dollars we approved to create resources for our community.”

The largest projects in this third and final round of HHH funding are planned in the eighth and 11th districts, with 98 units each. In Hyde Park, a mixed-use supportive housing complex for homeless residents would be made out of modular shipping containers. In Venice, apartments for homeless residents would rise on a former city maintenance yard.

The council, however, decided to delay consideration for $15.3 million in HHH funding for two projects in the eighth district, because City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson has said he needs more time to solicit community input on those developments.

The developers of all of the Measure HHH-funded projects are piecing together financing from multiple sources, as the bond dollars are not enough to pay for entire projects.

When the City Council’s homelessness and poverty committee reviewed the full spending plan last month, city officials said it would drain the last remaining Measure HHH money.

On Tuesday, the committee’s chair told the council that he was optimistic that the city would find new funding sources to help developers erect affordable housing and house people “more quickly and more cheaply.”

“I think we’re going to see a lot of successful examples moving forward beyond HHH,” Committee Chair and Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell said.

A new bridge housing facility that will provide wraparound services to 40 young women and their children opened today in a century-old pink mansion in Hollywood.

Known today as the Wallis House, the Italianate-style former residence facing Hollywood Boulevard will be managed by Aviva Family and Children’s Services, which has provided services and housing for foster youth in the neighborhood for over 100 years.

In its new role, Wallis House will serve women between the ages of 18 and 24, including mothers with young children, who are transitioning out of homelessness. Fifteen families moved in today, with a goal of serving up to 40 families at the 42-bed facility.

“Young single mothers face high barriers to making ends meet, and are at a far greater risk of harm when living on the street,” Councilmember David Ryu said in a statement. “We need housing and services that meet their specific needs.”

Aviva has housed foster girls at Wallis House for 63 years. Earlier this year, the property was redesigned using $2.36 million of Homeless Emergency Assistance Program (HEAP) funds to create facilities for families, including a gym and play area, as well as a boutique and salon where residents can take classes in cosmetology and sewing.

Unlike some of the other Bridge Home projects which are located in temporary structures, Wallis House is being called a “permanent” bridge housing facility, meaning that residents will live there for a maximum of two years before being moved into permanent housing.

According to Aviva, the Hollywood area is home to the greatest number of homeless residents aged 18 to 24 in the county, many of them former foster youth who have aged out of the system.

The facility is a few blocks north of the Gardner Street Women’s Bridge Housing Center, which opened last month in a midcentury building that was formerly used as a library.

• By Jenna Chandler  Curbed published on September 25, 2019 3:20 pm City Attorney Mike Feuer says the Martin v. Boise decision was too ambiguous.
  Tents line the street in Skid Row.

  Roby ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

  The city of Los Angeles is joining the fight against a ruling that lets homeless residents sleep on sidewalks when there aren’t enough shelters.

  City Attorney Mike Feuer announced today that he filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take on Martin v. Boise, saying his office needs more clarity on its ability to enforce sidewalk bans.

  In the brief, Feuer says the city agrees that “no individual should be susceptible to punishment for sleeping on the sidewalk at night, if no alternative shelter is available.” But, he argues, the Boise decision—which covers nine states in the west, including California— raises more questions than it answers.

  “The city requires clear and practical guidelines on the proper scope of its authority to strike the best possible balance in our shared public spaces,” Feuer writes. “Boise does not give that requisite guidance.”

  The brief was filed one day after the Los Angeles City Council debated how it would handle the Boise decision. In the case, a majority of judges in the Ninth Circuit Court found that “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.”

  The judges, however, also noted that “even where shelter is unavailable, an ordinance prohibiting sitting, lying, or sleeping outside at particular times or in particular locations might well be constitutionally permissible.”

  Boise is appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

  The city attorney’s office has drafted rules that it says would bring Los Angeles into compliance with the Ninth Circuit Court decision. The rules would make it illegal to sit, sleep, and lie near parks, bridges, schools and routes to schools, existing shelters, on bike and recreational paths, and in “crowded sidewalk areas” and major venues.

  On Tuesday, multiple councilmembers said they support some of the city attorney’s proposed restrictions but seemed to agree that the rules, as drafted, go too far.

  Similar to Boise, the city of Los Angeles has a blanket ban against sleeping in public spaces. But the ordinance, known as 41.18, has not been enforced at night for 12 years under a settlement with the ACLU.

  In the amicus brief, the city attorney says there are three questions left unresolved in the Boise decision. One of those questions is: How many beds, exactly, must the city build before it can take “enforcement action.”

  On Tuesday, Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo said the more important question in the sidewalk ban debate is not what’s legal, but what is “just.”

  Los Angeles County plans to submit an amicus brief too. Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn have said that if the Supreme Court does not overturn the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision, it could, in the future, render the county “powerless to address camping in public places by anyone until it provides shelter for everyone.”

  “Now, more than ever, it’s critical we have access to every tool at our disposal to combat homelessness,” Barger said last week.

  Read original post on Curbed here