New data warns that 4,190 more people in the San Gabriel Valley could experience unsheltered homelessness when funding expires
Without current funding, unsheltered homelessness could rise 28% across LA County–more than 57,400 would lose services and housing.
EL MONTE, CA— New data shows that without voter-approved funding to address homelessness that’s set to expire, an estimated 4,190 more people experience unsheltered homelessness in the San Gabriel Valley, resulting in a 28% rise in unsheltered homelessness across LA County.
“San Gabriel Valley voters are faced with a very stark choice,” said David Diaz, Executive Director of Active San Gabriel Valley. “If Measure A does not pass, the ability of homeless service organizations to conduct outreach and connect with unhoused people on the street and move them into housing will collapse. Equally frightening, they will be unable to continue the services that are keeping more than 4,000 people stably housed today. The choice is clear: Approve Measure A so we can move people off the street, focus on prevention and implement strict new accountability, or the crisis on SGV streets will get much much worse.”
ActiveSGV has endorsed Measure A, the countywide citizen’s initiative, on the November 5 ballot to replace Measure H and protect funding for life-saving housing and services.
Data from the LA County Homeless Initiative projects that within a year of Measure H’s expiration and the loss of the programs it funds, more than 57,400 people may become unsheltered.
“People aren’t broken, systems are broken–and we must do all we can to prevent more of our neighbors from being forced to sleep outside,” says Shawn Morrissey, Vice President of Advocacy & Community Engagement for Union Station Homeless Services, the largest provider of services that end homelessness in the San Gabriel Valley. Morrissey is formerly unhoused and heads up the agency’s Lived Expertise Advisory Panel, a group of civic-minded advocates with firsthand experience being homeless.
Union Station is one of the many organizations ending homelessness for thousands of people through current programs that would end when funding expires.
Union Station practices a Housing First model of trauma-informed care grounded in harm reduction. This time-tested approach is why they boast a 97% success rate in transitioning people who come through their doors out of homelessness and into stable housing.
An assessment of the number of people served by current programs shows what would be lost within each region of Los Angeles County.
Source: County of Los Angeles Homeless Initiative, “Measuring Measure H’s Impact Fact Sheet,” September 2024
In addition to supporting organizations like Union Station, Measure A includes new funding for prevention, affordable housing, and increased accountability. It would raise an estimated $1.1 billion per year to create more affordable housing, provide mental health care, and fund homelessness prevention programs through a half-cent sales tax that repeals and permanently replaces the quarter-cent tax of Measure H.
“Measure A will take a proactive, preventive, regional, results-driven approach that could help us solve homelessness for good,” said Diaz.
