Vote Yes on Measure A to Strengthen Response to Homelessness in Los Angeles County

Los Angeles County’s recent efforts to reduce homelessness have yielded positive results, but because the problem has worsened faster than expected, we must act boldly to strengthen our response. Measure A will ensure more revenue goes to build affordable housing, allowing residents to avoid homelessness. 

In 2017, LA County voters approved Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax to fund services for people experiencing homelessness. These funds helped 23,000 unhoused people move into permanent housing in 2022. But that same year, more than 31,000 other people lost their homes, and more than 2,300 died on the streets. 

This crisis of homelessness and unaffordable housing in Los Angeles is not an accident. Decades of disinvestment in public housing, compounded by redlining and racist zoning, have led to this moment. Today, more than 75,000 county residents experience homelessness. Those who are Black are harder hit, making up only 9 percent of the county’s population but 31 percent of those without a place to live. 

Homelessness among American Indians/Alaskan Natives, Latinx, and senior citizens also has grown at an alarming pace. And of housed LA County residents, almost half are cost-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgage. 

Service providers and advocates have proposed Measure A as a bold new way to house LA’s most vulnerable people. It would replace the Measure H quarter-cent levy with a half-cent sales tax, and a dedicated portion would pay exclusively for tenant protections and construction of affordable housing. Measure A recognizes that poor and unhoused people need help, not criminalization. 

Unlike Measure H, which will soon sunset and whose latest annual expenditure plan allocates less than 13 percent of revenues for housing acquisition and permanent housing, Measure A would require spending at least 20 percent of its annual revenue on construction of new affordable housing, thus addressing the homelessness crisis at its root.  

Corporations have used the current rise in inflation as cover to hike their profits, leaving voters to struggle with their greedflation. Measure A helps voters by exempting groceries and necessities like diapers and menstruation products, as other sales taxes do. 

Opponents of Measure A will try to pit taxpayers against people who need affordable housing. But we are taxpayers, and we need affordable housing. Vote for Measure A to invest in housing for all of us toward a healthier, more inclusive, thriving community.