L.A. City Council Announces Emergency Plan to Shelter the Homeless

The Los Angeles City Council has announced an emergency plan to shelter the city's large homeless population.

The Council preliminarily approved the use of vacant public buildings and park facilities for the homeless on Tuesday. The spokesman for Councilman Mike Bonin, David Graham-Caso, stated that the exact buildings will be decided on by the council members, who will take the residents into account.

Bonin, who supports the plan, stated after the vote that the homeless population "has gotten considerably worse."

The new plan will also allow people who are living out of their cars to park in specific lots. Graham-Caso noted, however that there only a few cars will allowed to park overnight at these lots. The plan is expected to come back for a final vote in a few weeks.

"This is a problem that is in every single neighborhood in Los Angeles," Graham-Caso said. "And you saw that with the 14-0 vote today."

In September, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to declare the homeless problem a "state of emergency." The mayor and other officials received widespread attention across the country when they stated that they would dedicate $100 million to fight the problem.

"We absolutely need it ... we need more services out there," City Councilman Jose Huizar said.

Connie Llanos, the spokeswoman for the Mayor also discussed the homeless problem in L.A. She wrote in an email last week to the Los Angeles Daily News, "Mayor Garcetti strongly supports the actions taken by Council to address our shelter crisis, and he is ready to sign this motion into law as soon as he receives it."

Over the past two years, the number of homeless people has increased from 23,000 to 26,000 (12 percent) with about 18,000 people living on the streets.

L.A. has declared a state of emergency in regards to the homeless problem in the past.