Temporary Trailers Will House Homeless in Downtown L.A.

Last week, Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar introduced a motion to create temporary housing for the homeless in five trailers on a downtown lot owned by the city.

From the Los Angeles Times:

If approved by the City Council, the initiative to provide temporary shelter would mark a new strategy for the city, which has focused primarily on encouraging the construction of permanent housing through $1.2 billion in voter-approved bonds.

Mayor Eric Garcetti has recently given "some hints" about the change in policy.

In an interview last week on KNX-AM, Garcetti challenged City Council members to find places in their districts for more temporary housing, saying the city needs sites for 'not just permanent housing, but for shorter-term shelter, pop-up shelters, pop-up housing, with those dollars that we have.'

In the recent past, the city has made a number of other efforts to address housing as its homeless population rose for a number of years, and then leapt a full 23 percent in 2017.

The most recent initiative to address homelessness is a proposed ordinance that would make it easier to convert hotels and motels into transitional housing.