With a cluster of trailers on a downtown parking lot, the city of Los Angeles is launching the first in a string of multimillion-dollar shelters designed to relieve hundreds of homeless people while sweeping away squalid street camps that threaten Mayor Eric Garcetti’s political legacy.
The $2.4-million shelter is set to open Monday for 45 homeless people in the El Pueblo historic district, part of the city’s A Bridge Home crisis housing project.
Officials hope to open 15 bridge housing facilities by mid-2019, with a boost from one-time state homeless aid that could bring the program’s budget to $75 million. Some 13 sites are in formal review, and others are in preliminary stages or may be funded separately.
“There’s no question that homes are the cure for homelessness,” Garcetti said at a news conference Wednesday. “But we can’t just wait for that day they’ll have a permanent apartment. We have to do something today.”
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