Thread by @KNOCKdotLA

Good morning, y'all!

It's just past 10am and @alexmce is here to live-tweet today's meeting of the @LACityCouncil!

Agenda/video feed: lacity.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting…

Today seems likely to be an interesting one, it certainly looks like the entire day is set aside to discuss LAHSA's future. This is virtually the only thing on the agenda today.

If you're unfamiliar with the Committee for Greater LA, this conversation on Take Two should give you a pretty clear sense of what they're about: scpr.org/programs/take-…

It's time for public comment

First caller is Mr. Moses, hitting many of the same notes he did Wednesday and Tuesday.

Next is a Marina Edwards, who identified herself as representing some security company, who is "here to speak on behalf of the businesses that are suffering greatly," saying things like "these homeless are starting fires on the street" :/

The next caller, via translator, is with ACCE, elevating their position that "if we have to wait til August to get an ordinance that actually works, with the right language, that is fine"

Next caller implores Nury Martinez to agendize the Public Bank motion that recently passed out of the Economic Development and Jobs committee.

The next caller, I wish I was kidding, says - re: homelessness, that he's literally proven the (literally discredited) Broken Windows theory true.

Next caller, Gina Viola, lifts that Rob Bonta is there and asks that he rein in Sheriff Villanueva and shames the full council for allowing him to overstep his jurisdiction in Venice.

Next caller, Sean from Canoga Park, said something I missed about cars speeding too fast somewhere and closed by saying "I'm vaccinated and ready to see you all." (Fauble, not enthused: "Thanks Sean.")

Next caller says that LAHSA's current structure doesn't work, then raises @ShotOn35mm's recent story on the lack of hand-washing stations around the city and says the city should crack down on vendors who don't provide the services they're paid to provide. lataco.com/hand-washing-v…

Next caller is graphically relating an illustration of the violence common to life on the street and how unacceptable that reality is, then seems to advocate to build mental hospitals and 5150 everyone who lives without housing.

Next caller, Jessica Rogers, is open-lettering Mike Bonin and asking him rhetorically who in Los Angeles wants big progressive change and suggests that people don't.

Jiyoung Carolyn Park: "Cities across the state are moving forward with a gameplan to create public banks, so let's lead the way as the second largest city in the nation."

Next is Eric Preven: On the Committee for Greater LA & The Center, he says "the problem is we need fresh eyeballs, and we need to be able to say no to beaureacratic malfeasance," and calls that group and effort a new "jumble" of the same characters and ideas.

That's the last public comment. We're moving onto item 2, the discussion of LAHSA's structure and role in homelessness service provision.

Martinez: "I know that members are eager to discuss broad changes to [LAHSA's structure], but it's important to discuss the current structure in detail."

Joining the Council today are Heidi Marston (LAHSA Exec Director), John Wickham from the CLA office, and two folks from HCID.

Martinez gives the floor to Mark Ridley-Thomas to introduce the day's discussion.

MRT says he anticipates that at the H&P meeting next week will result in meaningful recommendations to full council.

Wickham from CLA speaking now, explaining what the office was asked to report back on and what's being discussed today. They've prepared a six chapter report, only the first three of which are meant for discussion today.

Wickham says "the national model for homelessness response is a public-private partnership model," says a public-only model isn't likely to work because of federal regulation that makes federal grants unavailable for arrangements like that. Also nixes a private-only model.

From Wickham's presentation:

Wickham: "Where this kind of doesn't work here, the homelessness response structure is very dynamic, [..] there's a constant flow between all the factors that are going on in the system"

Wickham, feeling he's sufficiently established the necessity of a public-private partnership, stops to ask for question on that specific concept from CMs.

Buscaino starts to ask a q but says he'll wait when he learns the questions should be relevant to what's been discussed. His reactionary grandstanding will wait til after the entire presentation.

Mike Bonin asks Wickham about differences of resource allocation in the three places he's elevating as models, to the end of illustrating that there are variables to effectiveness far beyond just what a given municipality's public/private model is.

Wickham moves onto chapter two:

Wickham describes the shape of homelessness as akin to a giant waterfall that leads to a river, and says that we devote so much resource and attention to the "river," and needs to do much more to address the "waterfall," which is to say, prevention and housing creation.

Wickham: "It's important to note that LAHSA's role in this chart is in the rehousing box." Says that over the last 30 years, people have said, if something's related to homelessness, give it to LAHSA, but he thinks that should have only ever applied to rehousing.

This next slide was provided by Heidi Marston, who is now speaking to it. "This just provides some context, to what [Wickham] mentioned" re: rehousing as only one component of homelessness policy.

Wickham stops here for questions on housing creation, rehousing, and prevention.

Wickham kicks to Heidi Marston to discuss county-level prevention-focused systems, who says that they have some systems like that at the county level and that when those fail, people fall into the LAHSA network as a "safety net of last resort."

Curren Price, after having secured a few minutes of discussion of the Solid Ground program (which you can find on his legislative accomplishments page), concludes, "prevention matters."

Bonin, to everybody presenting today: "My question is, even if we had an optimum system, how big is the housing inventory problem?"

Wickham, laughing: "I probably have four answers to that." Says that LAHSA had just prepared a report to that effect just before COVID hit but says that COVID has made that immediately outdated. Kicks to Marston but wants to weigh in again afterwards.

Marston: "Our system analysis prior to covid said that we needed at least 30k units of permanent housing creation to hit this system balance, but we need to redo that analysis" post-covid.

Bonin: "Even if we had a completely different rehousing system, it still ain't gonna work until there's more places to give people to live, right?" Marston: "That's right."

Anne Sewill from HCID: "The usual wisdom is that we need 2 to 3, maybe even 4 more permanent units than shelter units."

Wickham, on the thing he wanted to come back to, it turns out to have been a Malcolm Gladwell video.

Wickham: "The homelessness response system is a weak link system." "It doesn't matter how fast LAHSA can work, they need Social Security to deliver. No matter how you structure City & County, you still need State and Federal to step up."

Martinez: "Well John I don't follow sports but based on your analogy I would say get rid of the weak players."

KDL asks Wickham who exactly he sees as the weak links, and Wickham demurs, saying they're everywhere.

KDL: "Ultimately it's a supply issue. It's about inventory. We don't have enough supply to house folks." Asks what it would look like in practice to change the city's model, Wickham says it would require a comprehensive review process in terms of, eg, maintaining HUD compliance.

O'Farrell, either pushing back on Wickham's analysis or not getting it: "The responsibility is with LAHSA. LAHSA is the organization that we have a contractual obligation to with the county."

O'Farrell to Marston: Is LAHSA's purpose and mission to actually, with everything you do, reduce homelessness in the *City* of Los Angeles?" Marston: That's certainly a part of our mission, with LA City being such a part of LA County, that's a big piece of success for us.

O'Farrell, just really pushing it, accuses LAHSA of being overly political.

Sorry, I try not to editorialize too much, but I really can't believe that the person who strongarmed LAHSA into having people jump the Roomkey and shelter placement queue so he could do a violent sweep of Echo Park is turning around and saying that to LAHSA.

I think Malcolm Gladwell is a fitting motif for the day but probably not for the reasons that Wickham or Cedillo do.

Koretz: "I think we should put every dollar we can into prevention first."

Nury: "Mr. Buscaino then we need to move to chapter three."
Buscaino is doing a really funny impression of an ambitious politician and says "I've seen enough, I've heard enough, we need to sign the divorce papers today."

Buscaino is flubbing a lot as he goes into his prepared grandstanding speech. Maybe he'll get better the further he gets into his mayoral run but right now I'm not really seeing *it* from him, you know what I mean?

Wickham presenting again. This is the chapter 3 slide:

This version includes his conclusions.

Nury begins by asking Martinez whether demographically the current LAHSA commission reflects the unhoused population. Marston directly: "No."

Martinez: "What is the benefit of preserving the Regional Homeless Advisory Council?" Marston: Glad you asked, we plan to disband that body.

Martinez: What is LAHSA's role to prevent the homeless from ending up on the city of Los Angeles?
Marston: That's a good question, as we know, the population is very transient, we don't track people's movements.

Martinez: Glendale and Pasadena have their own continuums of care (COCs) -- is it that a fair allocation of resources for LAHSA to service those cities when they have their own COC?
Marston calls the arrangement complex and imperfect.

Martinez: The CES currently has a vacancy on it - how can we say we're serving the most vulnerable when there's a vacancy on the council? Wickham: Promises a reportback on what the city can do to speed a board appointment.

There seems to be agreement between Wickham and Martinez on finding a way to structurally ensure a City seat on the CoC board.

KDL: "I think you have proven today that the human cell is less complex than this system we're looking at."

KDL to Wickham: If you had a vote on this horseshoe, would you 1) creating our own CoC or 2) a Metro-style state agency structure or 3) reforming the status quo, reforming LAHSA? Wickham says they don't recommend in the report, and that's a policy decision for electeds.

Wickham then says all three would be appropriate.

Wickham is now pointing out two things he saw as errors in the initial Joint Powers Authority construction: 1, the elimination of the requirement to create "innovative programs" 2: "Any time a new program was added to LAHSA, both the city and the county had to agree" to do add

Wickham: "Twenty-eight years later, I'm seeing that as the last time the city and the county had to talk to each other about homelessness."

KDL: "I don't know if it's reforming LAHSA, maybe it is structural changes and working with Heidi... if I had my druthers, I would repurpose those dollars and point them towards housing."

Krekorian: "When a person is saying please help me, and we can't provide help, that is a weak link. Not because we don't have don't enough housing, but because we're not doing anything with the tools we already have in our hands."

Krekorian, clearly frustrated, is lamenting cases where he sees LAHSA as an obstacle to service provision, his example being someone who walks into a city-built navigation center not being able to be placed into a city-built shelter without going through LAHSA.

Krekorian: "In the meantime, our case management systems, everybody's using different systems. DMH has their own, LAHSA has their own," etc.

Krekorian: "If people just sit down and stop worrying about federal regulation 48-c-slash-2 and get in the same room and figure out, how do we help this person get into the services that this person needs?"

Wickham, in response: The systems analysis that LAHSA prepared recognized exactly your point, that permanent housing takes time to build and so there should be a "surge" of shelter in the interim.

Wickham: We can't just *ignore* the federal regulations and issues (given that we certainly want federal funding) We need to on one hand find ways to work around them, but on the other be more active in seeking changes to those obstacles through legislative action.

Krekorian: "I think what we need from the CLA is your list of exactly those things: what are the changes that we need in state law, what are the fixes/workarounds to address the challenges that I just described?"

Krekorian: "Oh it doesn't work we need to change we need to do something different we need to blow it all up – that's all really easy to say. What's difficult is to actually move forward."

Bonin, starts by thanking Krekorian for his comments, "it's almost like the homelessness equivalent of what we've been working with DWP on the LA100, figuring out what the roadblocks are."

Bonin: "The thing that always gets lost in the discussions is the missing middle," the biggest piece of this problem. People who need PSH are only under 30% of the population.

Bonin: "The only thing we offer to people [who don't need to PSH] - can't be tiny homes. And it can't be bridge shelters."

Bonin: "So what do we do with the *majority* of people who are homeless, who don't need PSH? Because frankly putting them in a bridge housing is probably doing more to lock them into the cycle of housing."

Bonin: "What we need is more rapid rehousing for people who are newly homeless."

Bonin says "we forget to talk about" the vast majority of people who are homeless when we discuss what city's response should be.

Wickham responds to that point by basically illustrating Bonin's point, choosing instead to talk about the fact that there *do exist* folks who are mentally ill and need higher levels of care.

Bonin in response: "It's important to note that by failing to address the point I made, we actually push more people into mental illness. Because mental illness isn't always the cause of homelessness, it's often a consequence of it."

Bonin, cot'd: "And the longer we leave people out there, the more likely they are to fall into addiction and mental illness."

That concludes the agenda item, there is no vote. MRT concludes the meeting with a recognition of Juneteeth and has video for us.

(The video is a performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing)

That does it for today. Thanks for following along. A continuation of the discussion held today, structured around the final 3 chapters of Wickham's report, will take place next Friday so mark your calendar. This has been @alexmce, covering for @christopherroth. Enjoy your Friday