LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Mayor Eric Garcetti used his annual State of the City address to outline an ambitious spending proposal, including a universal basic income pilot program, investments in small businesses, street vendors, youth services and gang reduction, as well as nearly $1 billion to combat the homelessness crisis.
“It’s a financial document, but also a roadmap to a city built on justice and equity … it’s the biggest city budget I’ve ever presented, and it’s the most progressive, too, arguably of any big city anywhere,” Garcetti said of his proposal on Monday, April 19, which he called the “Justice Budget.”
Garcetti’s budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 includes $24 million for a Guaranteed Basic Income pilot, which he said will be the largest of any US city. The program will give $1,000 a month to 2,000 low-income families for a year “no questions asked,” Garcetti said.
“We’re betting that one small but steady investment for Angeleno households will pay large dividends for health and stability across our city and light a fire across our nation,” Garcetti said. “When you give money to people who are poor, it creates better outcomes, it covers child care, it puts food on the table, it leads to more high school graduations and better checkups.”
Garcetti also announced that he will create an advisory commission and speak with academic partners to facilitate the creation of a pilot slavery reparations program for Black Angelenos.
The proposal also pledges an additional $300 million from the American Rescue Plan toward L.A.’s Emergency Rental Assistance, bringing the total amount of direct assistance for rent, utilities and other basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic to $700 million, Garcetti said.
“But the pandemic didn’t start our housing crisis, and our success in eliminating so much rent won’t end it,” he said before announcing that the budget will dedicate more than $950 million to the fight against homelessness.
“To put that number in perspective, when I became mayor, we spent about $10 million on treating homelessness,” Garcetti said.
He said the key to ending homelessness is renting, buying and building homes, and he called on the state to invest $16 billion over four years in California cities’ housing and services. He also called for the federal government to declare a “Right to Housing” policy and fully fund Section 8 vouchers to “help make homelessness a thing of the past.”
Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has been working to create a Right to Housing policy in Los Angeles, praised the proposal for focusing on solutions to the homelessness crisis.
“Meaningful change begins with action. I applaud Mayor Garcetti for understanding that Angelenos are most concerned about the number of homeless we see in parkways, in the streets, and living in vehicles and proposing an unprecedented commitment of resources to allow us to scale up our response,” he said.
He added that he wants the final budget to advance his Right to Housing framework, which he proposed in a motion that was unanimously approved by the City Council on March 3.
Garcetti’s proposal also commits funding to LA’s small businesses and street vendors, including through a $25 million program to give $5,000 checks to 5,000 businesses.
“Businesses who want to open or re-open those doors, your city is going to have your back so you can reopen, hire up and spread wealth,” he said. He also called for the City Council to approve an ordinance that would cut the time it takes for restaurants to receive alcohol permits by 90% and the cost of the permit by 70%. He also voiced support for letting restaurants defer $8,000 or more of its expiring fees for three years and suspend valet and off-site parking requirements, which he said would help restaurants save up to $10,000.
Garcetti’s budget proposal also includes $2 million in grants for low-income neighborhood restaurants to create permanent areas for outdoor dining as part of the city’s Al Fresco dining program, which was created during the pandemic, and which Garcetti said Monday should be made permanent.
For street vendors, Garcetti pledged $1.3 million to help them clear the bureaucratic permit process and buy modernized carts.
The proposal would also fund police alternatives, including increasing the Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program’s budget by a third to $33 million, which would add 80 new “peace ambassadors” to the GRYD team, Garcetti said.
The proposed budget would also fund a one-year pilot program to provide a community-based response team to nonviolent crises experienced by people experiencing homelessness in the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods. The budget would also create a new program called Therapeutic Unarmed Response for Neighborhoods, which would send “clinicians instead of cops” to nonviolent mental health emergencies 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The budget proposal also includes spending to help the city “end the pandemic” with $75 million for vaccines, testing and personal protective equipment.
“Three hundred sixty-five days ago…I stood before you to pledge that we would emerge from this crisis, and when we did, we would rebuild our city but we would not return to a broken status quo,” Garcetti said.
Council President Nury Martinez echoed that sentiment in a statement.
“Over the past year we knew our city was going to be forever changed on many levels post-COVID-19,” Martinez said. “During this pandemic, the Los Angeles City Council prioritized communities that have long held us up — the working families, Black and Brown communities, the workers that have always been essential but are finally being recognized.”
Black Lives Matter’s Los Angeles chapter criticized the mayor on Twitter during the speech for appropriating progressive language from the “People’s Budget” created by the activist organization the People’s City Council but lacking that budget’s substance.