Editorial: Service providers get homeless people off the streets and into housing. Pay them what they need

By The Times Editorial Board, May 10, 2021

In the struggle to help homeless people move off the street, service providers — the entities that supply them food, guidance and other crucial forms of support — are the ones on the front lines. Their staff are the outreach workers who go to encampments and underpasses, and who seek out people slumped on sidewalks in plain view, huddled in the brush out of sight or living in cars. It can take days, weeks, even months to earn the trust of homeless individuals inured to street life and suspicious of anyone who wants to move them to an unfamiliar locale. Even as the pandemic raged in the past year, outreach workers were the ones who never stopped toiling in the streets.

The Back Home Initiative will build you a free small backyard house (an Auxiliary Dwelling Unit) if you will sign a 10-year contract to rent it to people who are homeless or about to become homeless. You have your choice of a studio, a one bedroom, or a two bedroom. Details below.

Registration is Now Open

Thursday, March 18, 2021, 
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm 

 You are invited to join LAHSA for a town hall on our system's efforts to end homelessness. During the event, we'll provide an update on our COVID-19 response, the rehousing system, and host a Q&A discussion about our system's 2020 performance and our goals for 2021. 

Register for our town hall

Submit your questions for the town hall

Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

The Los Angeles County 2021 Homeless Count, which would normally take place in the last week of January, was canceled by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority due to the convid-19 pandemic. The January 2020 point in time count, the previous year, found 66,436 individuals experiencing homelessness in the county, of whom, 28,852 were in the city of Los Angeles. 9,543 of those were located in Service Planning Area 6 - South Los Angeles including Compton, Paramount, and Lynwood.