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The head of Los Angeles County’s Homeless Initiative, which has coordinated the response to the homelessness disaster and managed the disbursement of a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} in taxpayer funds, is stepping down.
Phil Ansell will not be a family identify, however he has performed an outsized position within the design and implementation of the Measure H gross sales tax, which was handed by voters in 2017 and has funded a mess of providers to assist homeless individuals go away the streets.
This new income has allowed for the homeless providers system in Los Angeles to develop dramatically, even because the variety of individuals residing on the streets and in shelters continues to extend. The cash has been used for things like hiring extra outreach employees and funding providers at everlasting supportive housing models, and beginning applications that assist clear the prison information of homeless individuals.
Ansell spent greater than twenty years rising by way of the ranks of the county’s Department of Public Social Services earlier than taking the helm of the Homeless Initiative in 2015. He will retire March 31.
“Over the last five years, we have doubled the number of people housed each year through the homeless services system, dramatically enhanced and expanded interim housing, and defined the shortage of affordable housing and corresponding unaffordable rents as the central cause of our homelessness crisis,” Ansell wrote in an e mail to colleagues, obtained by the Times.
Despite these successes, the variety of individuals residing on the streets and in shelters has constantly grown. Last yr’s point-in-time depend, which occurred earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic started in earnest, estimated the county’s homeless inhabitants at 66,433, up almost 13% from the earlier yr.
The pandemic has most likely elevated these numbers and put many individuals residing on the streets and in shelters in peril of dying from the virus. Ansell oversaw the county’s push to hire resorts to accommodate medically weak homeless individuals by way of Project Roomkey. As that program started to wind down, he helped lead an effort to make use of cash from the state to buy resorts and different properties to accommodate homeless individuals completely.
In an interview Monday, Ansell mentioned Measure H funding, which was projected at $355 million a yr however has taken successful because of the pandemic, will not be enough to deal with the wants of the native homeless inhabitants.
He cited a report from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which discovered that the area would require $500 million a yr, on high of what’s already being spent, to fund an “optimal homeless services system.”
Still, as the primary director of the county Homeless Initiative, he seemed again with satisfaction at how he and others marshaled help for a tax that may add funding to assist Los Angeles’ most weak.
“It was inconceivable when we started in August 2015 that a measure like Measure H would’ve generated sufficient support to be approved by the electorate by two-thirds vote in an off-year election,” mentioned Ansell, who can be 61 when he retires.
“I think what we’ve done as a community — as a movement — to utilize the resources of Measure H, has been outstanding,” he added.
Richard Corral, a homeless advocate who has opposed how the Measure H cash has been spent, notably criticizing allocations to cities within the San Gabriel Valley as insufficient, mentioned he welcomed Ansell’s departure.
Corral credited Ansell with creating “a strong foundation on which to build,” whereas holding him accountable for flaws in “agenda-setting and solution-making.”
Noting that leaders even have stepped down at L.A. City’s Housing and Community Investment Department and LAHSA up to now yr, Corral mentioned it was time for a contemporary begin on the Homeless Initiative, too.
But a number of colleagues, together with elected officers, echoed Ansell’s personal evaluation: that regardless of the continued will increase in homelessness in Los Angeles, the county could be worse off if not for the work of the Homeless Initiative.
“Under [Ansell’s] leadership we passed Measure H and launched the Homeless Initiative — finally meeting the worst homelessness crisis in history with historic levels of funding and resources,” mentioned Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn in a written assertion. “Because of his efforts, tens of thousands of people are off the streets.”
LAHSA Executive Director Heidi Marston labored carefully with Ansell to supervise the growth of the county’s homeless providers system.
“L.A. County and our homeless response system would not be where they are today without the tireless commitment of Phil Ansell,” she mentioned.
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