Homelessness In Los Angeles 2017: Residents Vote On Sales Tax Increase To Fund Millions In Better Services

Angelenos were set to vote Tuesday on whether to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund the city's fight against homelessness on behalf of the nearly 47,000 homeless people living in the California county.

The proposal, titled the Los Angeles County Plan To Prevent and Combat Homelessness, was estimated to provide $355 million a year to efforts to combat homelessness for the next decade, according to a Monday CBS report.

Phil Ansell, director of the county’s homeless initiative, told reporters shoppers in Los Angeles would hardly notice the extra sales tax, but it could have a tremendous impact on homeless services. Ansell added that paying the tax would be monetarily equivalent to spending “one dime on the purchase of a $40 sweater or $1 on the purchase of a $400 television.”

The homeless services funded by the potential sales tax increase would include helping those living on the streets locate homeless shelters where they can receive job support and medical attention. In addition to supporting homeless people as they transition into planned affordable housing, the tax would fund efforts to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place by providing housing subsidies and rental assistance for those at risk.

The number of people in living in their cars or in tented makeshift camps across the city has more than doubled since 2013. It accounted for almost 75 percent of all homeless people in Los Angeles in 2016.

The city’s board of supervisors declared homelessness a countywide emergency in June 2016 to direct more funding to the problem. City lawmakers chose the additional sales tax in Tuesday's bill, known as Measure H, over funding alternatives that included a millionaire’s tax, a parcel tax and a special tax on marijuana.

Two-thirds of the vote will be needed for the measure to pass.

Los Angeles has the second largest amount of homeless people in the country after New York City, which had roughly 75,523 in 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported in November.

In the Big Apple, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan Feb. 28 to open 90 new homeless shelters across the city’s five boroughs. The Democratic mayor’s proposal called for $300 million to be allocated from the city’s budget to increase the number of shelters by approximately 30 percent, the New York Times reported Feb. 28.