Garcetti joins HUD Secretary virtual homelessness event

Speaking during a virtual event with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Monday touted the city’s “historic” efforts to house its homeless population.

The event, which included mayors, county leaders, tribal nation leaders and governors, introduced an initiative called “House America: An All-Hands-On-Deck Effort to Address the Nation’s Homelessness Crisis”

“In Los Angeles we’ve committed historic resources to providing housing and services to our unhoused neighbors,” Garcetti said.

“The Justice Budget we passed here in Los Angeles just a few months ago commits nearly a billion dollars of city money in this next year to ending homelessness. We’re using every tool at our disposal to tackle these challenges head on.”

Garcetti said Los Angeles will use resources from the American Rescue Plan to re-house people experiencing homelessness and create affordable housing units. The city and county of Los Angeles received 5,329 emergency housing vouchers and $99.9 million in HOME Investment Partnership grants through the American Rescue Plan.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan allocated a total of $1.3 billion to the city of Los Angeles, about half of which the city received in May, with the second half expected a year later.

House America is a national partnership under which HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, for which Fudge also serves as chair, invites state and local leaders to use funds from the American Rescue Plan to re-house people experiencing homelessness.

In March, HUD estimated that more than 580,000 people are experiencing homelessness throughout the country on any given night in January, 2020.

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