Coming for your testimony. [applause] rep. Waters our second panel wattses mr. Tim watkins, Labor Community action community. Mr. Joe horiye, Western Region of them buys president local initiatives support corporation. Denison, executive director of Venice Community housing. Speak upaynes, advocate. Hartman, chief Program Officer of the Downtown Womens Center. Lmansour,la a executive director of the housing Rights Center. Vizcaino, speaker of the Downtown Womens Center on behalf of the Domestic ViolenceHomelessness Services coalition. Gallo, president and chief executive officer of a community of friends. I will give you a signal by tapping the gavel lightly when one minute remains. At that time it would ask you to wrap up your testimony so that we can be respectful of the witnesses and Committee Members time. Mr. Watkins, you are recognized him five minutes for oral testimony. Mr. Watkins thank you. I wont spend too much time saying what an honor it is to be here, but i really appreciate your work and always have on all fronts. Years,been here for 66 watts,being a boy of born and raised in watts, i have blessed to be around the Community Action committee for its entire lifetime. My father was a founder 54 years ago. You get to see a lot in 54 years. As an organization that has consistently constantly, without interruption provided service and helped to support the society, i have to say that today maybe im here representing the others on the ground floor. I dont know if you have ever heard that term, but in watts there is a network of People Living under peoples houses that have raised foundation. They live there with the cooperation of the homeowner or the renter. They bump around at night, no one gets alarmed, but basically they are allowed to subsist in the basement or not the basement but the Foundation Space of those homes. Seen mayorrs we have bradley, mayor riordan, mayor the era go set, now garcetti. Bother to talk about the broken promises of the past, because maybe this time we will promises cap, but so far, so far what we have seen over 54 years is a trail of broken promises. We were around when across the Country Mental Health institutions were being shut down and we saw the earliest vestiges of homelessness when people started showing up with nowhere to go. We started serving homeless well before there was a response to south and South Central los angeles and we have been serving ever since. Recognize thatto although we may those powerful watts has been at the forefront of the services that Homeless People need. Not enough. T we are all here, maybe even some of you, i remember some recent congresspeople doing a check away from homelessness themselves. Its important for you to realize in the audience that lots of us are just a couple of checks away from being homeless and the perhaps, you know, along with what we do about homelessness, we think about the policy of more public versus poverty and what it really means. We keep talking about poverty as though thats the problem when poverty is but a symptom of pool Public Policy and what drives us into these conditions that are not easy to sustain and yet we find ourselves with less than selfsufficiency or self determining. We have watched the descendents of people that, you know, up until 1865 were able to get what they wanted and still do. Here we are, hundreds of years later still just trying to find what they call that socalled level playing field. There is no level playing field. Full ofing field is empty gold mines, waterholes, oil wells, you name it. We look for scraps on the surface. Disparaged. We get people in my Community Get disparaged and treated as subhuman because they have the nobility to go through our trash. They dig through the trash to find recyclables and lineup as if they should be incarcerated by getting pennies on the dollar for what their work is worth. We have to start looking for how we prevent the problem in as many ways as we can that are not the traditional ways. We will talk, we will talk, we will talk about hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. But it takes too long to get the help that people need. When you think about Public Policy versus poverty and how this all happened, how much of it is by design . Why does someone have to be homeless for a year before they can qualify for services . Maybe their condition doesnt allow them to survive a year of waiting. Howell, how, how many of our ofple can stand the product geopolitical gerrymandering in our community . We are a place that is unfortunately 15 miles away from the base. Its very difficult to get the kind of representation that we need that is specific to us. What are the impediments . Certainly we have persecution, the problem of transitional housing long ago constructed to help the Homeless People, torn down only to be replaced by transitional housing. I know ive got to go, weve got a lot of resources. I would like to talk about that in a followup if possible. Much. You very thank you. , mr. Mr. horiye, you have five minutes. Mr. Horiye we were established in 1979 and were dedicated to helping residents transform disaffected neighborhoods into Healthy Communities of choice and opportunity with local Community Development organizations that have owns, grants, technical, and management assistance with a National Footprint that has offices in 35 cities. We invest approximately 1. 4 billion each year in these communities. Our doors opened in 1987, we developed 11,000 units of housing in the region with Community Partners with 34 million of investment for Affordable Housing and Community Development projects have been made in the 43rd district alone. I oversee the work of the l. A. Office but wish to knowledge our new executive director, a native angelino. The l. A. Team is deeply embedded in communitybased efforts to provide assistance for those experiencing homelessness or are in need of Affordable Housing. I see firsthand the challenges that exist for those experiencing homelessness and how nonprofit organizations can improve their lives. I would like to focus my time on whats needed to address this issue. First, this country has to be committed if we want to and homelessness. The efforts must be supported through sufficient funding resources. Our nations commitment to reducing chronic veteran homelessness has resulted in substantial decline. This is mainly due to the federal government targeting resources for the work. , homelessnesscare Assistance Program provides the main resources and incentivize locals to prioritize Housing First approaches. We support full funding for the federal Assistance Programs and were pleased to support representative waters and her. Nding homelessness act of 2019 this would increase resources for permanent Supportive Housing, authorizing resources for housing choice vouchers, fund funding,st authorizing outreach to Homeless People and better integration of Affordable Housing and health care activity. Recognizes the resources that the federal government has to provide if our country is going to continue to make advances in reducing homelessness. This has worked since the inception to provide assistance to Affordable Housing providers. We provide grants for organizational capacity. One of the most important federal Capacity Building tools we have for the work is the Capacity Building program. Helping nonprofit and housing Community Development organizations further Affordable Housing goals. One example, people assisting the homeless have used section for support to develop west carson villas that consist of 110 units, 55 of which are reserved for formerly homeless residents with financing for Affordable Housing development and we typically use low Income Housing tax credit equity. Its the nations most Important Development subsidy source for affordable rental housing and works by providing equity for housing exchanges for tax credits. The largestof nonprofit syndicators and an expert at using housing credits for finding Supportive Housing for those experiencing homelessness. Giving us other federal resources to support the work, including the capital magnet fund, the competitive reward administered by the Treasury Department that can be used flexibly by Mission Driven lenders for affordable rental housing for very poor households. An example of the impact of cms and a housing credit is recent support for the l. A. Housing family campus. Once a homeless shelter operating as a motel, it completed its transformation into offering housing and other services in the valley. It includes 45 units of permanent Supportive Housing targeting chronically homeless single adults. We invested nearly 13. 6 million of housing tax credit equity in a 20. 7 million project and used our award to provide reduced interest permanent loans to close the gap on the apartments. The history of supporting Affordable Housing products projects for those experiencing homelessness shows us that progress can be made when resources are available to address need. We urge congress to assess the fund and support federal health and Tax Credit Programs to provide stable housing for Homeless People and programs that build the capacity of Organization Serving these communities. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to working with you and your staff on ways to end the homelessness crisis in l. A. Thank you. Rep. Waters thank you very much. We will now hear from ms. Dennison 45 minutes to present your oral testimony. Ms. Dennison good morning, everyone. We own and operate affordable supported housing focused on ensuring Inclusive Communities on the west side. Their years we have been home to about 1000 homeless residents. We simply need vastly low resources. You cant just produce or spec the results to trickle down. The federal budget for Affordable Housing was cut in the early 1980s. Locally, production is nowhere documented need. In the last Housing Element the city projected to produce 75 of its overall housing needs, but only 17 of the extremely low have low Income Housing needs. With those at the lowest income levels and an overproduction of luxury Housing Production, l. A. Has under produced Supportive Housing, creating just a few hundred units per year for 20 years and the Ballot Initiatives and will do good work but are a drop in the bucket in the overall need. We need the city, the county, and the state to create permanent and sustained resources and we need to federal government to supplement the resources. More specifically we need to increase rental subsidy, as people have said. Right now were making decisions in a scarcity environment and we must balance the needs for tenetbased housing choice within this limited pool of subsidy and there is just nowhere near enough to cover even a portion of all of those needs. The federal government must also help us address the issue of underproduction of low Income Housing because while the Tax Credit Program is incredibly important, it is just not designed to produce extremely low Income Housing and therefore that is where we see the biggest gaps. Beyond Housing Production we must put more effort into the production of prevention of homelessness and perez preservation preservation of all subsidized rental housing must be prioritized. While these are largely issues at the local and state level and our local government must make preservation more of a priority, we also do need targeted federal investment to make this a comprehensive effort. Prevention of homelessness also requires increased tenant protections and proactive enforcement of those protections. Tenants far regularly face unjust and illegal in fiction and other forced displacements. Some of these challenges and solutions are focused on state and local issues and our State Government has some important policies pending, but the federal government can help to ensure more proactive enforcement of public subsidized ,ousing enforcement protections fundings, and the prevention of any policy that would produce displacement such as the proposed mixed status policy that was also discussed. Government entities must also eliminate the unacceptable overrepresentation of black people experiencing homelessness that has been persistent in los angeles for far too long. Los angeles has studied this recently and has a report and recommendation that was discussed that really looks at the long history of institutional racism and further exploration of that from this committee is recommended. Lastly, l. A. Must end the criminalization of homelessness. This is an area where l. A. Has been uniquely horrible in its efforts. We have the largest unsheltered Homeless Population in the country and yet without creating any significant housing alternatives, l. A. Has invested incredible financial and political resources in policies explicitly intended to criminalize homelessness and other initiatives that resulted. N harassment this exacerbates homelessness, lengthens the amount of time people remain homeless, discriminates against people for their current on housed status. This must end and be replaced with healthbased interventions until l. A. Provides housing for all in need. In closing, we know that l. A. And california must enact substantial new policies and funding streams that focus on production at the lowest income levels of homeless prevention, as well as eliminating harmful policies. L. A. And all regional efforts cannot succeed without more investment at the federal level. Hr 1856 is a significant step forward and additional steps will be needed to solve the crisis. Thank you. [applause] rep. Waters thank you. Now, i would like to ask mr. To give his testimony. You are now recognized for five minutes to present that testimony. Mr. Haynes good afternoon. I am a speak up advocate. I grew up in an average middleclass community with six siblings and a mother and a father in the home. They, my mother and father used to shelter me from what was until one dayner i found out what was around the corner and i became an alcoholic. Alcoholic functioning. Over the years my disease got worse, but i was still able to find a job and keep an apartment until i could no longer work, suffering from Mental Health issues. Until i found myself, 10 years of homelessness, ending up on skid row. I would go to jail for one year, exactly one year for possession of marijuana. When i got out of jail, i knew i needed Something Different. I knew i wanted to do Something Different with my life, so with that one year clean from alcohol and drugs, i got on a wait list. It took a long time for me to get permanent Supportive Housing , but when i finally got in, it made a big difference in my life. Itsve housing is very important. Not only just for housing a person, but with the Wraparound Services. ,ith the case manager onsite the therapists, the psychiatrist at my disposal. It took me a long time to find my worth, you know . They had so many groups to offer. Art, journal. I ended up doing a knitting group. Coming from the streets are like im not going to sit in a circle and share my feelings. So i took a knitting group for exactly one year and in the group they said they sat and watched oprah and knitted. So after one year i never learned to knit. But i sat with a group of women that helped me regain my im, you know . They gave me so much perspective on life, showing me a different way that i can go to grow. It was so important for me to have them groups. , the housingknow was important, but more important was the Wraparound Services that came with it. People that can a be there for when you need them. Giving them housing is important, but now the you are housed, you have to learn to live with yourself. How do i do that . How do i do that sober. It was a big challenge, you know . Depression sets in. , i continue tot work on myself, continue to take advanta