[The following message on President Trump’s budget request was issued March 16 by Diane Yentel, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, based in Washington, D.C. It is reprinted with permission.]

In February 2016 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted a 47-point strategy to combat homelessness under the title the Homeless Initiative. One year later, on February 8, 2017, they sponsored the First Annual Homeless Initiative Conference. Little reported (no article in the LA Times), almost 500 civic leaders gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for an all-day session.

In November the City Council adopted a revised law restricting living in vehicles on city street. The revised law took effect January 7, 2017, but police are holding off enforcement until early February. The change takes the form of a revision of Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) 85.02 – Vehicle Dwelling.

Back in 2013 the Economic Roundtable concluded a two-year study of the 10% of Los Angeles homeless people who have the most frequent hospitalizations. The study, "Getting Home: Outcomes from Housing High Cost Homeless Hospital Patients," made the astonishing discovery that for the 10th decile patients, the city was spending an average of $63,808 a year. When instead of leaving them on the streets it placed them in permanent supportive housing, their total annual costs including rent and food fell to $16,913.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services has created a new unit called Housing for Health devoted precisely to trying to house these extraordinarily expensive patients. Created by DHS Director Mitchell H. Katz, Housing for Health aims to use the huge savings to invest in creating long-term housing for the extremely ill homeless, and to do it now, not waiting for the housing boom that will eventually materialize from the Proposition HHH bond issue.