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L.A. City Councilman O’Farrell calls on state for more funds for homeless

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell called on the state to direct $1.2 billion toward the city’s battle against homelessness, matching the amount of a voter-approved municipal bond measure aimed at attacking the problem.

Published

7 years ago

July 18, 2019

Wave Wire Services

By Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell called on the state to direct $1.2 billion toward the city’s battle against homelessness, matching the amount of a voter-approved municipal bond measure aimed at attacking the problem.

“We need to augment our programs and go beyond and push for 20,000 [supportive housing] units or more,” O’Farrell said, adding that the city’s current goal of 10,000 units would not be enough to house Los Angeles’ homeless population.

“We need to double or triple that amount if we’re really serious about solving the homelessness crisis,” the councilman said in front of City Hall June 26. “We are working locally to reduce the cost of Proposition HHH housing as well. We want to make more units more quickly without sacrificing the quality of those units.”

Measure HHH was approved by Los Angeles voters in 2016, authorizing $1.2 billion in bonds to fund supportive and affordable housing, along with other measures to address homelessness.

O’Farrell, who chairs the council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee, said Los Angeles is the only city in the state that has taxed itself to build supportive housing. He said 1,400 units will be open by the end of the year and more supportive housing units will be approved for construction soon.

Figures from the most recent Southland homeless count found that more than 36,000 people are homeless in the city of Los Angeles, an increase of 16 percent since last year. Countywide, the homeless population jumped by 12 percent.

“These numbers … are depressing, outrageous, mind-numbing,” O’Farrell said. “What we need is a paradigm shift in our thinking and in our determination across all levels of government. We must create a sustainable and robust system for addressing this crisis. It is the challenge of our day.”

The councilman said the state needs to make changes in the Ellis Act, which allows owners to opt out of the rental market, and the Costa Hawkins Act, which restricts the implementation of rent control ordinances in certain circumstances.

He also said the federal government needs to participate in finding solutions to the problem. O’Farrell said federal funding for homeless issues decreased from $55 million a year in 2008 to $30 million in 2012, when the crisis was expanding. Recently implemented federal tax policy may also be contributing to the city’s increasing population, and officials are analyzing the effects of those policies, the councilman said.

O’Farrell introduced several motions during the June 26 City Council meeting, including a request to hold a homeless and poverty summit, and another calling on the city to coordinate Housing Department resources to find vacant units and house people faster.

Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority officials said during the council meeting that based on the 2019 numbers, the county is housing people at a slower rate than people are falling into homelessness.

“The heart of homelessness is the inflow of people,” said Phil Ansell, director of the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative. “We have doubled the number of people moving into permanent housing, while at the same time we had a 12 percent increase. On average, 133 families escaped homelessness each day, but 150 people became homeless per day.”

Ansell said if the city and county can move people into permanent housing faster, they could rapidly accelerate the process of moving people into interim housing. But he noted that interim housing should not be viewed as the final solution to solving homelessness.

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

4 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

6 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke