$100 MILLION FOR HOMELESS COUNTY OFFICIALS LAUNCH EFFORT TO BRING THOUSANDS IN FROM THE STREETS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Faced with growing criticism for failing to reduce the nation's largest homeless population, Los Angeles County officials on Thursday unveiled a $100 million plan to aggressively coordinate, add and expand dozens of countywide programs and services.

The 11-point plan calls for a one-time $80 million allocation from the county's general fund to establish a Homeless and Housing Program for emergency, transitional and permanent housing for the county's estimated 82,000 homeless.

The plan also calls for spending $19.7 million a year - $15.6 million from the county general fund - for a database of housing options, a $148,000-a-year coordinator, an access center for homeless families on the outskirts of Skid Row, housing-locator specialists and increased efforts to reduce homelessness and improve hospital and jail discharge policies in L.A. and other county cities.

Aimed at stopping the ``dumping'' of homeless people downtown, the plan would create five county ``stabilization centers'' that would operate 24-7 and act as full-service sites to which homeless inmates and hospital patients can be discharged and where law enforcement officers can deliver homeless people as an alternative to arresting them for minor offenses.

``This is a proposal of historic proportions,'' Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. ``It's a $100 million investment in shelter and housing for the homeless.

``Now the 88 cities in the county need to step up and do their share. The city of Los Angeles is certainly moving in that direction. What the county is proposing here allows us to leverage resources from the state and federal governments. We have some major cities with major homeless problems. If they put a priority on this, we can leverage our $100 million with the city's $50 million.''

County officials said current projections for the budget, flush with an influx of property tax revenues from the real estate boom, make the plan's funding possible. The plan also has broad backing from agencies including the Community Development Commission, the Sheriff's Department and the departments of Children and Family Services, Health Services, Mental Health and Public Social Services.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to vote next month on whether to implement the recommendations, which would come on top of $20 million that supervisors approved last summer to add more year-round shelter beds.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority counted 20,023 homeless people living downtown - mostly on Skid Row - and 16,787 in South Los Angeles, 11,275 in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys and 9,254 in the San Gabriel Valley. The South Bay and Harbor areas had the next-high total at 7,369.

County Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said the plan released Thursday marks the start of a larger, 10-year proposal developed by Bring LA Home, a 50-member committee of homelessness experts.

``The problem is so big that this is just a beginning,'' Janssen said. ``It is not a solution. But it's building the various foundations that are necessary to eventually get to some kind of solution.''

A draft copy of the Bring LA Home report, set to be released next month, estimates it will cost $2.7 billion to $12 billion over the next decade to end the homeless problem in the county.

``A more pragmatic view embraced by Bring LA Home assumes the lower investment in services and housing, including $843 million in services and $1.9 billion in housing,'' according to the report.

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Los Angeles Coalition To End Hunger and Homelessness, said $100 million from county government - combined with the $50 million Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has earmarked for a housing trust fund - would mean a leap ahead.

``I think it's a major, major, significant step forward for our community, starting to be serious about ending homelessness,'' Erlenbusch said. ``What it means is we still have a long way to catch up with New York that spends about $750 million a year, but having said that, it's 50 times what the city and county spent just a few years ago.

``Up until the $100 million was put on the table, the city and county spent $35 million between them in general fund money. We've gone from $2 million just a few years ago to $35 million, and now we're going to ($185) million.''

Elizabeth Kivowitz, a spokeswoman for Villaraigosa's office, said the county plan offers a creative approach to addressing a variety of issues and would bring a high level of coordination of resources across county departments.

``We certainly are applauding this effort,'' Kivowitz said. ``This type of coordination is great. There is creative, state-of-the art thinking in this plan that takes creative models from around the country and adapts them to L.A. County. We are working with the county to coordinate our efforts and are encouraged by this effort.''

Last November, Chief William Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department wrote in a report to the police commissioners that it is a common practice for outside law enforcement agencies, hospitals and retirement homes to ``dump'' homeless people on Skid Row.

After a disoriented 64-year-old woman wearing only a hospital gown and socks was found earlier this week outside a Skid Row mission, several City Council members sent letters to county hospitals demanding that physicians stop releasing patients onto Skid Row.

County health officials denied that homeless hospital patients are dumped on Skid Row, but Janssen noted that Skid Row has a concentration of homeless services.

``It's not that there was a deliberate, harmful policy of dumping people on Skid Row,'' Janssen said. ``That was the logical place for people to be discharged.''

Under new policies in the plan, Yaroslavsky said, people being discharged from the jails and hospitals, if likely to end up homeless, would be intercepted by social workers who will try to find them shelter or housing.

Janssen and Yaroslavsky said county government can afford the $100 million plan to help the homeless, even though it comes in addition to a $300 million plan to fix county jails and a health-services deficit expected to exceed $1 billion in a few years.

``We are better positioned financially today than we have been since Proposition 13 passed (in 1978),'' Yaroslavsky said.

Janssen said increased property tax revenues from the real estate boom, the passage of voter-approved Proposition 1A that protects local governments from state raids on their coffers, a solid economy and conservative budget management have left county government in strong financial shape.

``We are not proposing things that are unsustainable, even if property tax revenues drop in half,'' Janssen said. ``The $80 million will come out of a fund balance from last year that was set aside for capital projects. The $15.6 million will be part of next year's proposed budget, primarily out of property tax growth.''

The plan notes that county government could see some overall cost savings as the programs and services reduce the number of unnecessary emergency-room visits and jail time. It also notes that annual funding could be adjusted depending on fiscal outlooks.

But Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said while the county's homeless initiative is motivated by good intentions, it could face challenges.

``It sounds to us as if the county continues to build its spending base,'' Coupal said. ``And if we ever find ourselves in another recession, the county will find itself having to cut programs. Better to use surplus revenues now for capital improvements and ... for future reserves.

``We know that the economy is cyclical. The county should be putting at least some percentage of its excess revenues into a rainy day fund.''

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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Homeless Prevention Initiative

SOURCE: LA County Chief Administrative Office

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