Help Homeless Community - Stop Anti-Homeless Ordinance

We, the undersigned, oppose efforts to criminalize the homeless population in the City of Los Angeles, and call upon the Los Angeles City Council and elected officials at all levels of government to focus on Housing First strategies as opposed to costly enforcement mechanisms, ticketing and /or jailing the unhoused community. Evidence has shown housing to be the only effective solution to solving our homeless crisis.

BACKGROUND:

Over 500,000 people are currently homeless in the United States, with over 40,000 residing in the City of Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles is home to 40,000 people who are unhoused, but has interim housing and shelter space for less than 20,000 and therefore cannot accommodate less than half of its homeless population with any means of coming in off the streets.

Criminalizing people simply for being homeless and enacting laws against sitting, lying or sleeping in public spaces or engaging in activities that are part of the human condition is cruel and ineffective in solving the homelessness crisis.

Creating laws making it illegal to sit, lie or sleep in public spaces leads to ticketing, mandatory court appearances and warrants that may result in a criminal record which creates a barrier for the unhoused community to obtain housing.

Criminalizing the unhoused population is ineffective and does nothing to solve homelessness but comes at a huge financial cost for enforcement which leaves fewer resources for housing.

Despite previous high costs of enforcement which led to an increase in homelessness, the City of Los Angeles is, once again, attempting to prevent siting, lying or sleeping in most public spaces in Los Angeles.

Tickets for sitting, lying or sleeping on the sidewalk could carry fines from $250 to $1,000 per day. To put this in context, General Relief (a program for the unhoused community) only provides $221 / month to the unhoused community in Los Angeles.