Vote YES on Housing, Help & Hope to End Homelessness

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Yesterday morning, I had the great privilege of hosting a broad coalition of elected officials, civic leaders, philanthropic partners, nonprofit service providers, and homeless advocates at Skid Row Housing Trust’s New Genesis Apartments, which gathered to urge Angelenos to vote yes on Proposition HHH on the November 2016 ballot. The proposition – “Housing and Hope to End Homelessness”- would allow the city to finance 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing over the next 10 years. It would triple the rate at which Los Angeles currently builds safe, stable, and affordable housing that is desperately needed by thousands of individuals who are currently homeless.

Permanent supportive housing in Los Angeles has a 90% success rate at ending homelessness, and is 43% cheaper than leaving people on the street where they are dependent on emergency services and temporary shelters for care. Not just an apartment, permanent supportive housing offers voluntary on-site health, mental health, recovery and case management services so that formerly homeless individuals can stabilize their lives on their own terms. Unfortunately, there is not enough housing to help all of those in need, and the waitlist is long. Visit yesonhhh.com to learn how Proposition HHH would dramatically accelerate the work that is being done, bringing this proven solution to scale.

Proposition HHH is a common-sense approach based on evidence and years of hands-on experience: Homes end homelessness. It would bring tens of thousands of our neighbors – men, women, children and veterans – home. We were honored to host the launch of this important campaign, which was covered by the LA Times, KCRW, MyNewsLA, ABC, CBS and many more. Join this historic effort to end homelessness in our City by spreading word and voting yes for Proposition HHH this November.

Mike Alvidrez
CEO, Skid Row Housing Trust

 

Sylvia of Downtown Women's Center

City of Los Angeles CAO Miguel Santana, City Council President Herb Wesson, Councilmember Mike Bonin, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Executive Secretary-Treasurer Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Rusty Hicks, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Councilmember José Huizar, United Way of Greater Los Angeles President and CEO Elise Buik (not pictured), and Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Gary Toebben (not pictured) listen to formerly homeless advocate Sylvia Hernandez stress the urgent need for housing.

Designing a Solution for Homelessness

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KCRW: The Los Angeles City Council is weighing two separate measures to fund solutions to homelessness. One likely applicant for those funds will be the nonprofit developer Skid Row Housing Trust, which has built supportive housing by some of LA’s leading architects. Can good architecture and planning help re-integrate the formerly homeless back into society?

Mayor Eric Garcetti aims to dedicate $138 million in funding to combat homelessness in L.A.

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ArchPaper: Estimates for 2015 released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority put Los Angeles County’s homeless population at 44,359 individuals, with 17,687 of the 25,686 homeless residents of the City of Los Angeles being completely unsheltered.

A bold bet in LA: Using health care funds to find housing for the homeless

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STAT News: The job sounds impossible: solve the health care crisis in the massive and desperately sick homeless population of Skid Row, which sprawls across dozens of blocks just south of downtown.

Foundations Partner to Accelerate Development of Permanent Supportive Housing

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Conrad N. Hilton Foundation President & CEO Peter Laugharn, California Community Foundation President & CEO Antonia Hernández, and Weingart Foundation President & CEO Fred Ali announced their partnership to accelerate permanent supportive housing alongside Skid Row Housing Trust CEO Mike Alvidrez, LA City Councilmember Gil Cedillo, and Joe Sims, a resident of the New Genesis. Photo courtesy of the California Community Foundation.

Yesterday morning, Skid Row Housing Trust hosted a press conference for the California Community Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and Weingart Foundation at the New Genesis. The three foundations officially announced that they are partnering to provide $16 million in loans and grants to accelerate the production of permanent supportive housing in the City of Los Angeles to at least 1,000 units per year, a 700-unit increase from current production levels.

The proposal also calls upon the City of Los Angeles to create new, local revenue streams to fund the increased production of permanent supportive housing, and to build upon Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Executive Directive 13 to dramatically reduce development timelines for permanent supportive housing.

“We know that permanent supportive housing has a proven track record of helping those most in need, while saving government and tax-payer money,” said California Community Foundation President & CEO Antonia Hernández. “By moving frequent users of services like emergency rooms and shelters into apartments that provide much-needed social services, we’re helping our homeless neighbors stabilize and eventually become self-sufficient.”

Mayor Garcetti, Councilmember Gill Cedillo, and Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson also spoke in support of the initiative. The foundations’ support will leverage Mayor Garcetti’s commitment of $138 million to combat homelessness over the next year. The coalition aims to build on this momentum and encourage the City to develop long-term solutions to homelessness.

“Homelessness touches every corner of our City, impacting all of us,” said Mayor Garcetti. “To combat the crisis, my 2016 budget will include a historic $138 million investment to drive forward our homelessness strategies, but as we bring record levels of City investments to the table, we also need all hands on deck. These foundations are leading the private sector by partnering with us to do more for those who need our help the most. I applaud their work.”

In addition to remarks from CEO Mike Alvidrez, New Genesis resident, Joe Sims spoke about the impact that permanent supportive housing has had on his health and wellbeing.

Photo courtesy of the California Community Foundation.

Mayor Garcetti Unveils “Bold and Prudent” $8.76 Billion Budget

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CEO Mike Alvidrez was interviewed yesterday by NBC LA, responding to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announcement of a $8.76 billion spending plan for the 2016-2017 fiscal year that sets aside $138 million to address homelessness.

2016 Housing First Partners Conference

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Last week, Skid Row Housing Trust participated in the Housing First Partners Conference in Downtown Los Angeles, which is the largest conference of its kind. Focused on bringing Housing First programs to scale to end chronic homelessness nationwide, over 800 attendees shared strategies and experiences from their communities. As a sponsor, the Trust helped kick-off the conference on Tuesday, March 22nd by leading tours of the Skid Row neighborhood and Trust buildings. Trust staff also presented on lessons learned from renovating and updating older buildings in our portfolio. On the conference’s last day, CEO Mike Alvidrez helped introduce Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who spoke about her $13 billion budget proposal to address homelessness. “We know how to solve homelessness, and our strategies are backed by evidence. For instance, Housing First has been adopted by the VA as the model for ending veteran homelessness,” said Trust CEO Mike Alvidrez. “The challenge now is to expand our programs so that everyone in need can access housing.”

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Los Angeles City and County Pass Plans to Combat Homelessness

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Earlier this month, Los Angeles City Council and the County Board of Supervisors coordinated efforts to pass comprehensive plans to prevent and end homelessness. I am glad lawmakers approved strategies that were created through an extensive stakeholder engagement process, including plans to develop more permanent supportive housing to serve the chronically homeless. Their plans embrace evidence-based approaches to homelessness – including Permanent Supportive Housing and Housing First – that Skid Row Housing Trust implemented over a decade ago when they were still considered controversial. Both strategies have now become standard practice for combatting chronic and veteran’s homelessness.

While the funding for most of the proposed housing and services have not yet been identified, I view these detailed blueprints as a good first step in a long-term commitment by our city and county leaders to remedy an affordable housing crisis that has plagued the Los Angeles economy for far too long. It will require continued coordination to house the 44,000 people currently homeless in our county, and funding to create the housing and services required to prevent homelessness in the first place. Your support and advocacy will help ensure that combatting homelessness continues to be prioritized by local leaders in the coming years.

Mike Alvidrez, CEO

California State Senate supports ‘No Place Like Home’ initiative

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Like the much-needed rain that has reached California, the effort to help the homeless has even more significance to it as the impact of El Niño storms has displaced the thousands of homeless living in makeshift camps along the Los Angeles River.

On Jan 4, members of the California State Senate held a press conference to announce the “No Place Like Home” initiative.

 The bipartisan coalition wanted to alert the press that Monday to this first-of-it’s-kind comprehensive collaboration designed to help local communities meet the critical needs of the homeless in California. More than 40 speakers and representatives from State and local agencies voiced their concerns for the homeless at the The Star Apartments on East 6th Street in Los Angeles, an area known as Skid Row.

Mike Alvidrez, president of the Skid Row Housing Trust which owns and manages The Star Apartments, began the press conference by saying “permanent support of housing works and it saves money.” He mentioned that the SRH Trust has been working with the homeless for over 25 years and in its management of The Star Apartments and other properties, their approach has been homelessness is a reversible circumstance and that everyone in a community has a role to play in ending homelessness.

Video: Senate leader, Steinberg propose $2 billion homeless plan

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Sacramento Bee: In an opening to this year’s budget negotiations at the Capitol, Senate Democrats on Monday proposed a $2 billion bond to build homes for homeless people with mental illnesses. The measure would be funded by Proposition 63, the existing, 1 percent income tax on Californians earning $1 million or more per year to pay for mental health services. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León said at a news conference in Los Angeles that the money could fund construction of at least 10,000 housing units statewide.