What San Diego Can Learn From LA’s Effort To House The Homeless

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego leaders are tackling the housing crisis in a conference that gets underway tomorrow in San Diego County, at least 8,000 people are homeless. One way to get rooms over their heads, build more affordable housing. Some of those involved in the process of creating affordable housing. We'll take part in the San Diego housing Federation's annual affordable housing and community development conference tomorrow. That keynote speaker for the event is Chris co with the Los Angeles branch of the United way. He is credited with directing the coalition that created and passed ballot measures around homelessness in the city and County of Los Angeles. I spoke with him ahead of tomorrow's event. Here's that interview. You're the keynote speaker at the affordable housing and community development conference. In this context, remind us what is meant when we say affordable housing. Um, I think affordable housing here is an apartment just like one that you or I might live in. Speaker 1: 00:55 So we're not necessarily talking about a special building in a special place. Uh, we are talking about a building where some of the rent is paid for to make sure that someone can afford to live there. And the latest pic poll for the first time in 20 years, California and said one of their top issues with homelessness. Why do you think this is now being seen as a top issue? The issue itself is growing. So homelessness as an issue with our economy's growing, I think it's, it's counterintuitive, but in the way our economy is structured today, homelessness actually gets worse. And moments where our housing prices and prosperity goes up proudly speaking. And so as California has had this period where we're recovering and doing quite well, actually homelessness is doing worse. And so I think one, the issue itself is growing and I think it's, it's happening in all of our neighborhoods. Speaker 1: 01:55 I think in the past, homelessness used to be confined in certain places. So it's getting the attention, I think it deserves. You directed the coalition that passed ballot measures around homelessness in Los Angeles. Remind our listeners what those measures were. We had two ballot measures that the people of Los Angeles really, um, got behind. That's proposition. H H H was in the city of Los Angeles. That was a housing bond to help build 10,000 units of supportive housing, which is a particular kind of affordable housing. And then measure age was a County wide, a sales tax that added the services to help get people inside that housing. And then more importantly to help people stay in thrive once they made it inside. What do you think was the key to getting those two measures passed is there's so many elements to that, but I think part of it was having a core of solutions that we had tested over a period of time that allowed us to be confident and put that plan forward. Speaker 1: 03:02 Um, so I think having a tested solution, having a plan of how that solution would be grown and implemented, um, how that solution would be delivered in every part of the area. So having a community based delivery network I think was key. But you know, all of that at the end of the day is in service of a bigger vision of saying how will our community looked different? What does this mean? Um, and being clear about that. And, um, I think part of it, I think you alluded to this before, I, I honestly think people are waiting for solutions. It's something that yes, we need to be clear that this is a worthwhile investment in this as a safe investment. But you know, I think people honestly are frustrated and looking for solutions to get behind. You know, how has measure H which increased the sales tax in Los Angeles County helped the County to address homelessness? Speaker 1: 03:56 I mean, on a very straightforward basis, measure H has more than tripled our outreach forces on the ground before we had this plan. And we have this system, but it's kind of like having nine one one but not having firefighters on the other end to respond to calls. So measure H has meant that we actually have people on the street responding, not only responding, but proactively building relationships on the street. Um, it's doubled our housing placements. And so after measure H we have two times as many people coming inside. And then the last thing I'll say is that it's actually made space for prevention. Um, federal funding is pretty specific about what you can do with it. And before, because our homeless and this crisis is what it is. Um, the rule had been that you can't use it upstream, you have to deal with what you have. Speaker 1: 04:48 But of course that's kind of a chicken or the egg question. And so our local money, we're able to actually put it toward prevention. So we've had more resources to test and use on prevention than we've ever had before. And yet the County is still seeing the number of people who are homeless increase. Last year, the number of people, right, who were homeless in LA County increased 12%. You know, why do you think despite an increase in resources, you're still seeing an increase in the number of people who are homeless? The short answer is that's the scale of our challenge today. Um, I think when we started into this, we weren't at the pace of economic growth that we had today. And you know, in some sense, um, longterm, I think all those short term, there may be a correction. I think longterm that's something that's not slowing down anytime soon, especially in LA with the Olympics coming up and some of the broader construction we have. Speaker 1: 05:47 Um, but you know, make no mistake without measure H our 12% increase would have been 27, 28%. So the statewide average was actually a 35% increase and all around us, we saw that. So without, without that, without some of the investments, uh, our increase of 12%, which is already too high, it would have been even higher and more in line with everything else that we saw. So given that LA is the least affordable market nationally, um, we're not satisfied with a 12% increase. But I think we're grateful that we have the resources we did to, to keep it at that level. Speaker 2: 06:31 And you know, residents in the city of San Diego will be voting on a measure that will increase the hotel tax to fund an expansion of our convention center homeless programs, affordable housing and infrastructure. Do you see a problem with getting support for a measure that would pay for a number of different things? I think important to any Speaker 1: 06:50 proposition as being clear of about what will happen from it. Um, and I think in measure H versus proposition triple H, um, you had different ways to do that. And so I think proposition triple H was much more straightforward with the housing bond where it can only pay for one thing and there is a lot of security in that and um, it's easier to explain exactly what it's doing, but at the same time some of that flexibility can be important. So I don't think the flexibility and ability to use it holistically as a problem. Um, I think the opportunity and what's, what will be important is still being clear on what that will achieve. Speaker 2: 07:31 And those in attendance will be people involved in affordable housing such as elected officials, developers, service providers. What do you hope they take away from your message? Speaker 1: 07:41 I mean, I feel like San Diego is at such a key moment of what it decides to do in terms of making more of this housing affordable. So I feel if there was one thing that I hope that the group takes away, it's that the future is really in their hands. Um, and then that they can decide what San Diego looks like moving forward. And in specifically, I think that means, do we want to San Diego where more people are inside a than sleeping outside? Speaker 2: 08:08 I have been speaking with Chris co managing director of homelessness and strategic initiatives with the United way of greater Los Angeles. Chris, thank you so much. Thank you, Jade. Speaker 3: 08:21 [inaudible].