11,829 People Have No Home In Western L A County
Written by 991KBU on June 5, 2019
A staggering increase in the homeless population has hit California … Los Angeles … and in particular … the westside … including Malibu.
The recent homeless census found 58,936 people in L A County do not have a place to live.
On the westside … including Malibu … 11,829 people are living on the streets … sleeping in RVs parked along the highway … or camping in canyons.
On the westside … including Malibu … 845 homeless people are in shelters.
Homelessness is up 12% countywide … 16 percent in downtown Los Angeles … and up 15 percent on the westside.
A thousand homeless children in the westside.
Nearly 200 college age kids are homeless.
The annual report says Los Angeles is least affordable housing market in the United States.
L A needs more than one half million affordable housing units. Three quarters of a million Los Angeles residents are severely rent burdened.
As bad as the trend is in Los Angeles … the trends are worse elsewhere in the state.
Orange County … up 43 percent.
Alameda County … in the Bay Area .. up 43 percent.
And Kern County … the Bakersfield area … up 50 percent.
More veterans being housed … but families in homelessness up.
And 71 percent of the homeless people are nit mentally ill or addicted to something.
In Malibu … anti B and Breakfast advocate Bruce Lustig said vacation rentals in Malibu … Santa Monica and L A are partly to blame.
40,000 units of long term housing units removed from inventory to become Sshort term rental units.
Lustig says short term rentals are exacerbating the already permanent affordable housing shortage.
Shameful … he says.
