More than two years ago, a group calling itself the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and consisting largely of downtown Los Angeles business owners and residents filed a lawsuit against the city and county over their handling of homelessness. The group argued that officials had perpetuated and failed to address unsafe and inhumane conditions in homeless encampments on public sidewalks — endangering unhoused people and causing a public nuisance for everyone else.
This month, the city and the L.A. Alliance forged a proposed settlement that settles little about homelessness. Anyone expecting a road map out of homelessness with this settlement will find instead mystifying directives about whom to house and a plan that reinforces a balkanized, council-district-by-council-district approach to housing homeless people. The settlement also lays out a list of the county’s responsibilities, which is odd since the county isn’t party to the settlement. The county walked away from settlement talks weeks ago and said it would fight the suit in court.
The tentative terms of the settlement are not good. They leave too many homeless people out of the equation, don’t specify what proportion of housing should be interim vs. permanent and set the city on a path to enforce the anti-camping ordinance citywide before there is enough housing and shelter. These terms could, and we believe should, be modified before the City Council approves the settlement, which it is expected to do.
