County Task Force to Debate Plan on Homeless Services

Los Angeles County would sharply refashion homeless services over the next decade, adding 7,000 emergency shelter beds, 40,000 units of affordable housing and setting up a regionwide housing trust fund under a plan scheduled to be debated by area civic leaders today.

The 10-year strategic plan to end homelessness is the result of a yearlong effort by a task force called Bring LA Home, whose members include Mayor James K. Hahn, Sheriff Lee Baca, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other government, religious, philanthropic and business leaders. Members of the task force will decide today whether to adopt the guidelines and pursue funding for the proposals.

The preliminary plan would institute a comprehensive approach to preventing homelessness, as well as addressing the immediate needs of the estimated 80,000 men, women and children who are homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County.

The proposal -- a framework that will contain more details in coming weeks -- would refocus some efforts to assist the homeless on preserving existing low-income housing and providing incentives for communities to build more such units.

Also some services now concentrated in the urban core of Los Angeles would be dispersed to outlying communities where there is a need, including South-Central Los Angeles and the Antelope and San Gabriel valleys.

Although Los Angeles has the greatest number of homeless, the other 87 cities in Los Angeles County should provide a greater share of resources to combat homelessness and should be willing to locate services in their communities, said L.A. City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, a task force member.

“I believe strongly that it has to be a regional approach, and that we do have to call to task those other levels of government -- it’s not just a local problem,” Greuel said.

Key questions about the cost of such an ambitious plan and the timetable for implementation remain unanswered. Its drafters insist that the plan is realistic and not destined to gather dust on some bureaucrat’s shelf.

“There have been various attempts over the last decade or more to deal with this issue, and I think there is frustration that those prior efforts didn’t resolve anything,” said Mitchell Netburn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint city and county agency that is helping to coordinate the plan. “But I think people are excited to come together in a large group that crosses political, jurisdictional boundaries from all sectors of society to support this effort,” Netburn said.

The plan would reorient homeless services toward a “housing first” approach, by moving individuals into homes as quickly as possible and providing transitional services after they are housed.

But Carol Schatz, president of the business-supported Central City Assn. and a task force member, said that approach is unrealistic.

“The plan said there’s a need for more beds, but there is also a need to have some very specific answers to how to address the hard-core street population” and prosecute lawbreakers among the homeless population, Schatz said.

She said she planned to present for consideration an alternate plan developed by the business community.