America is an idea.
Happy Halloween! What might be even more spooky: Election Day is a few days away. It’s another chance to improve on this American experiment and build a community that is closer to the dream. If you’re reading this, you probably have a plan to vote (and very likely already dropped off your ballot). We appreciated the roundup of LA voter guides that LA Public Press put together this year. And we hope, when it comes to Los Angeles County’s Measure A, you — like us — are voting early and voting yes.
Measure A is a citizen’s initiative that replaces and greatly improves our current approach to the housing and homelessness crisis. It invests much more in housing and prevention than previous measures, and has clear goals that must be met for funding to continue. In 2016, Marie and Josh worked on Prop HHH, which has financed the construction of more than 12,000 affordable units. In 2017, voters passed Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax that has funded services that have helped 114,000 people move out of homelessness. If we could stop the inflow to homelessness, we’d end it in three years. This measure gets to the heart of that—most importantly through its focus on building more affordable homes.
If you have friends who need reassurance that L.A. is up to the task of using these funds wisely, let them know that Measure A revenue will fund a new “Metro for housing”—the LA County Affordable Housing Services Agency (LACAHSA). We’re really excited about this breakthrough, which will coordinate housing investments across LA’s 88 cities and tap into strategies that have helped other regions dramatically increase their affordable housing supply.
Measure A moves us toward a future where every person has access to safe and affordable housing. Change won’t come overnight: as the L.A. Times recently wrote in its endorsement, we need to reverse decades of underinvestment.
—The O&M Team: Marie Condron, Katrina Eroen, Joshua Joy Kamensky, Mar Martinez, Tony Weiss and Jen Wheeler
Credit to designer Aurora James for her “America is an Idea” message, which has given us hope this campaign season.