LOS ANGELES (Jan. 13, 2020) – Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $1.4 billion budget allocation toward resolving homelessness is indicative of the urgent need to address the homelessness crisis in California, and calls for similar actions to those recently put in place by Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County. Los Angeles should be commended for providing best practices that can be scaled at the state level, including focused intentionality on solving homelessness for black people, who are disproportionately affected by homelessness locally, statewide and across the nation.

Powerful evidence on the need for a map toward racially equitable practices is contained in LAHSA’s Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness and the Agenda for California: An African-American Perspective. We are deeply grateful to Governor’s Taskforce and its leaders, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Mayor Darrell Steinberg, for their relentless commitment to advance solutions that match the need. 

We thank the Governor for making this a budgetary priority, and we are notably appreciative that he is putting into service underutilized state property for local partners to use as short-term, emergency housing to get Californians onto a path of housing stability. 

Californians have stated clearly that solving homelessness is a top priority, and we are encouraged by the efforts at state and local levels to come together to solve this challenge. Enterprise looks forward to continue working with our public, private and nonprofit partners to bring capital, innovation and policy toward solving homeless.

Media Contact

Karen Whitaker, Director, Marketing Strategy
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
kwhitaker@enterprisecommunity.org