On Tuesday, May 16, the constituents from the LA charter spoke a the LA City Council public comment to push their hands on making drastic decisions that could improve the social lives of the constituents and residents of the city. Although in this last year, “shitty council” has been on streak of pushing for greater police budgets, red zones for homeless people, and an end to the tenant moratorium. The affirmations and support from the city council may sound well and dandy, but again the actual follow-through is not guaranteed.
First, constituents claim to be developing an accessible website for multilingual speakers to access sources and information on affordable housing, since as many commenters spoke of the necessity for most people since it has been hard to find and apply to affordable housing programs. The proposal wasn’t voted on, but it will be an on-going item in discussion. Since unlawful evictions and cash for keys offers increase in the LA central, pushing more tenants to either move out of the city or to fight for their housing through LATU; more crises will come to those who cannot afford the housing in LA, and are not able to access affordable housing. To learn more about what tenants lost and at risk to lose, read Here’s What LA Tenants Won and Lost This Winter.
Second, shelters were brought up, specifically street medics at city shelters. Requests were made for the reports of the state of the shelters, to understand the conditions; demographic info about who the shelter can serve, eligibility requirements, whether services are offered, number and percentage of occupied, vacant, and available beds number of people referred to the site, and the number of intakes scheduled for that day.
And thirdly, 41.18 was reaffirmed by the city council. There were mentions for the city to produce and preserve middle income housing and creating an investment plan to create interim housing.
City council is back on trial in the public forum, despite it all will see if new tensions and struggles for an improved state.