With Measure A, Los Angeles voters embrace a bigger response to homelessness

The pressing demand for progress on homelessness in Los Angeles moved both forward and back this week, with voters freeing up billions of dollars to address the issue locally as elected officials lose a vital ally in Washington.

The political shift in the White House has ramifications far beyond Los Angeles and homelessness, of course, but it does represent an obstacle. President Joe Biden had supported Mayor Karen Bass in her work to make LA a proving ground for humane strategies consistent with the values and politics of this liberal, Democratic city. And Kamala Harris, who administered the oath of office to Bass two years ago, would have been a reliable friend and ally had she secured the presidency.

That future went up in a wisp of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania smoke, but the election — in LA at least — also had good news for the mayor and homeless advocates. Even though the nation reelected former President Donald Trump, Los Angeles County was well on its way to approving a sales tax hike to pay for homeless services.

And not just any tax. This will be a big investment for a very long time. Measure A, which is leading in the ballots counted thus far, would end the county’s existing quarter-cent sales tax for homelessness that was scheduled to expire in 2027 and replace it with a half-cent tax that would begin immediately and continue in perpetuity. That new tax is expected to raise $1 billion a year, and since it has no sunset, that’s $1 billion a year forever — or at least until voters revoke it.

Bass was ebullient. “From day one,” she said late Wednesday, “we have been shattering the status quo when it comes to confronting the homelessness crisis. Now with Measure A, we will be able to provide more mental health care and more affordable housing.”

The money will be administered by the county, adhering to certain spending formulas contained within the measure itself. Officials have vowed to keep tight tabs on spending. According to the text of the measure, 61% of the money raised is slated to pay for homeless services — including money for mental health and addiction treatment — while 35.5% will go to the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency for affordable housing. 

The remaining balance, about 3%, will go to the county’s development authority to help produce housing. 

The county Board of Supervisors will review the funding allocations every five years and can make adjustments. The board also is charged with creating an executive committee to judge the programs being funded by the revenue; that committee will make recommendations to create new programs or eliminate ineffective approaches, again within guidelines. The measure specifically prohibits money from being spent to prosecute unhoused people.

“From day one, we have been shattering the status quo when it comes to confronting the homelessness crisis.”

karen bass, los angeles mayor

In the runup to the election, Bass promised to ride herd on the funding, staking her personal credibility on the measure. When I spoke with her last month, she stressed the importance of the oversight provisions, and she elsewhere emphasized her determination to guard the funds closely. 

“Money will be taken away from programs that do not deliver results,” she told reporters last month. “I want to make it clear that I mean business, and Measure A means business.”

As the measure’s passage became clear, Bass reiterated her commitment to watchdogging the spending that it unlocks, praising the package not just for the money it unlocks but also for providing “more accountability.”

Measure A’s expected approval was particularly notable because it defied some of the election trends — even in Los Angeles, where the same voters who approved taxes for homeless spending also favored Proposition 36, which increases punishments for various drug and theft crimes. And they elected a self-styled tough-on-crime prosecutor, Nathan Hochman, to replace progressive District Attorney George Gascón.

In that sense, Measure A’s success suggests that voters, even those who want criminals locked up for longer, remain committed to Bass’s approach to the problem of street homelessness, coaxing people from encampments rather than arresting them, providing interim housing and ultimately landing them in permanent places to live. Bass championed that cause as a candidate and has made it the central focus of her mayoralty, starting from her first day in office when she issued an emergency declaration.

In the two years since then, progress has been slow and difficult. Last year’s count of the region’s homeless offered the first bare glimmerings of hope that her work might be paying off, as the city and county each tallied reductions in the annual homeless count, though only by a fraction. There’s still some 75,000 people without housing in Los Angeles County, a gigantic pool of men, women and children in need — often desperate need — of help with their dismaying array of difficulties.

For supporters of Measure A, then, the worry was that pessimistic voters would see such a vast population and turn away, concluding that the government should not be trusted to spend more money on homeless services. 

Instead, a solid majority of Los Angeles voters, at least as measured in preliminary returns, supported it. 

If the measure represents a vote of confidence in Bass’s work so far, it also reflects a clever bit of construction by its backers. Under California law, a tax hike such as this would require the approval of two-thirds of the county’s voters if the supervisors had placed it on the ballot themselves. Instead, supporters of this measure created it as a citizens’ initiative, circulating petitions and placing it on the ballot in that form.

That meant that Measure A, unlike the sales tax it replaced, only required 50.1% of the votes to prevail. As of late Wednesday, the measure had the support of 56% of voters. That would not have met the two-thirds threshold if supervisors placed it on the ballot, but it was enough, this time, to win.