LA officials call for $20 billion in state funding to build housing, combat homeless crisis

Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, who also represents Skid Row, joined de Leon and Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez at the Skid Row Housing Trust Monday morning to urge the state to provide funding.

"We're here to fight for the dollars that are much needed. If you take a look around, close to 5,000 people in a few square blocks live on the streets. And here's why it's timely: during COVID, we learned a lot about communities getting left behind , but if you were homeless, not only did you get let behind, you got left our in the cold and the heat, you got left our with no resources, no COVID testing, vaccines are still problem, there's not a roof over your head, no food to eat or even clean water. That shouldn't happen in the fifth largest economy in the world," Santiago said.

"Right now you're standing at ground zero of the nation's homelessness crisis, Skid Row. Not ground zero for Los Angeles, not ground zero for California, but ground zero for the entire United States of America. In face, there are more unhoused Angelenos in my council district, Council District 14, than there are in the entire city of Chicago, the third most populated city in America," de Leon added Monday from the Skid Row Housing Trust. "It was designed intentionally to contain and some would say segregate the city's unhoused community. What we've learned is that homelessness, nor the factors that cause it, can be contained or segregated."