(Newswire.net — July 6, 2017) —California is one of those 13 states and it has one of the largest homeless population in the US. The number of homeless people in the Los Angeles County has grown 23%, according to the latest homeless count.
Voters have approved an increase in sales tax to reduce the number of the homeless, but this measure has not produced the expected results.
“The results of this year’s homeless count are staggering. Homelessness in LA County has grown at a shocking rate. Even as work is being done to get thousands of people off the street and into housing, more and more people are becoming homeless. It is clear that if we are going to end the homeless crisis, we need to stem the overwhelming tide of people falling into homelessness. In March, voters overwhelmingly approved Measure H—the largest investment in solutions to homelessness in our county’s history. These latest homeless count numbers only add to the importance of the work we will do in the next few months spending the Measure H funds,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement.
Activists who help homeless people say that the main cause of homelessness is a small number of available housing in parts of the city where the poverty rate is already high.
According to Tanya Tull, a homeless advocate who founded Partnering for Change, an organization that helps with stable housing for children and families, in cities such as Los Angeles, the rich are getting richer and the middle class is slowly disappearing.
In Venice, a residential, commercial and recreational beachfront neighborhood within the California city of Los Angeles, you can see both homeless camps and houses worth millions of dollars.
“Residents find homeless people defecating in their backyard,” William Hawkins, chairman of the Venice Homeless Committee and a resident, has told the Voice of America.
In its latest report, the LAHSA said there were 57,794 homeless people in the county during its survey in January, compared to 46,874 in 2016.
In the city, 34,189 were reported to have no permanent roof, up from 28,464 registered the year before, according to the report.