LA will shelter more homeless people to end major lawsuit. But how many?
Los Angeles has agreed to build potentially thousands of new beds and housing units under the terms of a legal settlement announced Friday, apparently bringing to an end a key portion of a contentious, long-running federal lawsuit over homeless housing and enforcement on skid row and across the city.
The proposed agreement between the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and the city would require opening enough beds over the next five years to accommodate 60% of the city’s unsheltered population in each City Council district.
City officials say that about 13,300 beds of various kinds are already being planned, including permanent supportive housing — through Proposition HHH — as well as beds that people can stay in temporarily.
As a result, it remains unclear how many new units not already in the pipeline and counted by the city will be required to reach the 60% goal. But city officials estimate that all of this building, including what is already planned, will cost between $2.4 billion
