Councilmember Englander and The Department of Recreation and Parks invite you to join us on Friday, November 16th at 4:00PM at the Granada Hills Charter High School to assist in the naming of a new park in Porter Ranch!
The park, located at 11900 MASON AVENUE, is planned to offer outdoor pavilion, splash pad, courts, hiking trail, and great views of Los Angeles.
Mayor Garcetti’s temporary homeless housing initiative – called A Bridge Home – has begun rolling out across LA, with the first site already open in the historic city center district near El Pueblo.
Many Neighborhood Councils have been fielding questions and concerns from their stakeholders about the impact this program will have on their community. The Mayor’s office has created the following FAQ, to answer the most commonly-asked questions about A Bridge Home.
Please feel free to share this information with your neighbors. If you’d like to download or share a printable version of this FAQ, here’s the link to do so: http://tiny.cc/BridgeHomeFAQ
FAQ in Spanish: https://www.lamayor.org/bridge-home-spanish
FAQ in Korean: https://www.lamayor.org/bridge-home-korean
To learn more about A Bridge Home, please visit LAMayor.org/bridge-home
FAQ: ANSWERS ABOUT BRIDGE HOUSING FROM THE MAYOR’S OFFICE
Why was my neighborhood selected for bridge housing?
If we’re going to end homelessness, we need to create solutions in every community — which is why the Mayor’s budget funds temporary emergency housing in all 15 Council Districts. Each temporary emergency housing site will be selected based on its proximity to dense homeless encampments. These sites are specifically designed to serve the homeless population that already lives in your community, and will help clean up encampments in your neighborhood. Every Council District that builds temporary emergency housing will receive additional sanitation and LAPD HOPE Team funds to restore spaces that were previously encampment sites into safe, clean, public passageways.
Who is going to live in the new housing?
The City is deploying teams of outreach workers to engage homeless Angelenos who live around the A Bridge Home site to ensure that people moving into the temporary emergency housing are already residents of the neighborhood. The only qualification for people to move in is their proximity to the site. Each site is specifically designed to support the needs of the population nearby — whether they are women, men, or senior citizens. Everyone will have their housing needs assessed as they come on-site, and their case manager will work with them to move them into a more permanent solution.
Will A Bridge Home bring homeless people into my neighborhood?
No. This temporary emergency housing is designed specifically to serve people who live in encampments in the community surrounding the site, who will be pre- identified during a period of outreach. The City is bringing in additional sanitation and enforcement services to ensure that the streets surrounding the sites remain safe and clean.
How are you deciding where to put the bridge housing?
The City is primarily looking at lots it already owns — that are at least 20,000 square feet in size and located near dense homeless encampments. But before a site is officially chosen, it is assessed by engineers to ensure that it’s an appropriate place to put temporary housing, and that it’s equipped with the necessary water, power, and sewage connections.
What will the sites look like?
Each council district is committed to creating a site that reflects the spirit and aesthetic of the neighborhood where it stands. They will be designed to incorporate the input of service providers, to
optimize access to services and create a comfortable community space that helps clients stabilize and get back on their feet. The structures themselves will be trailers or platformed spaces covered in canvas.
How long will they be open?
Three years.
What are the hours of operation for A Bridge Home sites?
The sites are operated 24 hours a day; 7 days a week, with staff and security on site at all times.
How long do you expect people to stay in the bridge housing?
Our goal is to move people out of the shelters and into more permanent housing as quickly as possible — meaning that beds could turn over as many as four times in a year. But how long someone stays in the temporary emergency housing is based on their need. The sites will be staffed with housing navigators, mental health professionals, and anti-addiction specialists who will help clients get back on their feet as quickly as possible.
Will our neighborhood be less safe with this bridge housing?
No. All of the sites will be fully staffed with 24/7 on-site security, and City staff will closely monitor each site to help ensure safety and cleanliness. Our County partners are ramping up the deployment of outreach workers and supportive services to local homeless residents, to help them transition into the temporary emergency housing, and later into permanent homes. With the City’s additional funding for sanitation services, existing encampments will be converted into clean, safe public spaces for all residents to enjoy.
Are you going to have services on site?
Yes! The City and County have partnered to fund services for all residents of A Bridge Home sites that will help people move out of the temporary emergency housing and into permanent housing as quickly as possible. Each resident will have a case manager, as well as mental health, housing, and substance abuse support — not to mention three meals a day, storage, showers, restrooms, a place for pets, and 24/7 security.
Are residents of A Bridge Home sites required to be sober?
No. Entry to the site is determined by how close someone’s tent is to the site — not whether they’re sober. However, each site will be fully equipped with mental health and anti-addiction specialists who will help new residents start on the path to sobriety.
How are you going to make sure the encampments don’t come back?
The City is committed to making sure that the streets surrounding new A Bridge Home sites stay safe and clean. Homeless Angelenos will still be able to put up their tents between the hours of 9pm and 6am, but during the daytime, the City is establishing special enforcement zones to ensure that tents are taken down.
Are you criminalizing homelessness?
This effort is in no way intended to criminalize people who live on the streets. We cannot — and will not — arrest our way out of the homelessness crisis. People in desperate need of help should not be punished for their circumstances. The City’s priority is bringing people indoors — not issuing citations. However, if homeless residents choose not to take down their tents during the daytime, and receive citations as a result, the Mayor’s Office will connect them with the HEART program, which gives homeless Angelenos the option of doing community service or participating in substance abuse counseling in lieu of paying fines.
This doesn’t sound like a permanent solution. What about everyone who doesn’t get into A Bridge Home site?
Thanks to the voters of L.A., the City is getting to work building thousands of units of supportive housing for our most vulnerable homeless neighbors over the next decade. But people who are living on the streets tonight can’t wait for new housing to come online. They need help now. That’s why A Bridge Home is helping connect people to permanent solutions today.
How else can I help my homeless neighbors?
No one can do everything to solve homelessness, but everyone can do something. The most important thing you can do is say “yes” to supportive housing and bridge housing in your community, and help educate your neighbors about the critical importance of this work. You can also learn more about how you can help at LAMayor.org/HelpHomelessAngelenos
Monday is the deadline to register to vote in California, and here are just some of the ways the Nov 6. Election will affect you: it will determine whether you have to change your clocks twice a year and set your alarm earlier, how much you pay at the gas pump, and whether or not your city can enact rent control. It’s also going to determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives. California voters will have a major say in the matter because this year, the Golden State holds the key to the House.
You can register to vote here before the Monday deadline at 11:59:59 p.m. — it only takes a minute. If you aren’t sure if you’re registered at your current address, you can check the status of your voter registration here.
By 2021, all L.A. restaurants will phase out single-use plastic straws with NEW straws-upon-request policy.
Our ceo @drshelleyluce speaks about today’s BIG announcement! All L.A. restaurants will phase out single-use plastic straws by 2021 with NEW straws-upon-request policy! pic.twitter.com/Z9QYeLLtqP
— Heal the Bay (@HealTheBay) October 16, 2018
A Personal Statement from CD12 Councilmember Mitchell Englander
Dear [constituent],
Serving on the Los Angeles City Council has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire life and has gone way beyond a career. I truly love what I do and who I work with.
Recently, I was presented with an amazing opportunity in the private sector to work with some of the most brilliant and well-respected leaders in their industry. While I didn’t seek this out – sometimes tremendous opportunities find you.
Second only to my marriage to Jayne of 25 years and the pride of raising my two daughters, Lindsey and Lauren, serving as Councilmember for the area I grew up in will forever be one of my life’s most significant and gratifying experiences. Given the joy I have received in serving the people of the 12th Council District, it is with great difficulty that I am announcing that I am vacating my Council seat as of December 31, 2018.
Together, we’ve weathered horrific emergencies and tragedies from fires, to train collisions, the largest gas blow-out in U.S. history, and more. Throughout these crises, our community always came together – never running away from, but always toward danger in order to help each other. We became even stronger.
We have accomplished so much together to improve our community and the lives of all residents for generations to come. Together, we have rebuilt parks and opened new ones. In fact, it was just last week that we broke ground on our new Bloom Park in Porter Ranch. We have opened new pools, established at-risk-youth facilities, expanded hospitals, fought to protect our neighborhoods from overdevelopment, protected horse-keeping, created a first-of-its-kind rescue mission shelter for homeless families, opened new veterans’ housing, completed massive community improvements and created new programs like Making Movies that Matter, Clean Streets – Clean Starts, Neighborhoods FIRST, E12 Student Leadership Academy, the City’s first ever Great Street, and so much more.
As Chair of the Public Safety Committee, I am so proud to have helped transform the Los Angeles Fire Department with the implementation of FireSTAT, which has improved response times, saving countless lives every day. We created new programs like our LAFD Fast Paramedic Response and Nurse Practitioner Unit (NPU), which completely revolutionized our fire department now and forever. We were also the largest police department to fully deploy on-body cameras to make sure we remain accountable to the public and to ensure our officers are even more protected. We have also eliminated our backlog for processing rape kits, a priority I set as mission critical.
This is only a fraction of what we have achieved together. The greatest gift has been working with the incredibly engaged and passionate people throughout the 12th District. My family and I are truly honored to have worked with thousands of volunteers who give selflessly to improve our neighborhoods and have forged lifelong relationships with so many.
I am also incredibly blessed to have worked with my fellow elected officials. While we didn’t always agree, I genuinely believe that each one of them has brought their own lifelong experiences to the table and will continue to fight hard for what they believe in. We’ve always shared a common goal – to leave the City and our community better than we found it. I will forever treasure the relationships I’ve shared with my colleagues and so many City staff over the last 15 years.
The most difficult part of this decision will be leaving my team that serves the 12th District every day. The staff of CD12 has been much more than just staff to my family and me. I consider each and every one of them family. I have been incredibly blessed with the best team in the entire City of Los Angeles. Their tremendous work on behalf of our constituents is unmatched, and their never-ending creative ideas and massive achievements are extraordinary. We have also been there for each other for so many milestones in our personal lives – celebrating weddings, funerals and newborns and so much more. My CD12 family will always be part of my family!
If I ever dreamed of fulfillment beyond what being a Councilmember has brought me, it would be to make a significant difference in many more lives and communities. This new endeavor will give me just that. The remarkable people I am joining are not only passionate about their work, they care deeply about improving lives in every community they work in – and they do. They have helped completely turn neighborhoods around, created tens of thousands of good paying jobs, invested significantly in community programs that make a difference, all while creating memories and bringing joy to millions of people throughout the world.
I will be staying on in my position as Councilmember until the end of this year and will remain laser-focused on continuing to represent my district as I have always done. My family and I will also remain deeply involved in all of our non-profit partnerships and volunteer programs for years to come.
It is with tremendous gratitude that my family and I thank you for giving us this opportunity to accomplish so much together over the past decade.
With sincere appreciation,
LOS ANGELES (September 26, 2018) – Recognizing that a large segment of the city’s population is unable to benefit from solar power, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners voted September 25 to launch a new community solar program to improve solar equity for renters and to expand geographic diversity of solar projects in Los Angeles.
The pilot Shared Solar Program stems from LADWP’s Equity Metrics Data Initiative, which identified the need to expand the benefits of solar to renters as well as improve the geographic solar diversity in Los Angeles, bringing clean energy to more vulnerable communities.
The program will bring the economic and environmental benefits of this clean sustainable resource to customers who live in multifamily buildings and cannot participate in traditional solar programs. To broaden the geographic equity of local solar projects, the solar power will come in part from new projects built by LADWP in areas identified as having a lack of installed solar. These include economically disadvantaged communities as well as those designated by the city as “Clean Up Green Up” neighborhoods—Pacoima-Sun Valley in the East San Fernando Valley, Boyle Heights near downtown, and Wilmington in the Harbor area. If green-lighted by the City Council, LADWP expects to launch the program in January 2019.
“Every Angeleno should have access to clean energy, and you shouldn’t have to be a homeowner to be part of L.A.’s sustainable future,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “The Shared Solar Program will make that possible for more people in our communities — and progress today will keep us on the path to a tomorrow powered by 100 percent renewable energy.”
“The shared solar program gives my constituents in the Sixth District the right to access clean energy,” said Councilwoman Nury Martinez, Chair of the City Council’s Energy, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice Committee. “There should not be economic barriers to saving our environment. This program makes solar power affordable and also creates good, clean energy jobs that our community need most.”
Under the pilot program, participating customers will be able to purchase blocks of solar power—up to 100 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month—at a 10-year fixed rate, enabling customers to better manage their electricity bill. LADWP has committed to providing up to 10 megawatts (MW) of solar power under the pilot program. LADWP will build new local solar on rooftops of LADWP and City-owned buildings, parking lots, and other structures. Part of the solar power for the program will also come from a large-scale 90 MW solar project due to be completed in 2019 in the Mojave Desert.
“Los Angeles is already America’s No. 1 Shining City, and now thousands more Angelenos will be able to enjoy the benefits of solar power,” said Mel Levine, President of the LADWP Board of Water and Power Commissioners. “At the same time, the program will help us achieve the Sustainable City pLAn local solar goals and our aggressive renewable energy targets.”
Expanding community solar has been an important component of Mayor Garcetti’s Sustainable City pLAn. Shared Solar is another example of LADWP’s commitment to delivering on the goals of that plan.
“We are absolutely committed to reducing economic barriers to solar power in Los Angeles, and so we are initially giving priority to customers who rent and live in areas that have not benefited from solar through other LADWP solar programs,” LADWP General Manager David H. Wright said.
Wright said the Board’s action today is just a first step. “The program’s end goal is to carve out a reduced rate for Shared Solar to make it affordable for income-qualified and disadvantaged customers,” he said. Toward that end, LADWP is working with community partners to obtain external funding, such as grants, to offset the cost of a discounted low-income rate. The Shared Solar program was crafted to be revenue neutral for non-participants, so that the proposed rate covers the cost of procuring, building, operating, and maintaining the solar projects along with program administration.
“What we won today is one of the nation’s first community solar programs that prioritizes reducing inequities while setting the course for a meaningful transition to renewables,” said Allison Mannos, Director of the RePowerLA Campaign at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). “Since 2014, Repower LA has organized for a new clean energy future at LADWP that benefits low-income ratepayers and could grow over time.”
Shared Solar is part of LADWP’s umbrella of Community Solar Programs. LADWP launched the first Community Solar Program in February 2017—the pilot Solar Rooftop Program (SRP)—which also prioritizes customers who reside in areas of low solar penetration. Under this program, customers receive a fixed payment from LADWP to lease their roof space for a solar system that LADWP installs at no cost to the homeowner. Participating customers receive an annual $360 check for the year for 20 years. Currently, 43 homes have been approved for the Solar Rooftop Program, representing about a total of 110 kilowatts of new clean solar energy for customers who couldn’t install solar on their own.
LADWP is also developing a pilot Virtual Net Energy Metering Program (VNEM) as part of community solar. A VNEM program enables customers in multifamily housing to receive a credit on their bill for solar that is installed on their building. “LADWP’s efforts toward solar equity are growing and so is the Community Solar Program,” Wright said.
Under a Board resolution in June 2018, LADWP committed to accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from its power facilities while expanding energy efficiency and community solar programs that primarily benefit renters in multifamily housing. That action led to an increased investment of $10 million in Community Solar Programs to launch Shared Solar and started the development of the new VNEM Program.
http://www.ladwpnews.com/ladwp-approves-new-community-solar-power-program-for-renters/
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