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April 8 – April 14, 2022 Volume CXXXV, Issue 139
Residents in Certain Santa Monica Neighborhoods Eligible for LA County Guaranteed Income Program Residents in Downtown and Pico neighborhoods eligible for $1,000 a month program By sam Catanzaro Residents of two Santa Monica neighborhoods are eligible to apply for LA County’s new $1,000 a month guaranteed income program. The program, called “Breathe”, launched on March 31 and will award 1,000 randomly selected qualifying residents $1,000 a month for three years. “The course of this pandemic has revealed the large number of County residents who are living on the brink of financial crisis, with insufficient savings to weather a job loss, a medical emergency, or a major car repair. This guaranteed income program will help give residents the breathing room they need to better weather those crises,” said program coauthor Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. The enrollment period opened on March 31 and the deadline for applications is April
13. Selection will not depend on the timing of entries. The program is being overseen by the County’s Poverty Alleviation Initiative, launched last year to address poverty and income instability among LA County residents. Applicants must be at least 18 years old and with a household income that falls at or below LA County’s average median income (AMI) of $56,000 for a single-person household or 120 percent of AMI at or below $96,000 for a family of four, for example. They must also have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, applicants are required to live within what LA County deems a lowincome community. In Santa Monica, two neighborhoods fall under this category: Pico and Downtown. Pico’s Boundaries are Lincoln Bolevard to the west, Centinela Avenue to the east, Olympic Boulevard to the north and Pico Boulevard to the south. Downtown contains Wilshire Boulevard, Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica Boulevard, Broadway, and Colorado Avenue from Ocean Avenue to Lincoln Boulevard. A total of 1,000 participants who apply during the open enrollment period will be
The Pico Neighborhood in Santa Monica.
randomly selected by a research team from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, which is partnering with the County to design and implement the program. Direct monthly payments will be distributed via a debit card to selected residents and will come without strings or conditions. After participants are selected, another 1,200 applicants will be randomly chosen to
Credit: Sam Catanzaro
participate in the research study only, as part of a control group. Control group participants will not receive the monthly payment. They will complete periodic surveys and interviews about their well-being so that information can be compared to the treatment group and help determine whether or not the program was effective. To learn more about the program, visit breathe.lacounty.gov
Santa Monica Mayor Proposes Measure That Would Increase Taxes on Expensive Real Estate Sales Measure would apply to sales over $8 million By Dolores Quintana
Santa Monica Mayor Sue Himmelrich has proposed a new tax on real estate sales of over $8 million at $53 dollars per $1,000 dollars of each property’s cost. The “Funding for Homelessness Prevention, Affordable Housing, and Schools” hopes to raise $50 million in the first year. As first reported by the Santa Monica Lookout, the first ten million or the first 20 percent raised by the proposed tax would go to the schools in Santa Monica and the remaining 80 percent of the funds would go towards homelessness prevention and affordable housing in Santa Monica. If the tax makes more than the expected $50 million, the money would be deposited into funds set aside for schools or homelessness prevention and affordable housing at the same 80/20 percent rate. The measure states that “It is fair, equitable, and right” for those property owners who have benefitted and “enjoyed
the benefits of City services and programs” would “leave a small portion of the proceeds with the City to help fund” programs that need the most help and are part of the future health of the city and all of its residents. Himmelrich and her husband Michael Soloff, who is a former Housing Commissioner, are working together to put this tax proposal into action and funding the campaign themselves because she believes that it would be more likely that the tax proposal would actually pass. According to Himmelrich, as quoted by the Lookout, this proposal is a “dedicated purpose” tax measure which only requires a majority vote among the voters in the city as opposed to the two thirds majority that would be needed if the proposal was put to a vote by the City Council. However, a “dedicated purpose” tax measure is much more of an expensive proposition than putting it through the City Council. Himmelrich and Soloff expect that it will cost $200,000 to fund putting the measure on the ballot and other affiliated costs like the bill for hiring the law firm Strumwasser & Woocher to draft the proposal and $100,000 that will be spent on gathering signatures to get the measure on
Credit: Sam Catanzaro
the ballot. This would require 6,800 valid signatures from Santa Monica residents, but the campaign is aiming for 10,000 signatures to make sure that the effort will succeed. The rest of the money earmarked for this campaign would be used for publicity to encourage voters to pass the measure if it makes the ballot for November 8 of this year.
This is the second time in as many years that a tax proposal has been advanced to increase what is known as the “luxury transfer tax”. Measure SM was passed in 2020 and it doubled the tax on sales that exceed $5 million from 3 dollars to 6 dollars per each 1,000 dollars of each sale. Measure SM was very popular and passed with 71.88 percent approval.