Y E AR RevIieNw
Top 8 Stories o f 2019 Pages 2-11
YO!
VENICE www.yovenice.com
January 3 – 16, 2020
UCLA Study’s on Homelessness Prevention Nearly half of instances of homelessness predicted in study By Sam Catanzaro Researchers at UCLA recently were able to accurately predict nearly half of instances in which subjects in a study became homeless using predictive analytics and now county lawmakers may use Measure H funds to launch a data-driven homelessness prevention unit. With data from seven Los Angeles County agencies on services provided to residents between 2012 and 2016 — names and personally identifiable information were omitted — researchers from the California Policy Lab at UCLA and the Poverty Lab at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy developed a model to predict which 3,000 residents were most likely to become homeless in 2017. When compared against county records, they found that 46 percent of the individuals predicted by the model to be at
risk for first-time homelessness or a repeat period of homelessness did experience homelessness at some point in 2017. “Bringing together data from multiple county agencies gave us a more nuanced understanding about what’s happening to people right before they slip into homeless and how services can be
better targeted to prevent that from happening,” said Till von Wachter, a UCLA economics professor and co-author of the report. According to researchers, effectively serving the 1 percent of County residents who are at greatest risk of a new homeless spell would prevent nearly 6,900 homeless spells in one year saying
the highest risk individuals are interacting with multiple agencies. Based on this research, a county led-plan was submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on December 16 that recommends that the county use predictive models to intervene with adults who are identified as having a high risk for homelessness before becoming reaching a crisis point. The plan, which is expected to receive $3 million in funding during 2020 from Measure H, also proposes a multidisciplinary homelessness prevention unit with representatives of the county’s departments of mental health, health services and social services and the sheriff and probation offices. The unit would take referrals from the risks lists generated by the predictive models, identify which services would be most beneficial and then reach out to individuals to connect them to those services. In September, a scathing report was released showing the agency tasked with tackling homelessness in Los Angeles County failed to meet
HOMELESS, see page 10
Green Light for Median Housing Project Judges rulings clear path for MTA shelter, median housing project By Sam Catanzaro Last month two court rulings have cleared the way for a pair of housing projects in Venice to proceed after local activist groups challenged the legality of a state law exempting environmental review for housing developments. On December 13, a Venice Stakeholder’s Association (VSA) petition to halt the construction of a 154-bed bridge housing homeless shelter in Venice was denied by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff. VSA argued that AB 1197 – a new Los Angeles-specific state law providing California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemptions for emergency shelters and
permanent supportive housing – should not apply retroactively on the bridge housing shelter since lawmakers approved the project before AB 1197 went into effect. “AB 1197 on its face does not apply retroactively and California courts do not apply new laws retroactively absent clear direction from the Legislature to do so,” wrote Jeffrey Lewis, counsel for VSA in a letter to Los Angeles City Council last month. “The City would be better served by conceding this point, following the law and going through the CEQA process to serve the residents surrounding the Project location. The faster that the City initiates the CEQA process, the sooner it can begin serving.” Judge Beckloff, however, rejected this argument and found that AB 1197 does exempt the shelter, set to open in January or February, from CEQA review. The ruling was met with enthu-
PROJECT, see page 10
Photo: Councilmember Mike Bonin/Facebook.
The membrane structure that will house adults at the Venice bridge housing center set to open in the new year.