Passing the Housing For All Act Will Help End Homelessness in LA Faster

In an effort to continue to support legislation that helps our unhoused neighbors, LAHSA’s Commission recently expressed their support for The Housing for All Act. LAHSA has two letters that support this bill, one for the Senate version, S.3788, introduced by Senator Alex Padilla, and another for the House version, H.R.6989, that was introduced by Representative Ted Lieu. The Housing for All Act would invest nearly $532 billion over ten years, to provide historic and robust funding to promote access to resources, homeless services, and more affordable housing opportunities. This funding represents a crucial opportunity to make a positive impact on the LA area’s efforts to reduce homelessness and improve the affordable housing crisis.

Here’s a breakdown of how the funding from Housing for All Act money would be spent:

• $90 billion into housing programs such as the national Housing Trust Fund, the HOME Investment Partnership Program, and the Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program. These programs help our most vulnerable populations such as older adults, low-income renters, and homeowners by increasing investments to produce more affordable housing and preserving existing affordable housing.
• $20 billion into the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program to increase supportive services and rehousing efforts for adults, youth and families experiencing homelessness.
• Housing for All would establish a homelessness and housing Racial Equity Commission to make sure different racial groups are properly represented and equitably served.
• The bill would also expand the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program by adding 5.5 million new vouchers over four years, specifically targeting households experiencing homelessness, housing hardships, or evictions. It would also significantly reduce the wait time for vouchers for families who are eligible to receive an HCV.

How This Funding Would Help LA
The Los Angeles metropolitan area only has one-fifth of the amount of affordable housing it needs, causing more and more people to fall into homelessness each day and limiting the number of homes LAHSA can use to end homelessness. In 2019, the LA rehousing system placed over 22,000 people into permanent housing, however with inflow into the system rising, the number of people experiencing homelessness was over 66,000 individuals on any given night in early 2020. This growing number shows just how critically we need additional funding.

By providing additional funding for affordable and permanent housing, these bills would aid LAHSA’s efforts to accelerate people’s movement from interim to permanent housing. By placing more of our sheltered neighbors into permanent housing, more shelter beds will become available for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. By bringing more of our unsheltered neighbors inside, we will reduce the number of people living on our streets.

The Housing for All Act would allow our communities to make investments that would create real and impactful changes to homelessness and affordable housing across our nation. Please call your local representatives in Congress and tell them that you support H.R. 6989 and S.3788.

Find your member of Congress here