HOMELESSNESS
COMPASSION NOT CRIMINALIZATION
Permanent affordable housing and tenant protections will bring us closer to ending homelessness. As we build towards those goals, we need to be addressing the crisis in front of us right now with pragmatism and proactiveness.
END HARMFUL AND INEFFICIENT POLICIES
41.18 is a failed policy. A recent City report shows that after nearly 3,200 anti-camping law sweeps over three years, only two people have been housed. Ticketing and fining people experiencing homelessness can create a criminal record that causes an additional barrier to getting stable job placement or housing. Furthermore, it is well-documented that encampment sweeps are not just cruel but actively set back the ability of people to get into housing and lead to poorer health outcomes. These sweeps cause people experiencing homelessness to lose important documentation and medical prescriptions when their belongings are discarded by Sanitation. This has led to tragic outcomes.
Jillian will work to end the wasteful and harmful practice of criminalizing those experiencing homelessness and push the City Council and Mayor to repeal 41.18. Until there is adequate housing, Jillian will not call for 41.18 enforcement, assist police in harmful encampment sweeps, or create new 41.18 zones. While Jillian will not enforce 41.18, this does not mean she will leave people experiencing homelessness on the streets. Jillian will prioritize treating people like people by expediting the process of getting them into housing and providing them the services they need to stay housed.
SERVICES NOT SWEEPS
Ending harmful practices like 41.18 will free up funds we can reinvest in mental health and harm reduction. Not all people experiencing homelessness suffer from mental health issues or addiction, but some do, and we should fund the services they need.
CD2 needs to be more effective with resources. Investment in a network of front-line hubs and services in CD2 that strategically connect with and support people in their journey off the street is not only less expensive, but it's more efficient.
When we encounter a person on the street experiencing a mental health crisis, we need to be able to call someone with the proper training to help. Jillian will secure funds to expand our current unarmed crisis response pilots to CD2 and work towards expanding these programs citywide.
With one analysis finding record high fentanyl deaths for the unhoused in 2023, it's imperative to invest in preventative resources like harm reduction that meet people where they are at, with the creation of overdose prevention centers. These facilities are designed to reduce the potential risk of drug use including overdose by bringing public drug use indoors with trained staff on hand in case a medical intervention is needed. They also connect people with substance abuse disorder services, social support and voluntary treatment. Overdose prevention centers save lives and reduce the risk of physical or sexual violence related to public drug use. Substance abuse disorders should be treated as any other public health issue, with care, rather than as a criminal offense.
EMPOWER PROVEN SOLUTIONS
CD2’s interim shelters currently create an arbitrary barrier to entry - that an unhoused person must be documented to be living in CD2 for 6 months before they are allowed entry to CD2 services. This intrusion by political office is not only immoral, it’s fiscally irresponsible, as it leaves people on the streets while public resources sit unused.
CD2 has several organizations with the tools and expertise to address homelessness. Jillian will act as a facilitator moving the resources to where they are needed and ensuring efficient communication between the organizations working on this issue.
Jillian will work to create modern tracking systems so that we know where shelter space is available and where we need more. We must ensure that our workers on the front line of homelessness aren’t living in poverty themselves. Jillian will fight for workers to receive not only a living but thriving wage.
INVEST IN A PUBLIC SPACE WE CAN ALL ENJOY
A UN official specializing in sanitation and water access has called public restroom access in the US “woefully inadequate” at 8 per 100,000 people: Los Angeles has almost half that access at 5 per 100,000. Similarly, a multi-part investigation found that sanitation stations for the unhoused went unsupported. This is unacceptable.
In 2015, Mayor Garcetti announced the Clean Streets Initiative, which called for 5,000 new public trash receptacles by 2019 to improve upon the paltry 1,000 that served a city of four million (in contrast, NYC had about 25,000 serving 8 million). That initiative also created a scoring system for the cleanliness of streets in the City.
Nine years later, we still have room to improve: almost half of CD2’s streets get a less than clean grade by the City’s scoring system, with more than four-fifths of that coming from bulky items. This was an issue before the Sanitation Department’s budget was reduced by $17.3M this year.
The funds saved by refraining from the use of 41.18 sweeps can be utilized to build public restrooms and install more public trash receptacles so that residents of CD2 can have a clean and healthy neighborhood to live in.
GETTING ANGELENOS HOUSED AND KEEPING US THERE
To create more space in our shelters, we need to create more permanent affordable housing to move people into. This also means reducing the demand for shelter space in the short-term by expanding support for non-traditional housing such as “Safe Parking” sites.
We can decrease the inflow into our streets and shelters by keeping people in their homes with tenant protections like the right to counsel and universal just cause evictions.