County awarded $51 million to house 600 people living along 105 Freeway

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DOWNEY – Los Angeles County has been awarded a $51.5 million state grant to expand its Pathway Home program and help nearly 600 people living along the 105 Freeway and nearby riverbeds access housing and services over the next three years, with the ultimate goal of ending their homelessness.

They would be added to the nearly 600 people the county has already enrolled in Pathway Home since its launch in August 2023.

The county applied jointly with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) for the Encampment Resolution Funds (ERF) to address one of the largest groups of encampments on the state’s right of way: the I-105 corridor from West Athens to Norwalk. The surrounding community has been disproportionately impacted by homelessness and poverty and endangered by flooding.

Pathway Home is an encampment resolution program that is a critical component of the County’s comprehensive response to the local emergency on homelessness adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2023. By leveraging emergency powers and partnerships with local jurisdictions, Pathway Home is a full-circle solution that brings people off the streets into immediately available interim housing accompanied by a comprehensive suite of supportive services and, ultimately, into safe, permanent homes.

Combined with $16 million in existing Measure H and other local funds, the grant will be used to conduct Pathway Home operations along the I-105 corridor and nearby riverbeds in south and southeast Los Angeles, where people are surviving in tents, RVs, and other makeshift structures, particularly where the freeway crosses the LA and San Gabriel Rivers. This project will impact the communities of West Athens, Willowbrook, Downey, Norwalk, South Gate, Lynwood, Santa Fe Springs, and Los Angeles. It will also impact the areas near several LA Metro stations.

The program will include securing interim housing such as motel rooms, master leasing permanent housing, and disposing of about 60 unsafe and uninhabitable recreational vehicles (RV’s). It will also pay for rental subsidies, housing navigation, case management, life skills development, and other services.

"The support from our local cities all the way to Sacramento for essential funding needed to end our homelessness crisis shows the importance of addressing homelessness LA County if we are going to make a significant impact across the state," said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, Second District. "This money, along with the collaboration we are seeing at the local level, are essential to the continued success of LA County's Pathway Home program. We are removing more disabled RVs and, most importantly, urgently working to provide housing and stability to our neighbors experiencing homelessness."

Led by the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative, 14 Pathway Home operations have been conducted in Compton, East Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lennox, Long Beach, Lynwood, Pomona, Signal Hill, Santa Monica, Walnut Park, West Rancho Dominguez, the City of LA, as well as for riverbed evacuees from the storm, Hilary. Since launching in August 2023, Pathway Home has helped 562 participants move into interim housing, and 95 into permanent housing. The program has also contributed to the removal of 302 unsafe RVs from public roadways.

"In the months since we launched Pathway Home, I have seen how effective this new strategy is in bringing people inside and at the same time dealing with the encampments that communities have struggled with,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, Fourth District. “The people of LA County want to see progress. This is the kind of strategy we need to double-down on, and with this new state funding we will be able to bring hundreds of people inside who have been living in sprawling encampments along the 105 freeway."

“We are grateful to Governor Newsom and the state of California for their continued support as we move forward with our all-hands-on-deck emergency response to homelessness," said LA County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport. "We can’t do it alone and these vital resources will enable us to build on the successes we are already having bringing people inside through the Pathway Home program.”