Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, 13th District, and Council President Nury Martinez, 6th District, announced an initiative on Sept. 22 to assess all services provided by the local departments of public health on behalf of the over 41,000 homeless Angelenos in the city of Los Angeles.

Health, mental health and other supportive services are severely lacking, the council members said, and the initiative addresses those concerns while also adding the city of Los Angeles as a larger player in “board and care” retention and development.

The initiative seeks to set homelessness reduction goals and make sure all resources are dedicated to placing everyone experiencing homelessness on a road to wellness and permanent housing.

“The status quo is not working. The city of Los Angeles has witnessed annual double-digit increases in people experiencing homelessness, bringing the population to well over 41,000 individuals,” O’Farrell said. “Too often, the most vulnerable among us exist on the margins because of mental-health issues and easy access to illicit narcotics. My initiative takes a close, purposeful look at all of the programs and services that were designed over the years to address this humanitarian crisis. It’s what Angelenos are rightfully demanding – and it’s what they are paying for.”

Between March and August of this year, more than 84% of all calls to the city’s 311 call center concerned public health, social services or, more directly, homelessness. The county is under a contractual agreement to provide health and mental health services to the city’s homeless residents. 

Los Angeles city and county is home to almost half of the homeless populations in the state of California  In 2016 and 2017, the people of Los Angeles passed measures HHH and H, the largest local funding streams to assist unhoused and unsheltered.

Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1766, mandating that California Department of Social Services collect and send a report listing the closure of adult residential facilities to county governments, and also signed AB 79, compelling Residential care facilities for the elderly to share similar closure data with local governments.