County Asked to Increase Homeless Aid

A group of Los Angeles officials including Mayor James K. Hahn criticized the county government on Monday for not matching the city’s spending on programs to address a “crisis” of homelessness.

Hahn was joined at a downtown homeless shelter by Police Chief William J. Bratton and City Council members Eric Garcetti, Jan Perry and Wendy Greuel, all of whom asked that county officials fulfill what Hahn said was a county pledge a decade ago to match what the city spends each year on homeless programs.

“Our goal is to help to alleviate the homeless crisis in the city, but we can’t do it alone,” Hahn said at the First Step Emergency Shelter. “We are asking the county of Los Angeles to be a stronger partner in this effort.”

The city is allocating $13.7 million this year to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, compared with $6.5 million provided by the county government, said Mitchell Netburn, executive director of the agency.

The authority was formed by the city and county in 1993 after a lawsuit in which the city alleged the county was not doing enough to serve the poor.

“We thought it was going to be an equal partnership, and we expect the county to live up to that bargain,” Hahn said.

Hahn said that, in addition to the commitment to the homeless services agency, the 1993 agreement also included a promise by the county to increase general relief for the poor so they could afford housing.

“Today, both of those commitments by the county have fallen short,” Hahn said.

“They have had to renege -- they said because of budget problems -- on their commitment to keep general relief at a level to allow people to afford a cheap hotel room. So that promise is gone.”

City officials are under pressure themselves, in part because the American Civil Liberties Union has sued to stop sweeps of homeless encampments, saying the city has failed to provide enough shelter beds for the estimated 84,000 homeless people in Los Angeles.

Hahn and other city officials criticized the county during a news conference to highlight the city’s decision to extend the Winter Shelter program for one month at a cost of $497,000. The program includes nine shelters with 860 beds.

“I think the city has proved itself today, and we want the county to do the same thing,” Garcetti said.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said city officials’ criticism is unfair because the county does what it can with less help from the federal government.

She said that the county initially put up the same amount as the city when the Homeless Services Authority was created, but that the city has been able to afford to increase its funding of the agency at a greater rate than the county.

“The city gets tremendously much more in federal block grant funds than we do,” Burke said.

“We are contributing, proportionately, what we get.”

Burke added that the county is supposed to spend much of its budget in unincorporated areas of the county, but has disproportionately put money into downtown Los Angeles.

However, Hahn said that the chief responsibility for dealing with the poor rests with the county, and that the city is doing more than required.

Perry alleged that other cities in the county transport homeless people to downtown Los Angeles, worsening the problem. When asked, she could not identify which cities were sending the homeless to Los Angeles.

Burke said the board will consider a recent study on ways the county can increase funding for programs to assist the homeless. That study suggested the county use money dedicated to art programs for homeless assistance.

“It would be great to have a seamless web between the county, between the city, between the state,” Bratton said. “Unfortunately, there are too many holes in that web right now. A lot of people are falling through.”