EDITOR’S NOTE: Multimedia journalist Parker Collins spoke with a local homeless resident, WeHOPE’s director of homeless services and Councilmember Mike Bonin on the struggles that LA’s homeless population faces. Click the arrow above to watch the video.
LOS ANGELES — The city of LA will increase spending on public safety, homelessness, climate change and cleanliness under the proposed fiscal year budget for 2022-2023 released Wednesday. The $11.8 billion budget projects a 6.6% increase in city revenue in the coming year, reflecting expected increases in business and sales taxes. The budget also includes $658 million in reserves, the idea being to prepare LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s successor for an earthquake or other emergency that may arise during the next mayoral term.
“This budget is prudent but progressive. It is bold but balanced. That is what we’ve tried to accomplish here: to make sure we do the right thing while we’re doing the right things,” Mayor Garcetti said during an event that revealed the details of the proposed budget. “We’re addressing immediate needs to make our city safer and cleaner and grappling with our biggest and most long-term problems of homelessness and climate change.”
Homelessness is “our biggest challenge and our most important crisis,” Garcetti said. The new budget allocates $1.16 billion to combat the problem, making it the city’s largest budget investment to help homeless people in city history. Last year’s budget allocated $966 million for homelessness.
The funding includes $32 million for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, $55 million for homeless services and $415 million for supportive housing through Proposition HHH, among other things.
The budget is intended to fund the creation of 3,700 new permanent supportive housing units, 2,214 of which will go toward purchasing and rehabilitating hotels and motels to convert them into permanent housing through Project Homekey.
The budget funds nine new positions in the City Planning Citywide Rezoning Program to help LA add 255,000 dwelling units across the city. It also includes incentives for housing developments that include affordable units to help meet the Regional Housing Needs Assessment of 455,000 new dwelling units by 2029.
Twenty-seven new positions will be funded within the Department of Building and Safety and Department of City Planning to help reduce delays in processing development applications and zoning reviews.
Another $500,000 will go toward the Department of City Planning’s Urban Design Studio to help the city implement SB9 developments of duplexes and fourplexes on single-family parcels.
Acknowledging a recent uptick in crime during the COVID pandemic, the budget increases the LA Police Department budget by 8.5% to a total of $149 million. The budget calls for increasing patrol hours through hiring as well as overtime. The Los Angeles Police Department is expected to lose 515 officers through attrition, ending the current fiscal year with 9,470 officers.
The budget calls for hiring 780 officers, increasing officer levels to 9,735 in the upcoming fiscal year. Another $225 million is proposed for overtime pay to increase patrol hours until new officers can be trained and hired.
In addition, the budget funds a number of public safety alternatives. Gang Reduction and Youth Development will receive $37.5 million — a $2.5 million increase from the current fiscal year. GRYD currently provides gang intervention and prevention services in 23 zones throughout the city and will expand to additional neighborhoods in the upcoming year.
The GYRD program Summer Night Lights will receive an additional $2.4 million for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, bringing its total budget to $6.4 million. The group provides free food, sports and cultural activities at city parks during the summer months in an effort to reduce crime.
The CIRCLE program the city launched last year in Hollywood and Venice will receive $8 million. The program diverts 911 calls having to do with homeless people away from law enforcement, referring them instead to mental health experts.
The Los Angeles Fire Department Therapeutic Transport Program will receive $2 million. The unarmed crisis response program dispatches mental health workers to some 911 calls for emergency assistance in nonviolent situations. The system has the capacity to answer 9,000 mental health calls.
The budget adds four classes at the LA Fire Department Academy to reduce the number of field vacancies. Each class is expected to yield 65 recruits for a total of 260 new firefighters. The budget also funds a new equity bureau that is charged with mediating conflicts and putting a diversity and inclusion plan in place for the fire department.
The budget funds five different programs to help clean up the city. LA Environment and Sanitation will receive funding to add 17 new maintenance workers and 26 new bulky item and illegal dumping team positions — a doubling of the workforce.
It includes money for CARE+ and the teams that support bridge housing sites for people without homes, including a dedicated team for each of the city’s council districts and a new second shift team.
The LA Conservation Corps will receive an additional $1.9 million in 2022-2023 to expand the Clean and Green program under the Office of Community Beautification. Each year, the program provides about 500 middle school and high school students with work experience, clearing trash, removing graffiti and planting trees to beautify their communities.
Clean LA will continue to receive funding for the 100 positions it hired during its first year of operation in 2021. It will receive an additional $7.3 million through the CaliforniansForAll Youth Workforce Development Grant, allowing it to hire another 200 young people. The CaliforniansForAll youth grant also enables a $4.7 million investment to expand the LA River Rangers program, providing a year of full-time employment to 135 LA youth.
The budget includes a two-phase $21 million climate equity fund that will focus on mitigation and resilience efforts in low-income communities. Frontline communities that are most affected by climate change and pollution will get help first, according to the mayor.
The budget calls for hiring and training under-represented and displaced workers to retrofit their communities’ buildings to be more energy efficient. It will also distribute air purifiers directly to residents of LA’s most pollution-affected communities, especially near freeways and the ports, and it will provide new insulation and cool roofs for low-income Anglenos.
The city’s investment in cool pavement increases from $2 million in last year’s budget to $4 million this coming year in an effort to reduce temperatures in some of LA’s hottest neighborhoods. It also includes $10 million for the diversion of organic waste to comply with SB 1383, which aims to reduce methane emissions from landfills.
Another $3.4 million will be invested to expand electric vehicle infrastructure across the city.