Transcripts For CSPAN House Financial Services Hearing On Homelessness - Part 1 20240714

At 10 00 a. M. Eastern on book tv, cspan2. House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters held a field hearing on combating homelessness in the Los Angeles Metro area and its impact on a massive a national level. Officialsrnment participated in the hearing to discuss Affordable Housing. The committee on Financial Services will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. Not on of the house were the Floor Committee are authorized to participate fully in the hearing and members of the local media may engage in audio and visual coverage of the proceedings. Any recording of todays proceedings are solely to educate, enlighten, and inform the consideration of legislative issues as well as developing an understanding and perspective of the house of representatives and its role in our government. Coverage may not be used for any partisan Political Campaign purpose or be made available for such purpose. Finally, i want to welcome hearing,udience to the which we will conduct under the rules of house of representatives. This is entitled examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. I give myself five minutes to give an opening statement. Again, good morning to everyone. Welcome to the committee on Financial Services field hearing. Examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. Our first field hearing of the 115th congress. I would like to thank the California Africanamerican Museum and the executive director you just met, george, for hosting todays hearing. As chairwoman of the house of Financial Services committee, i have made it a top priority to focus on homelessness. We are international homelessness crisis. This year, i convened the first ever full Committee Hearing on homelessness. Today, we will disc continue our discussion by examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. Challenge this great that is in our city and that is facing our nation. According to the latest point in time count, the city and county of los angeles experienced 12 to 16 increase last year in the number of people that are homeless. Anyriencing homelessness on given night, we have nearly 60,000 people in the county well over 35,000 people experience homelessness right here in the city. I am describing some of our most vulnerable neighbors, including families with children, seniors, and unaccompanied youth. We cannot ignore that our homelessness crisis is directly linked to the Affordable Housing crisis. Too many people cannot afford to keep a roof over their head as wages have not kept pace with rising rent. Los angeles is one of the least Affordable Housing markets in the United States. In l. A. County, a renter earning minimum wage of 13. 25 an hour would need to work 79 hours a week in order to afford a two bedroom apartment. As a result, approximately 721,000 households in the county are severely rent burdened. Meaning they pay more than 50 of their income on rent. We need a bold and comprehensive response at the federal, state, to address the homelessness crisis. Ive introduced this bill, the ending homelessness act legislation that would provide over 13 billion in funding to ensure that every person experiencing homelessness in america as a place to call home. The committee passed this legislation early this year. Im committed to do everything i can to get this bill passed into law. City are working hard to combat the housing crisis. The city and county have robust new resources to fund initiatives that improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Hhh has helped fund thousands of permanent new housing units. Has helpedeasure h for condensed people find housing. Much more needs to be done. Including passing legislation. Testimony from representative in the county and mayor,y, including the who will testify on our third panel. On the ground every day Critical Services to people experiencing homelessness. Thank ourke to Committee Members in attendance today and i am very pleased to representative al green from texas, houston, texas. [applause] rep. Waters representative garcia is also hear from houston, texas. And i would like to thank the members of the delegation not on the committee here today, representative net net. Representative jamie gomez. Representative judy chu. And we are forward to be joined by a representative rad sherman. Give them a round of applause anyway. So i look forward to hearing the witnesses testimony. Panels. Have three i want to welcome the first panel for todays hearing. Of distinguished witnesses are christina miller, the deputy mayor for the city of los angeles Homeless Initiatives. That is the office of the mayor of the city of los angeles. , executive director, Los Angeles Homeless Services authority. , chief program officer, Housing Authority of the city of los angeles, monique , executivend director of the less agiles county develop an authority, kevin murray, former state senator and president and ceo of the weingart center. Nsell, director of the Los Angeles County homelessness Homeless Initiative. Each of you will have five minutes. I will give a signal by tapping the gavel lightly here i will ask you to wrap up your testimony so we can be respectful of the witnesses and Committee Members time. Before recognizing first ms. Miller, there are other elected have joined us here today and i would like all of the other officials in the audience to please stand. Ms. Miller, you are now recognized for five minutes to present your oral testimony. Thank you very much. Chairwoman waters and esteemed members of the committee, i serve as the deputy mayor of los angeles under the leadership of mayor eric garcetti. While the crisis is not as acute in most cities as it is here in los angeles, this is undoubtedly a pervasive issue nationally. Has left many families and individuals without the basic need of a safe place to live and thrive. That is unacceptable. The only way we find our way out of this crisis is together. With decades of disinvestment from the state and federal government amounting to nearly 500 million a year on average, we need your help to make lasting progress. In los angeles, we find ourselves in a paradox. We are seen with National Leaders with the best intervention to combat homelessness, yet our numbers increase last year a 12 countywide and the scale is daunting. Most average people in los angeles do not feel the progress being made. We cannot get to everyone on the street fast enough. How does the city and a county have oneany resources of the largest populations of any city in america . The answer is twofold. While we have made tremendous progress in a few short years to provide services and place almost neighbors and housing, this effort only began in a fewith youth short years ago and the homelessness crisis has been in been here for decades. Wrecking spite record housing numbers. The homelessness is a symptom of a larger macro issue in the region and across america. Our homelessness crisis is the Affordable Housing crisis. It has become the most extreme expression of poverty as the wealth divide grows deeper and more acute. Investing in this system alone will not solve the crisis. Currently, we must address and Affordable Housing options for people to exit two. Let me tell you about the citys response to homelessness. The city of los angeles homelessness budget amounts to hundred 62 million, 25 times the homelessness budget in 2015. Two thirds of spending going toward permanent housing, we housing bonds, 10,000 people over the course of 10 years. Active oriented the city focused on a response that can be broken down into three areas. Preventing homelessness, producing street homelessness, and preserving Affordable Housing. For the First Time Ever, the in skid row. Rategy he at of the crisis. I will touch on Homelessness Prevention first. It is a key part of our regional strategy. The citys largest and Poverty Program is where a of services are colocated at 16 centers citywide and the services from legal and financial counseling are delivered. We also have the rent stabilization ordinance, which requires the best way to prevent homelessness is to keep people in their current homes. So in addition, the city is scaling up a Defense Program rights, ands tenant legal representation if needed. I will touch on the street strategy and housing efforts. With three out of four People Living unsheltered in los angeles, our work to address health and safety issues in a cap meant have to be correlated with our field taste outrage outreach. Effortsinate these through unified homelessness response center. Wherea physical space they make realtime decisions of how to respond to the complex picture on the ground. While we work to mitigate issues of cleanliness, built them a goal is to get people off the streets for good. We leverage the army of outreach workers expanded to 800 countywide to get households into bridge and permanent housing. People live on the streets have enougho not indoor places for them to be. The city is standing up 26 new housing projects that will have over 2000 beds total. Here this is the biggest shelter Capital Program in the nation. To touch on our housing efforts, in order to meet the needs of our most honorable, the 1. 2 billion loan program has led to the city more than tripling its housing pipeline with 110 projects in over 174 units to People Living on the streets and other circumstances. Putting us on track to meet the goal to build 10,000 units of housing by 2026. We have created the citys first Inclusionary Zoning program which mandates inclusion of for paymentousing of a fee to capitalize our housing program. We have enhanced the land use incentives and measured jj jp or which will work in tandem with mixede resulting in more income development. We are strongly advocating for tenant rights in sacramento and supporting laws on the state level. It is an antirent gouging and rent cap law. We are firmly committed to innovation. City has a strategy for the First Time Ever in skin skid row. Mediumess the immediate term and longterm needs. That is just a snapshot of what we are doing to address homelessness. Rep. Waters thank you. , five minutes. Mr. Lynn i appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning. I would rather address you as madam chair than madam ranking member. Some of the trends that brought us here and some of the paths out of homelessness. You indicated last year there is a 12 increase in homelessness 59,000. County, nearly angelenos are homeless tonight. Reflecting the statewide crisis in homelessness of my colleagues in other continuums across the state, three cores of them showed an increase in homelessness this year and that increase was greater than the count we saw in los angeles largely due to the interventions you mentioned we put in service to house people out of homelessness in a way. It is a moment in time. In addition to the 59,000 people we counted, d5000 more people over the course of 2018 parent over the 127,000 experienced homelessness over the course of the year. Abouts into homelessness 150 people per day. We were able to house 133 people on a daily basis. That isd to driven by Housing Affordability. Los angeles is the most popular county america. Largest be the 10th state where we estate. We have the least Affordable Housing market in the United States by multiple measures. More than one third of l. A. Renters pay more than 50 of their income or rent. That is an extraordinary number of extremely low income people hanging on by their fingertips. They are one medical issue and one car repair away from homelessness on a daily basis. If we neglect to address the root crop because of Housing Affordability and we have a gap of thousand units affordability in the county of los angeles, we will not get ahead of this crisis the matter how effective our intervention i also want to indicate clearly we cannot address homelessness without simultaneously addressing structural and institutional racism in america. There is radical disproportionalitys in race and the just you should of people experiencing homelessness in los angeles and the United States. 39 of people who experienced homelessness here is are black against the county population of 8 africanamerican. The drivers for that are representing a multitude of things. I would like to call out in particular a history of racial segregation in federal policy that drove to keep housing segregation in this county through redlining and across the nation, federal policy instituted housing segregation and hud policy enforced it for the 20th century as american houses were Building Wealth through housing ownership. That was exclusively reserved for white households. African americans were blocked it left after american households with 1 10 of the wealth of white households in the country. It is a major driver for homelessness. There are no there is no fallback. In addition, our criminal incarceratedm over African Americans and African American communities. That Racial Disparity of conservation has led to severe overrepresentation in our criminal Justice System in the county of los angeles, it Percent People of color, it percent black people in the county of los angeles, 30 of the population are black. Those drivers need people with severe economic disparities and capacities within our Housing Market, job market, and every other aspect of our culture. Those have to be addressed if we will get to the root cause of addressing homelessness in the United States. Federal government has constrained over last three years, home funding being particularly notable as reductions of a significant reductions in the last three last few years. The fundamental formula in the core housing programs that address affordability, were not fair. Shortchanged. We in Los Angeles County have 11,000 units of Public Housing compared to new york city with 170,000 units. Not only is rent high and incomes low, we do not have the mechanisms that new york has. I want to thank you for the opportunity to address this panel. Rep. Waters thank you. Thank you. On the committee of Financial Services. The Housing Authority of the city of los angeles to provide a written testimony and speak today regarding this humanitarian crisis in los angeles. Hrnk you for introducing 1856 act of 2019. Special recognition to the congresswoman, Maxine Waters, for being a vocal champion for the community. Communities with the highest need, like los angeles. This is both the most effective eddie fisher use of federal funding. Assists as sugar given to clear it which local governments like like los angeles have adopted policies and ending at preventing homelessness. The community has taken steps to the plate. This commitment was further measure h in the county. While we believe local organizations play a part in the we need the federal government to be a partner in this effort. To pervert preserve Affordable Housing by using rental subsidies such as the section eight policy choice vouchers. Given priority to homeless veterans, homeless families, and permanent housing which has led to 19,500 subsidies being utilized to help formally homeless households. Of Homeless Individuals today would be greater. An additional 5000 projectbased vouchers for permanent support of housing. Within two years, half of them will be utilized in nearly 40 of resources to people experiencing homelessness. The 36,165 people experiencing homelessness in the city based on the 2019 count, there are 18,000 households on the voucher waitlist. Of 2017, 188,000 households registered for us for assistance. The number has been reduced to 20,000. Via lottery process per 51,000 foreholds on the weightless Public Housing. 250,000 households are looking for hope. Up with a demand without Additional Resources from the federal government. Thatneed more vouchers with appropriate funding levels in the los angeles area. To utilize 93 of the vouchers. Average rental payments have increased by 20 over the last four years. Continued increases in the rent market, the voucher holders have dropped or remains the same. The average annual income for is 15,000,icipants or 1412 per month. Published faird market rent for a onebedroom apartment in los angeles is 1384 per month. Costsality is the rental are high and income costs are low. Thus the 3 availability and rental units and finding a place to live has dropped to 53 for households this is heartbreaking for individuals who waited years on the waitlist for a voucher only to have it expire. Utilize theseto vouchers is having negative impacts on the agency. Federally provided administrative for each voucher. 10093 with less administrative dollars, further of theded when only 79 determined fee is required to properly administer the program are due to a probation factor. While the focus of 1856 is on ending homelessness, it is important to support a 41 housing for all who need it. As the piece homelessness problem will continue to grow if the number of people who are homeless grow faster than we can house them. Permanent Affordable Housing is important for people experiencing homelessness. Permanent Supportive Housing needs to be operated rapidly reaching its limits of final assistance and additional allocation from the federal government would make it feasible. Thank you. Rep. Waters thank you very much. , please gogviehland ahead. Ms. Kingviehland good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the homelessness crisis. I daresay the most critical humanitarian crisis facing the county of los angeles. The l. A. Cda is resolute in our mission to build better lives and better neighborhoods, as well as our commitment to and generational poverty and homelessness. Using a combination of local, state, and federal resources, the elderly, the disabled, transitioning out of foster care and transitioning to families experiencing homelessness. Publicondlargest Housing Agency in southern providing rental assistance for proximally 125,000 families. Magnitude of the homelessness crisis, we recognize the need to take a bold step in use all of the resources at our disposal to meet the crisis head on and dedicatesated 100 of our voucher to Health Homeless angelenos. We created a partnership with 18 other in the county to streamline access and leveraged local resources to develop creative resolutions. We created the Homeless Incentive Program to remove areas to access for voucher holders who were finding it next to impossible to use their voucher to secure unit. Have a allows us to engage property worth withnts funding for utility fees and room expenses. Toclient receives Access Management services to help with the transition and Ongoing Supportive Services if necessary. Approximately 18 million in the , these resources help over 1900 individuals and families come home. We leverage our partnerships to expand the program which now eightit under others in the county leading to an additional 825 individuals and emilys house the same time. Androvide Capital Funding renting assistance for the creation of new Affordable Housing. The county has provided 294 million in capital subsidies for housing,opment of leveraging a billion dollars in public funds, two thirds of which will serve special needs populations. This year alone, we will fund five times the number of units we funded five years ago. Buildizing that we cannot our way out of the crisis, several actions have been taken by the county to keep residents housed. The board of supervisors have a temporary ordinance in effect until december 2019. A source ofo passed income ordinance in april of this year borrowing barring owners solely based on their source of income like to rental subsidy. Despite these Creative Solutions and, while an unprecedented number of affordable and units are being funded, the inflow, due to a myriad of institutional and systemic issues, racial and social disparities, lack of Economic Growth and mobility continues to hinder our efforts. We look to help address the crisis. We look for support for vital federal programs, providing administrative flexibility, allowing for regional waivers, and redistributing of unused housing for voucher funding. In closing, the activities outlined in this testimony as well as more detailed written testimony are indicative of the forward thinking and collaborative approach that has fueled our fight. And it is a fight. To end homelessness. The solutions to the problems are complex. One thing is clear. We cannot do it without significant investment from all levels of government. The funding introduced by chairman waters is a example of the type of federal investment needed to combat this crisis. Mission resolute in our to build better lives and better neighborhoods. Thank you for the invitation to address this urgent matter. Thank you very much. Senator, youre recognized for five minutes to present your testimony. Than thank you for holding this hearing. It may be the most important hearing of our time. Of our main sources of providing a safety net to the citizen is to solve this problem. One of the things about homelessness policy is it is essentially a russia test of policy issues. If you are an Affordable Housing advocate, that is the driving force. Until health advocate, that is the driving force. Civil rights advocate, that is the driving force. The criminal Justice Reform advocate. The fact is, it is all of those things. I want the committee to resist the temptation to fund a single silver bullet. Our current Housing First model goes in that direction. First hasn housing taken away funding for transitional housing. 600 peoplese about per night right on the corner of sixth and skid row. We have had to transition from transitional housing operation to a shelter and bridge operation. It has taken away the funding for life and other skills that a homeless put individual into permanent housing, you have not necessarily given him the life skills to become a Good Neighbor. Argue and respectfully request the to look at the solution as we find Many Solutions as there are four types of people who have gone into homelessness and where do they come from, and that one size does not fit all. Some things, we also dont fund, family reunification and housing shared housing and remains. We fund of you know family foster care. We do not fund for someone to rent a room. , a model is to build a unit 250 squarefoot unit with a bathroom and a kitchen and tried the unit. Erson in sometimes people do not want to leave the community in the location where they are. Sometimes they dont like the rules that come from those things and put them temporarily where most of the clients frankly do not want to go into shelters. One thing we have to do is find a multitude of solutions and fund all of those. They do exist. Stiflesmodel innovation. The county has a flexible housing pool. The overwhelming majority of the projects that happen in the area are 250 squarefoot studio apartments. There are people who need different types of support. I want to emphasize this should. E a multimodal approach the other thing, as someone who operates right on skid row on the ground, we do need to address the law against those who prey on the homeless. [applause] mr. Murray right now on skid row, there are criminal gangs literally cry charging people for a place on the sidewalk. Do, and iwe have to understand our views on criminal are not necessarily aggressive on skid row, but we have to find a way to make this differentiation. We are leaving people on the street to be preyed upon. Need to do is we find humane but more aggressive servicedeal with resistance. There are people who are Service Resistance for a variety of reasons. Not all Mental Health or Substance Abuse. Sometimes, it is rational but we needey make, to be aggressive on that and i would finally like to say, the los angeles taxpayers should be rewarded for taxing themselves to help solve the homeless crisis. [applause] uh rray we appreciate the enthusiasm but would you please refrain from interrupting the presenters . Thank you. Go right ahead. Mr. Murray the taxpayers have voted to invest literally billions of dollars and the federal government should recognize and leverage the money to help us meet the problem and expect toroposition h build roughly 10,000 units of permanent Supportive Housing, and the fact is, before we get to 10,000, we will run out of funding. Rep. Waters thank you. , you are now recognized for five minutes. Mr. Ansell thank you very much. I am the director of the Los Angeles County homelessness initiative. Im invited to delighted to testify before you today regarding the countywide movement to prevent and combat homelessness, catalyzed by the board of supervisors in august of 2015. List of forward and accepted a mental of countywide leadership to combat this brexit this crisis. In the first six months, we brought together government and Community Experts in 18 policy a countywidenerate comprehensive plan to prevent and combat homelessness. Of 2015, 47 combat strategies were unanimous in approved by the house or to supervisors. The Los Angeles City Council Adopted the firstever Los Angeles City top ends homelessness strategy, a testament to the renewed collaboration between the city county of los angeles combating homelessness. The board of supervisors approved 100 million in counting fund county funding and at the same time, identify the need for ongoing funding because an ongoing problem cannot be effectively addressed with onetime funding. Los angeles county voters in an off year low turnout election approved manager h, one quarter percent special sales tax 355ating an estimated million annually for 10 years legally dedicated to preventing and combating homelessness. In the the voters that first five years of measure h, we would help 45,000 family members and individuals move from homelessness into Affordable Housing. Servicesrst 21 months, and rental subsidies from july 2017 to march 2019, we help 14,241 individuals and family members move from homelessness into permanent housing. We are on track to meet our goal of 45,000. In the same 21 months, measure h helped over 28,000 family in. Ers and individuals move as you heard, despite this extraordinary effort by an extreme nine movement, that has the number of family members and individuals moving from homelessness and into permanent housing, the number of people dispensing homelessness in Los Angeles County rose between january 2018 and january of 2019 by 12 . Has been noted, our neighboring counties in Southern California and the urban counties in the California Bay area, all experienced much , typicallyeases 20 40 increases over the same time. We would have experienced similarly large increases. The fundamental problem is in flow. As noted earlier in 2018, 133 family members and individuals move from homelessness into permanent housing. Every day, 150 people became homeless. People rence, 17 per day accessing homelessness, accounts for the increase in the homelessness population. Theamental reason for increases economic people are and a to pay the rent Housing Market governed by the laws of supply and demand where we have a severe shortage of Affordable Housing that rents are increasing in such a way that is both forcing people who are currently running out of their homes and making it impossible for low income households to secure new rental housing, which they can afford. Mentioned, wely are a paradoxical situation in Los Angeles County. Two days ago, the Los Angeles Times ran a headline that says communities across the United States look to los angeles and Los Angeles County as a beacon of Effective Practice in combating homelessness. After the city of new york, we have the largest Homeless Population in the United States. Is attributable to info. We are bailing more water out of the homeless boat than ever before. The hole in the bottom of the boat is so large, it is your water seeping into our boat. Hr856s an exempt devised the bold action we need from the federal government to part with 88 cities, counties of los angeles, part of thisers as countywide movement to bring our homeless neighbors home. Thank you very much. Thank you. let me introduce to you to of our members from the Los Angeles County delegation that have joined us. Napolitano and we have just been joined by congressman brad sherman. [applause] rep. Waters i now will recognize myself for five minutes. You,mr. Ng first back to ansell. You described well what was happening in the county of los angeles. Know moreke to information about measure h in 2017. It is important for everyone to understand we do have funding from the federal government from all of the United States of america. Get an allocation just as the city does. I was just looking up how much grantseceived from the we send out to all of our estate. H, is thatasure correct . Yes. Rep. Waters 100 million . H isnsell measure generating an estimated 355 million annually. Rep. Waters will you describe to us exactly how the 355 million is spent . Thank you for the general overview of what the needs are, but now you have started to apply the funding to various efforts of this. What are they . Thank you for the question. The measure h ordinance adopted in november of 2016 specified 21 specific strategies for which this funding can be utilized. In the spring of 2017, a group of 50 government and community to develops consensus recommendations to the board of supervisors regarding the utilization of that measure h funding across the 21 strategies for the first three years. The strategies for which most funding is being utilized include Homelessness Prevention for single adults and family members, disability benefits advocacy to assist homeless disabled adults, to secure supplemental income, and disability benefits. Rep. Waters i do understand the overall strategy. And what you say was adopted. Can you be more specific about any moneys that have been spent on the project like effort of some kind . Mr. Ansell certainly. The two largest categories of measure h expenditures are for permanent housing and interim housing. Rep. Waters have you developed permanent housing . Used ll we only utilize measure h for a very limited degree. Most of your money is on Supportive Services question mark, smite he have you spent on rental subsidies . Prior year,in the we spent over 100 million. Rep. Waters is that come from h . Mr. Ansell h. Over 100 million for rapid rehousing and permitted permanent housing. Rep. Waters how do you spend the housing money . Do you cooperate with the city of los angeles who may be building low income housing, permanent housing, do you coordinate with them in order to provide monday for Supportive Services . Give me an example of that. Mr. Ansell yes. The county has a memorandum of understanding where we are committed to provide intensive case Management Services for the tenants of 10,000 units of permanent Supportive Housing, in which the city of los angeless committee committed to creating including units funded through proposition triple h. H to pay fore services. The city funds capital. We use other county funding other than measure h for new Supportive Housing. With rental subsidies. Rep. Waters i think you said you do direct some of the measure h money toward capital . Mr. Ansell a very small portion. Rep. Waters most of it is Supportive Services and rental subsidies. You have spent exactly again, how much again on rental subsidies, who did it go to and what is your criteria for that . Mr. Ansell in the past fiscal year, over 100 billion for rental subsidies and services in two categories. For permanent Supportive Housing, we provide Ongoing Services and where necessary, we use measure h. Rep. Waters who qualifies for rental subsidies . Ansell we have a entry system as required by the federal government, which we used to match homeless families and these individuals for permanent housing resources. It is those persons who are the most formal and have the highest acuity under our assessment with timehousing limited services. Rep. Waters the chair rep recognizes represented al green from texas. Five minutes for questions. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you to the witnesses for appearing as well. Say im a person who supports your bill, the ending homelessness act. Heres why. The senator is imminently is bigger than any one single crisis. It is an Affordable Housing crisis, minimum wage crisis, Mental Health crisis, Substance Abuse crisis, incarceration crisis, and invidious discrimination crisis. Comparable to a disaster. Forsaster that is unnatural our natural disasters, we spent untold amount untold amounts of money. And dollars. Er 100 harvey, over 100 billion. Is 13. 3 billion and it takes a holistic approach to dealing with this unnatural disaster. Im grateful that you have the bill. I would like to ask the panel, are you familiar with still . Would you kindly extend your hand into the air . Do you believe that this will is a part of the solution to the crisis . If so, would you raise your hand, please . I would like to know now, i always like to build a record, what about the Lgbtq Community . Thee was not a mention of crisis with young people who happen to be lgbtq. Indicatingrmation that approximately 40 of the young people who are on the street homeless are a member of the Lgbtq Community. Is anyone have any of Digital Information to share on the topic . The data that we have locally would indicate the number is less than that but substantially greater than the population, the prevalence of you who do not identify youth who do not identify as male or female, nonbinary transgender youth and lgbt youth, represent about one quarter of the youth in our population. It is a tremendous overrepresentation against general population prevalence. I think they are at a particular vulnerability. There is a number of reasons they may not feel welcome at home or may not be safe. Fleeing violence is one of the main reasons for this population of particular to end up homeless. We have programs that specifically target that. I would like to call the attention of the committee to the equal access rule rollback i think that is expected to come out in september. This is a damaging proposal. Hud had moved the nation forward rights of thethe Transgender Community in our shelter inventory and required all communities to provide equal access. The rule is being rolled back and that will have devastating and lifethreatening andequences for trans youth trans adults nationally. Representative greene i have a staffer i will make sure visits with you this hearing. Let me move quickly to criminal records. Or all claims court judge Justice Court judge, i understand how people acquire criminal records for penalties that require a fine only. , not becauseo jail of the fine initially, but because they do not show up in court to pay the fine, that they do not have the funds to pay it with. Im curious, the number of people on the street simply because of the inability to pay a fine or because they were at some point charged with a failure to appear in court. Mr. Lynn we dont have data specifically on that statistic. Will say that of the single adults unsheltered in the population, the vast majority of people experiencing homelessness in los angeles, 60 3 have a history of incarceration in jail or prison. There is a very large overrepresentation of people who are homeless and have some degree of involvement in the criminal Justice System. The devastating consequences to any amount of incarceration, people lose time in their jobs, get fired, for not meeting those requirements. But i dont have the specific did on the number of people who are homeless representative green i am abusing the time now. You provide something more for me in writing . Ok. I will yield back. Thank you for the time. Rep. Waters the chair now record recognizes representative Sylvia Garcia from texas for five minutes from court for questioning. Representative garcia thank you so much for your leadership. Your efforts in making homelessness a top priority for our committee is significant not only for the city but across america. Holding one of our first hearings about the subject and making sure the committee passed the ending homelessness act as our it is monumental. Im here to listen and i appreciate from everyone their time here today and i appreciate the moving personal stories along with policy weeks ago i went to detroit and learned about how the ripples from the financial and foreclosure crisis are still pushing people out of their often illegally, 11 years after the great recession. They im learning about challenges that los angeles is facing over the last year with over 58,000 residents in Los Angeles County. By comparison in my area that number is less than 4000. This is a homeless problem that is much worse than what we face in houston, obviously, but i want to understand whats in the best crisis policy solutions. Worker and social now vice chair of the majority leader task force on urban toerty, i know that we need focus on supporting Wraparound Services at the local level to further fully address the immediate needs of people in the homeless cycle while also looking at what Structural Reforms as mentioned, that we can make in the nations economy to make sure that people are not driven down was this in the first place. The committee in the college as a whole need to look not only at the short term more importantly the longterm challenges ahead. Someat we can have National Policy options to make sure that every American City facing the crisis can deal with it. Its a civil rights issue. We must tackle it firsthand. Murray, i am a former state and while i have not had a chance to fully visit your city, i asked staff to drive me by the skid row everyone keeps talking about. I wanted to ask you a question wraparoundotion of services. What is the greatest need in the system today is that we need to make sure we put in place in your city but cities across america who face the same that los angeles does. Mr. Murray its a variety of things. Down on the ground we have shelter people who literally dont want any services and just want sustenance for the night and you are not going to convince them or its hard to convince them to take more. Then you have people that want to turn her life around. Some of them have Mental Health issues or Substance Abuse issues. The other factor is that if they are on the street for more than a year, more than likely they have developed some sort of trauma leading to a ptsd or other Mental Health services. I would say that if you are looking for a singular thing. Some will be life skills, some of the ptsd, sometimes you need some help just becoming a Good Neighbor so that you are more likely to thrive in your new housing places. Rep. Garcia are you familiar with the proposed rulemaking challenge from the further administration current administration, kicking out about 60,000 children across america out of Public Housing . My mixed status family bill . If you are familiar, what impact would it have on this city and county . Im familiar with the rules for mixed families and the immigration proposed rules. I can tell you what the impact would be. On the proposed sale for the mixed families, that would have impacted 11,000 individuals in the Public Housing and section eight programs. If in the proposed immigration impact 18,000. D these are two separate numbers potentially impacting more than 30,000 individuals. In the regulations put in place, how many would be children . Ms. Lares for mixed family, a couple thousand. For proposed immigration we are talking about 3000. Rep. Garcia this is the public charge rule . Ms. Lares yes. Rep. Garcia so it would have an impact . Ms. Lares absolutely. Rep. Waters the chair now represented it recognizes representative brad sherman who serves on the Financial Services committee for five minutes for questions. Representative sherman thank you. Its a combination of issues. Ofe are homeless because Substance Abuse, psychological problems and trauma. Some are mostly homeless because the rent is too dam high. [applause] rep. Sherman they cant afford it. Im going to focus on that second panel. Apartment. D be in an if we had to wichita rents. But we have was angeles rents. I would say that this group of Homeless People is just the tip of the iceberg. For every person sleeping in their car or sleeping in the who, there are 10 people can barely afford their rent. There are 10 people who have an unlawful retainer that they are worried about or had a payday lender trying to there are 10 people who are cutting back on their medications so that they can pay their rent. There are 10 people sleeping on their friends couch. We only see the folks that are absolutely homeless. But for so many people, the rent is too dam high. And its a problem that we face in a number of big cities, but particularly here in los angeles. And some of it relates to relatively unique factors here. One, we are the biggest city in the World Without a great separated rail system. Anytime you try to build something, the first reaction is not the person will be with me on the train. Its that that person will be with me in a car on the freeway. Wont let you who build or think that there Property Values will go down if the people near them are not richer. You have landuse planning for every city is told that if you attract an auto dealer, you get more money and it costs you almost nothing. If you accommodate housing on the same property, you get no extra money for your city budget because the property tax goes elsewhere. And it is going to cost you some money for police and fire. Here im going to focus on impact fees. You want to build an apartment . We need money to run the government. We should tax people based on their ability ability to pay. We have something that does, its called state income tax. Instead the part where you tax people on their ability to build , those costs are then passed through to the tenants. Had theer, l. A. Times headline that one reason housing was so expensive in california housing in cities was developer fees. Local impact fees impact whether a project gets built. Andif the law of supply demand, one of the few laws that congress cannot repeal is operative, if we can get more supply it affects not only the people who live in the new unit, but it will bring the supply demand cost down. Done to has los angeles mitigate impact fees as a barrier to development . Particularly the development of low income Affordable Housing . Thank you for your question. We are committed to removing regulatory barriers to building housing at a cheaper rate and keeping costs low. Particularly so they dont get passed on to tenants. If i can talk about three areas in which we are working to streamline the development of new housing here in the city of los angeles, the first thing i will start with is the mayors executive directive 13, a streamlined measure that puts the building for any Affordable Housing project essentially at the top of the line and it let me interrupt, i know that you are talking about streamlining. If somebody wants to build an Apartment Unit in the san fernando valley, how much of a fee is imposed per unit for them to be allowed to build the units . What is the impact fee . [inaudible] sir, i can give you that information in more details in terms of the exact breakdown, but through those streamlining measures rep. Sherman i rarely do this to somebody, but its not that these fees will be passed to the consumer, its that the building will be built and then everybody will pay a higher rent because the supply of units will be down while the demand is still up. You will try to tell us what the fee is. [unintelligible yelling] rep. Waters please, please, please from refrained from interrupting the questions and responses. I can say that we have in Affordable Housing linkage fee. It assures that the private market build equitably and guilt gives multifamily developers a choice, they can include low income units and their projects or they can pay a fee to the of portal Housing Trust fund used to capitalize further and create more housing. Rep. Waters thank you very much. The chair now recognizes representative judy chu for five minutes for questions. Representative chu thank you for holding this very, very important hearing, and also for withincredible leadership your important bill to combat homelessness. I would like to address a question to miss waters ms. Lares. We still see in Los Angeles County an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in l. A. County, 12 last year. In my area of the Saint Gabriel valley, homelessness rates rose even faster. But i do have some positive news about one city in my district, the city of pasadena, that saw a 20 decrease in the Homeless Count this year. They attribute much of this progress to the success of permanent Supportive Housing, they say that it provides stable housing to formerly Homeless Individuals and families, Offering Services like Employment Training and health care and that the model can really work as they have a near 100 retention rate amongst the residents. And of course, we have such incredible nonprofits like Union Station services for the homeless that provide so many Supportive Services for the homeless. So, you talked about permanent Supportive Housing. Why is this important . Roleow does it pay a major in combating homelessness and what can the federal government do to increase it . You are exactly correct. Pasadena has used its housing choice voucher programs for developments that provide permanent Supportive Housing, just as you described it. They have used every possible voucher available and my understanding is they are using the caps that our project based. What they have is the ability to increase the number of vouchers and increase the cap that goes along with it as well. That would certainly help all of our communities across the country. Thank you for that. Murray, i would like to ask you about homelessness and how the federal government could serve better. I work on the Family Support committee that has jurisdiction over foster youth and i am a member of the congressional caucus on foster youth and in a recent survey from the of 13 toion, 29 25yearolds experience homelessness and reported spending time in the Child Welfare system. In your experience providing services to individuals and families at the weingart center, how can the federal government improved support for foster youth so that they dont experienced homelessness . Once they have gotten to us they are already experiencing homelessness, but i think that one of the things we can do is fund more specific things directed to that age group. They both have specific transitional programs and in a previous life, as you may know, foster children and foster care was one of my big projects. Worse ifnk it gets you talk about transitional age youth whose transitional age youth who are lgbtq. They are particularly vulnerable on the streets. Just specific funding and specific Mental Health funding for their specific issues might help the problem. But we do have to bolster up, as we are talking about Public Policy matters which are not necessarily dealing with homeless but dealing with the path to homelessness, you really need to invest money on where do the aged out youth in foster care go . The overwhelming majority and i dont have the specifics on my fingertips either enter the homeless system or the criminal Justice System and to the extent that when we put a child in foster care and again, i spent some time in Dependency Court in my early career when we put a kid into foster care, we become their parent and we are doing a horrible job of that based upon the numbers at foster care. I think we ought to put some money into when they are getting ready to age out, some transitional money for them so that they dont experienced homelessness. Rep. Chu thank you. I yield back. Rep. Waters thank you very much. The chair now recognizes representative the net era get the representative from the 44th district for five minutes. Representative i am thankful for your leadership on holding the hearing and for your bill on ending the homelessness for your bill on ending homelessness act 2019. Im often listening to what is happening in the town hall, wire things getting worse, and why is it that the propositions we have passed in taxing ourselves, why does it feel like its not getting any better . Its a challenging question. About theard today progress being made. Be one of you can talk a little chairwomanst the bill will do. What kind of an impact will having the bill passed due to address the homeless crisis in the city and the county of los angeles . Miss miller, do you want to take this . Sure, thank you. I will start by saying that we have spent the last few years building a system to respond to the crisis on the streets and we are scaling it up as we speak. What the system has told us is that there are 31,000 people in the system right now who have been engaged by an outreach worker. So more than likely when your constituent seems see someone on the streets in an encampment, more than likely they have been touched by the system. Some outreach worker somewhere assistance to them. There needs have been assessed with our standardized assessment tool. They have gathered the documents needed to get into housing, whether it is income verification, drivers license, id, they are ready to go. The problem is the bottleneck of not having enough housing for them to exit the system. What we find similar in the shelter system are the people who are ready to go, they have parttime jobs, they are engaged in services, have the Mental Health support they need, but there is no permanent destination for them to land. No Affordable Housing resource for them. Rep. Barragan if you could just address what the chairwomans bill would do, the influx of 13 billion, how would that help what you are supposed to do . Ms. Miller the biggest cap we have right now is the rental subsidy, the ability to connect someone to an operating subsidy that they can apply to unit in the community and get them into housing. I think that the chairwomans bill would set aside resources for a ford will housing and that would be critical critical to getting that through in our system that we are lacking right now. Rep. Barragan thank you. One of the things we havent mentioned is how congressman waters has been leading not just on this issue but on the fight, on the cuts that have been proposed. This president s fiscal year 2020 budget requested to actually genetically cut housing benefits that help families that are low income seniors, that our people with disabilities. Families with children and veterans. Overall, the administrations proposed cuts to the hud programs have been an astonishing 9. 6 billion. That would be devastating. So, that is why it is so critically important we have hearings like this and that we have everybody make sure that they are participating and they are engaged so that we can help to fight act against these proposed cuts. Now, we hear proposal after proposal that will be cut back and would only negligently impact all the work that the people on this panel are doing. Mr. Lynn ms. Kingviehland, would you like to comment on what would happen, how the problem would get worse if we had this actual cut . Mr. Murray we talked about ms. Kingviehland we talked about the fact that we had units in the pipeline and how critically important they are, but without vouchers and rental subsidies, the units dont come on. So, it goes beyond a sort of discussion of impact fees and other costs relating to rep relating to rising housing costs. If we dont have the vouchers and subsidies to put the people into the units, the projects dont get ill. Thank you. An can you give us an update on where we are on that and when will we see people moving into the facilities . Absolutely. We would welcome you to join us on a movein day. Progressade a lot of with the new jordan downs and the housing there. We will be ready to move our first families into new units this fall. September, october. Right around the corner. Behind a game, we had intended to provide an invitation to help move in the families. Completing phase one and phase two, as you are well aware, we are replacing oneforone units and exceeding the amount currently. There are 700 four units at jordan downs. The new one will have 1400 units. Rep. Barragan great, thank you. I will i will yield back my time. Rep. Waters thank you very much. The chair powell recognizes representative jimmy gomez of the 34th district of california for five minutes of questions. Rep. Gomez madam chair, thank you so much for hosting this important hearing. Got elected to congress in july of 2017, 1 of the first elections after the president ial. I represent downtown, everything from the wealthy neighborhoods of hancock park to skid row and the Incorporated City to eagle rock. We see a variety of issues. One of the things i try to work on, since i was a student at ucla was this issue of housing. I recognized early on that we had no housing policy in the state of california. At the housing policy was sprawl , built out as far as the eye could see so that you could reduce the rent, and the pressure of the big cities. How do i know that . My family, living in orange county, we are forced out. The house that we lived in cap bulldozed and turned into a taco bell. Imagine that, at taco bell. When my parents went out to riverside, got a house there, bought it, it was relatively affordable. But the pressure valve, the release valve no longer really exists. Out in riverside and San Bernardino counties they are having higher rent increases percentagewise than here in l. A. County. It doesnt exist. This is a problem that Everybody Knows that was years in the making. Ofd row didnt come out nowhere. It was a strategic strategy by the city in the county to push and force people homeless into a specific area and provide the resources. We act like this thing came out of nowhere. Thatt is something decisionmakers over the years created. Like it or not. Everybody is responsible. What are we going to do now . Thats the question. There is no other state that has this kind of issue. I asked a friend of mine who was the director of Housing Community development for the governor, previously Governor Brown and now gavin newsom. He was at hud. He says theres no other place, no other state that has this type of problem. So i agree, we have a lot of problems and we have to look at it multinodal. I agree with that. We have to start thinking outside the box. Maybe it is time to break the wheel when it comes to the merrygoround of homelessness and housing and it keeps going over and over and over. , losingat we are losing ground. One of the issues that i wanted we heard some things. Mr. Ansell, you mentioned that the county provides the services and some rental assistance and that the city i take it you meant the city of l. A. Is responsible for capital development. Things i want to know is what are the other cities in l. A. County doing when it comes to providing more units . I know that not everybody is carrying their fair weight, their fair share. Mr. Ansell if i could clarify , both the cityt of los angeles and the county of los angeles are investing very heavily, both locally generated for thee Funding Development of permanent Supportive Housing. My specific comment previously propositionpect to triple h and other Los Angeles City funding for permanent Supportive Housing, how is the county collaborating . In that regard, yes, we are providing the support of services that go along with those new units. With respect to the other 87 cities in the county, we have seen that cities have a central role to play in this countywide effort and have reached out in an unprecedented way to cities across the county to engage their participation. The county has funded 40 cities in the county to develop city specific homelessness plans and has allocated a portion of funding to those cities to support implementation of those homelessness plans. The single biggest focus of the city homelessness plans and of the county funding provided by thecities is to support citys utilization of their landuse authority in a way that will result in the production of additional permanent supportive and Affordable Housing and other interim housing that can include, for example, feasibility studies of individual parcels, government owned parcels for example it could be used for housing or consultant assistance to help small cities modify landuse ordinances. For example, relative to Motel Conversion or permanent Supportive Housing for units. I would say that on the one hand we are engaged with smaller cities throughout the county in an unprecedented way and that this is an unprecedented level of interest among many cities in responding to this challenge. And in constructively addressing ,he homelessness crisis including increasing housing. On the other hand, we have a very long way to go in ensuring that cities throughout the county exercise their landuse authority in a way that maximizes the availability of housing. Is up, thati time the secret point, i know for a fact the state of california has given back to a lot of cities, former state properties that were supposed to be used for housing and they are not using it. That is a big problem. With that, i yield back. Rep. Waters thank you very much. The chernow recognizes representative napolitano from the 32nd district. 37th district. Thank you,tano madam chair. We know that there is a great amount of homelessness in Los Angeles County and you have recently changed strategies to address it more holistic way. Do you work with the cities or agencies . Everyone is doing their bit. Does everyone get together and talk as a group to say lets start a program . Chair of the Mental Health caucus in washington. Reason the thirdlargest for homelessness, Mental Health. Must include it in all programs so that it can take care of the problem before it gets worse. The city Approval Program is toinning to look at uniting find out how they can keep people in homes. If they have an accident, all the things that kevin talked about, they can pay for one or two months rent so that they can stay in their homes and not go homeless. We if someone needs help should be able to make a difference in keeping people in homes. Attractive places for the homeless to go to, the riverbeds near hospitals, we also spoke to the railroad, caltrans and others to find out the properties they have in excess that can be used to build for the homeless right near railroads, noisy, or freeway, pollution maybe. But at least they would have transitional housing. What can we do . What are you doing to do that . For the question. To your original question, yes, a great deal of efforts are happening from a regional perspective and the measure has served at helping to build an infrastructure, so we are working in partnership with our are working in partnership with our partners at the Homeless Initiative and at the county. We are implementing programs in a much more systematic way and i think that that has been helpful. As i mentioned earlier with Something Like a Homeless Incentive Program rep. Napolitano is that l. A. County alone . No, its countywide. 18 other authorities are operating within the region. One of the things that is great is we are working with them so that our Homeless Incentive Program looks the same for a client whether they come in their door are our door. The idea is that the program is seamless. The idea is to create a regional approach to attacking issues. Much of the Housing Development that we are doing, we have a lot of those projects in partnership with the city of l. A. And the city of pasadena, glendale, and other cities as well. We are taking a countywide approach to addressing the issues. Rep. Napolitano do you include communication to the city for what you are doing . My city, i know that some of them do and then others dont. I need to know what kind of information is going to the city to make them aware . They also have the homeless transitioning to them. Yes, congresswoman. Through the Homeless Initiative we have actively engaged cities throughout the region. We have convened to a homeless summits, the firstever in the history of the cities and we have a designated liaison for each of the cities and we invited all of the cities in the county to develop their own homelessness plans with funding from the county. Rep. Napolitano do you work with the cops . The council of government . Does the money flow to the cities question mark we provide funding to the cogs to coordinate the efforts in the cities and as i mentioned, we have approved funding to those cities that developed homelessness plans to support implementation of the plan. Rep. Napolitano i would like to know more about that, some information is coming back to me to not with that ability to understand that they are a part of it. Maybe theyre representative doesnt attend meetings, i dont know, but we need to make sure because the homeless situation is getting critical and its worse in the valley. Madam, i yield back. Rep. Waters thank you very much. First i would like to thank our first panel of witnesses for testimony today. We will now pause to set up the second panel for todays hearing. Thank you so very much for coming for your testimony. [applause] rep. Waters our second panel wattses mr. Tim watkins, Labor Community action community. Mr. Joe horiye, Western Region of them buys president local initiatives support corporation. Denison