Opinion: Councilwoman Perry on Project 50 and supportive housing for L.A’s homeless

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Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry sent us the following response to The Times’ recent Project 50 series and Dennis P. Culhane’s Aug. 13 Blowback:

While both Christopher Goffard’s series on Project 50 and Professor Culhane’s piece correctly concluded that permanent supportive housing is the solution to chronic homelessness, readers may be left with the erroneous assumption that, prior to Project 50, there had been no permanent supportive housing in L.A.

The city of L.A. did not suddenly discover permanent supportive housing with Project 50. In fact, the housing was available for Project 50 because the city had already funded construction and provided rent subsidies.

Since 1984, the city of Los Angeles and mission-driven supportive housing developers have produced thousands of units of permanent supportive housing. Despite this, homelessness remains intractable because L.A. County, which controls essential funding for physical and mental health services, has not implemented Project 50’s potentially transformative lesson: The county must fund services in all current and future permanent supportive housing projects so the chronically homeless can live with dignity and remain housed.

Jan Perry
Council President Pro Tempore
9th District, City of Los Angeles