LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Housing advocates surrounded Los Angeles City Hall with 1,480 feet of red ribbon on Tuesday, April 22, a symbol of the bureaucratic barriers they say have created years of delay in providing permanent housing for homeless and low-income communities.
Members of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Housing Is A Human Right division and the LA office of the National Coalition for the Homeless led Tuesday’s action as part of a national movement calling on government officials to provide “Housing Now” for unhoused people nationwide.
It also marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grants Pass case, which ruled that enforcing generally applicable laws regulating public camping does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
“Seven people die on the streets of Los Angeles every day,” Susie Shannon, policy director for Housing Is A Human Right, said in a statement. “Delays in bringing permanent housing online immediately through adaptive reuse and new construction are unconscionable.”
On Monday, Mayor Karen Bass touted progress in resolving the housing and homelessness crisis through new initiatives and her signature program, Inside Safe, during her State of the City Address. She also noted the city has experienced its first decline in unsheltered homelessness, and that more unhoused people entered temporary shelters.
The 2024 Greater LA Homeless Count found there were more than 45,000 homeless people in the city.
According to Housing Is A Human Right, the city remains far behind in the approval of building permits and creating new, affordable housing units – an issue exacerbated by January’s devastating wildfires.