L.A. councilman calls for California State of Emergency on homelessness

LOS ANGELES - Saying he is "fed up" with the length of time it takes to build residences for homeless people, Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino called on Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday to declare a state of emergency on the issue.

Buscaino said a California state of emergency would give the state the ability to approve temporary shelters and permanent supportive housing without having to go through the process that has kept some housing from being built in his district in the last two or three years.

"Homelessness has no borders. Every city in this state is struggling with homelessness and can't fix the problem alone," Buscaino said. "We also need to be accelerating the building of both bridge homes and supportive housing across the entire state. A state of emergency will allow us to look at multi-jurisdictional collaborations."

Buscaino introduced a resolution Wednesday asking the full City Council to back the call for a state of emergency declaration. Seven council members, including Council President Herb Wesson, signed onto the resolution as co-filers.

Buscaino compared the state of homelessness in California, where more than 130,000 people are living on the streets, to a natural disaster. He said if an earthquake had hit the state and displaced as many people, swift action would have been taken.

"We know the governor, our mayor, mayors across the state are doing all they can to help solve the homelessness crisis in our state," Buscaino said. "In fact, the governor has been very generous with funding. However, if we have learned anything over the past few years here in our city, it's that time is just as important if not more important than money."

Some of the things that could be done under the declaration include bypassing permits and state regulations, such as California Environmental Quality Act restrictions, said Councilman John Lee, one of the resolution's co-signers.

"I've often said, we can remove CEQA for an 80,000-seat football stadium, yet we can't do it for housing,'' Lee said.

Building a hospital that helps homeless people who are severely mentally ill and drug-addicted could also be done more quickly under a state of emergency, Buscaino said, adding that the county is likely to surpass its homeless death toll of more than 900 people last year.

Buscaino said in his district, plans for a temporary shelter on a Caltrans-owned lot had to get approval from both Caltrans and the Federal Highway Trust Fund. It also took state legislative action, which took about a year. He said if it takes that long to get temporary shelters built, it may take longer to get permanent facilities erected.

"If we're going to call homelessness an emergency, we've got to treat it as such," Buscaino said.

According to county numbers, Los Angeles saw an uptick in its homeless population over the past year, rising 16% to more than 36,000 people. Los Angeles County saw a 12% increase, to a total of almost 59,000.