The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved $609.7 million dollars — the largest ever budget allocation for the county’s Homeless Initiative — on Tuesday.
The money will go to programs to boost mental health and substance abuse services, move unsheltered people living in encampments into housing and increase interim and permanent housing placements.
That means an extra 5,029 beds for temporary housing and 4,630 permanent supportive housing units will be added to help people move out of encampments.
Also, nearly $77 million will fund a series of other programs, including:
“As the epicenter of homelessness in the entire nation, we know that more resources are needed in Skid Row to help overcome the consequences of structural and systemic inequalities,” said Supervisor Hilda L. Solis in a statement.
This comes four weeks after the board declared a local emergency on homelessness, where the county's Homeless Initiative was assigned to take the lead in emergency response efforts.
Most of the funding comes from Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax to fund homeless services approved in 2017. The rest of the money comes from the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program.
This makes an 11% increase from last year’s budget allocation.
