System Change Efforts and Their Results, Los Angeles, 2005-2006

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Abstract

In 2004, the Hilton Foundation awarded the Corporation for Supportive Housing a five-year grant of $8 million to promote changes in city, county, and state systems that would reduce homelessness in Los Angeles County, especially among people with serious mental illness. CSH uses these resources to bring people together, facilitate planning and implementation, provide expert advice, and help span the boundaries of different systems that have long stood separate and apart. This report covers developments in the grant's first two years that address the research question: What changes have state and/or local public agencies and homeless assistance providers made that reduce homelessness, increase housing options, develop and improve supportive services, and promote the development and operation of permanent supportive housing units and the services that tenants need to achieve stability?

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Introduction

For anyone interested in ending homelessness, the greater Los Angeles area presents the supreme challenge. Los Angeles leads the nation in both the estimated total number of people homeless on a single day (almost 90,000) and the seriousness of the problem as measured by the ratio of homeless people to total population (about 1 homeless person for every 112 county residents). And most of Los Angeles's homeless people are unsheltered (about 1 for every 137 county residents), which is quite different from the situation in many other communities.

We can bring these figures into stark contrast by comparing them with similar data from New York City, the only other jurisdiction in the country of roughly the same size (8.1 million versus Los Angeles County's 9.9 million). About 38,000 people were homeless on a single day in New York City in 2005 (about 1 homeless person for every 213 residents), but very few were unsheltered (about 1 for every 2,100 residents).

A brief review of other differences between Los Angeles and New York City will help to set the stage for understanding the scope of the undertaking being requested by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation when, in October 2004, it gave the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) a five-year grant and a Program Related Investment to launch an initiative in Los Angeles County to reduce the number of long-term homeless people, with a special focus on ending homelessness among people with serious mental illness. First and most obvious is the weather—it is easier and less life-threatening to be homeless in Los Angeles, especially in the winter. Other, less obvious, differences are far more important with respect to ending homelessness:

• New York City is a single city-county jurisdiction, with the authority to make decisions for its entire territory and for a very large portion of the resources needed to address homelessness. As such, it can make plans and follow through on them. It can think big and long-term as well as in strategic steps, and make them happen. It has a mayor now in his second term who has long been determined to reduce homelessness by two-thirds before he leaves office and has directed his cabinet officials to do what it takes.
• In contrast, Los Angeles County contains 88 cities with their own governments, a number of unincorporated areas, and county government. Responsibilities related to homelessness are split among city and county governments and no single entity has authority over the whole. As a policy issue, homelessness has barely been on the radar screen for local elected officials and public agencies until the last few years. The desire not to take responsibility for homelessness on the part of Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles, and also not to become entangled in lawsuits and countersuits, led to the creation of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) in 1993 as a joint powers authority that was given as little scope as possible, to do little more than help draw down federal homeless dollars.
• New York City has considerably more flexibility to raise the money it needs through taxes, whereas every Los Angeles jurisdiction is hamstrung by the effects of almost 30 years of Proposition 13 and related legislation.
• New York City government has been legally responsible for sheltering homeless people since the mid-1980s, which accounts for the roughly 34,000 people (including children) in shelters in that city daily in 2005. This is triple the number sheltered in Los Angeles County (10,000-11,000), where only a few smaller city governments have taken serious steps to address the problem.
• New York City spends $1.7 billion a year on homeless services, compared to $600 million for Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles combined.
• New York state and city mental health departments have been jointly funding permanent supportive housing in New York City for homeless people with mental illness since 1991; somewhat similar but less extensive funding (AB 2034, see below) has been available to California counties only since 2000.
• While public agencies in both communities are large and bureaucratic, those in New York City mostly work, while many in Los Angeles have long been troubled.

As with many big cities and their surrounding counties, relations between Los Angeles County, the City of Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent other cities in the county, have a long history of strain. Everyone interviewed for this report felt that at the personal level, staff at city and county agencies have developed extremely supportive and effective relationships during the past several years of joint work on homeless issues. But the structure of government in the county, with 88 cities, the balance of the county, county supervisors and city council members with their own power bases, and split powers and resources (housing largely under city control while supportive services must come from county agencies) has historically made it very difficult to resolve major issues affecting multiple county districts and jurisdictions.

The work of many stakeholders has come together in the last few years to stimulate and shape the movement toward developing solutions to homelessness that we report below. These include CSH and its direct partners such as Shelter Partnership; all the county agencies participating in the Special Needs Housing Alliance; local elected officials on the County Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles's mayor, and officials of several smaller cities within the county; foundations, including the Weingart Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and The California Endowment; and the many housing and service providers participating in one or more aspects of planning for and actually making changes.

The timing of the Hilton Foundation's funding to CSH for its initiative occurred just as some long-watched pots were almost beginning to simmer. CSH opened its Los Angeles office in early 2003, in the hope that it could serve as a catalyst for change. Receiving the support of the Hilton Foundation in 2004 was in some ways a statement that enough initial movement was visible one year later for the foundation to invest its resources in its home community to give a boost to the "end long-term homelessness" agenda. While much planning is finally being done, a heroic effort will still be needed to make the various plans coherent and orchestrate multi-jurisdictional efforts to turn their visions into reality.

To promote the outcomes of its Hilton initiative (reducing homelessness, especially among people with serious mental illness), CSH tries to use its status as a non-governmental, non-provider neutral third party to bring people together, facilitate planning and implementation, provide expert advice, and help span the boundaries of different systems that have long stood separate and apart. CSH has also been working with public officials and other key stakeholders at the state level and in the county and selected cities to stimulate increased commitment to joint actions on supportive housing as a big piece of the approach to ending homelessness.

Through its Hilton initiative resources, CSH continues to support county agencies in the Special Needs Housing Alliance and Los Angeles city agencies developing a Permanent Supportive Housing Plan, and interacts in other ways with City and County of Los Angeles officials and agencies. Some of Los Angeles's biggest foundations have also become part of these processes. CSH staff are actively involved at the state level also, in helping to design and implement major state funding opportunities affecting homelessness such as the Mental Health Services Act, housing bond financing, opportunities for integrated primary care-mental health-substance abuse funding and service delivery. CSH also uses Hilton grant and loan money to promote permanent supportive housing (PSH) directly, by offering training to potential PSH developers, funding predevelopment work on various PSH projects, providing technical assistance to new providers.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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