Posted on 01/06/2025
ONE BIG THING: RESOLUTIONS ARE HARD. HOW DID WE DO?
As 2024 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the New Year’s resolutions we made last year and evaluate our progress:
Resolution 1: Make our streets safer and give people more options for how to get around LA.
The Access to Hollywood bike lanes are the first protected bike lanes in District 13, and they are already making Hollywood Blvd safer for pedestrians, bikers, and drivers alike.
But we still face significant challenges:
- Traffic violence killed more people last year than homicides in LA.
- The city’s budget for safe streets was cut, and Measure HLA (mandating safety infrastructure upgrades) remains unimplemented despite overwhelming voter support.
Next year, we need to reverse these trends, implement Measure HLA, and work on expanding our Access to Hollywood safety improvements to West Hollywood and Sunset Blvd.
Resolution 2: Stop the Eviction-to-Homelessness Pipeline
Equally important to housing people currently living on the streets is making sure families don’t become homeless in the first place.
This year, we started reversing that trend. Measure ULA, known as “The Mansion Tax,” helped 11,000 Angelenos stay in their homes and off the streets thanks to Emergency Rental Assistance.
Our office also created a first-of-its-kind program to reach out to renters facing eviction directly and help connect them with resources so they can stay housed. In just a few months, we’ve connected with hundreds of at-risk tenants and helped dozens of families stay in their homes.
These new initiatives are part of the reason why overall homelessness decreased this year for the first time in six years, with a 38% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in District 13.
Resolution 3: Advance Public Safety by Investing in Unarmed Emergency Response
Did you know that over 90% of calls that the LAPD responds to are considered “non-violent”? This shows us we need to invest much more in rapid response hotlines, mental health and drug treatment services, and unarmed units. These units are faster to respond, more efficient, trained to serve the community, and save money.
We’re nowhere near where we need to be when it comes to expand our unarmed response capacity, but this year offered a few signs of hope:
- The CIRCLE Program operates 24/7 in many parts of District 13 and has successfully diverted hundreds of homelessness-related calls from LAPD.
- The Unarmed Model of Crisis Response also expanded as a pilot program, successfully diverting 4,229 calls, with 96% of calls completed entirely without LAPD involvement.
- A Special Committee on Unarmed Response was created by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson to take these successful pilot programs and expand them citywide as soon as possible.
Two More Quick Hits!
1. New Committee Assignments!
With two new councilmembers taking office, the assignments for City Council Committees were announced. Our new committee assignments are:
- Civil Rights and Immigration (Chair)
- Economic Development and Jobs (Vice-Chair)
- Public Safety
- Olympics
- Rules and Elections
2. Elysian Valley Gateway Park Makeover
The oldest park along the LA River was recently upgraded to include a new stormwater capture system, a new play area, beautiful native plants, and more.
Check out our video about the upgrades, and drop by Frogtown to see the improvements for yourself!