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.

Congratulations to the 60th PRSA-LA PRISM Awards Winners!

Our team had a great time at the 60th Prism Awards on Oct. 24, presented by Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles. This was our first time competing, and we brought home some hardware — testament to our incredible partners at the Liberty Hill Foundation, Abode Communities and Chrysalis. We’ve noted each client’s award-winning projects throughout the newsletter below. Thanks to Andres, Mallory and Megan for joining us at the brand-new Audrey Irmas Pavilion (and for sharing some post-ceremony kalguksu at MDK Noodles across the street).

Will the City of LA advance Venice Dell affordable housing?

Years ago, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Venice Dell Community to replace an asphalt parking lot with 140 new permanently affordable homes and a community arts space. But this desperately needed housing has been stifled by City Hall gridlock and local NIMBY groups, who tried to block the housing through two lawsuits, both of which were thrown out this summer. 

LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto and Councilmember Traci Park continue to block the project from moving forward. Mayor Bass could intervene and direct staff to resume work on the project toward a groundbreaking. 

Venice Dell is a case study of how unnecessarily difficult it is to build affordable housing in Los Angeles. It’s why LA Forward launched a Fair Housing Lawsuit this summer, which helped generate coverage in The Nation, NY Times, LA Times, LAist, KTLA and more. 

It’s clear that the people of LA know how much housing like this is needed. This April, 85% of Angelenos said they support increasing the supply of affordable rental housing in their neighborhoods. Increasing our supply of affordable housing is the single most important thing we can do to reduce homelessness. It’s time to prioritize people over politics and build these desperately needed homes.

Promising signs of progress in the work to solve homelessness

As elections approach, the tenor of reporting on homelessness has increased in intensity and complexity. It can be difficult to sort through the truth of what’s working and what the continued challenges are—and to maintain hope and optimism that this humanitarian crisis can be solved. 

We’re encouraged by the promising signs. For the sixth year, we advised LAHSA on communicating the homeless count results, including the first drop in unsheltered homelessness in 5 years. It’s a significant change in trajectory, in part because of the more than 114,000 people who’ve been brought inside to housing since 2017, but too many people are still falling in.

The primary driver of our region’s homelessness crisis is decades of underbuilding housing. Fixing that takes time, but it’s happening. We’re encouraged to see the prevention efforts funded by the City of LA’s mansion tax coming online, especially the income support to help older adults and those with disabilities stay in their homes.

Through our work with CSH, we’re helping a City of LA team communicate their work to determine how much public investment in affordable housing it will take over the next decade to get the homeless count to functional zero. In order to close the housing gap–especially for the higher-level-of-care housing we need much more of–we need to know the size of it.

An editorial that saved jobs

The Clean California program, responsible for helping clean and maintain California’s roadways, provides thousands of transitional jobs to people struggling to get back on their feet, many of whom have experienced homelessness or incarceration. But this year, Back 2 Work jobs were cut from the state budget, with 7  crews on the chopping block that were hired through our client Chrysalis, an LA nonprofit that’s a lifeline, helping people move from homelessness and incarceration to flourishing in stable jobs. 

We helped Chrysalis connect with the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times to make its case for why Gov. Gavin Newsom should act to preserve these jobs that provide a vital service to keep our roadways clear, while employing those who often have a hard time finding work–in partnership with the social enterprises who hire and train the teams. 

Within days of the editorial running, Gov. Newsom and state leaders took action and identified alternative funding that would preserve hundreds of these jobs across the state, including dozens at Chrysalis. It’s not often that we get to see such a clear cause and effect in communications work, and it helped O&M and our client Chrysalis win recognition for the effort at the 2024 PRSA-LA awards.

The end of youth incarceration as we know it

Five years ago, the Liberty Hill Foundation began asking this question that should never have to be asked with its “Agenda for a Just Future” — part of which aims to end the failed system of youth incarceration as we know it. 

This month, we helped President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith publish an essay in Capitol Weekly making the case for why care, not incarceration, for girls and gender-expansive youth is better not just for our children but for all of us. 

Shane’s op-ed details how Santa Clara County has reduced the number of girls in its youth system to near zero and kept it there–through supportive services like housing and health care, collaboration across systems, and cooperation with families. Similar efforts in Hawaii, Louisiana, Vermont, Maine, and New York City have also shown results.

Girls in the justice system are better understood as survivors of crime than as perpetrators. To find out how you can support this movement and end this humanitarian crisis, join Liberty Hill’s Liberation Fund, a coalition aiming to end the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in the Los Angeles County criminal legal system.

Celebrating new affordable housing

We helped Abode Communities celebrate the opening of two affordable housing communities this summer. San Pedro welcomed residents to 90 new affordable homes at Beacon Landing in June. It’s the first of five modular housing projects made possible by the Prop HHH housing challenge, which sought to create supportive housing faster and at lower costs. The permanent supportive housing will include on-site services provided by LA Family Housing.

Boyle Heights celebrated the opening of 76 affordable homes at La Veranda, a mixed-use affordable housing development near the Soto Metro Station on the E line. Nearly 3,000 applicants were received for the affordable housing units, which are restricted to households earning up to 20% of the area’s median income–and half of which are reserved for people exiting homelessness. The project, built on Metro-owned land, demonstrates the power of public and private sector partnership that is creating a path out of the housing crisis in Los Angeles. 

We were also pleased to see our work last year with Abode Communities on Manchester Urban Homes, which turned a parcel once subject to a racist restrictive covenant into affordable housing, recognized at the 2024 PRSA-LA Awards.

Recommendations from our team

• Liberty Hill Foundation President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith interviewed author Joel Goza before a studio audience for a live recording of “Conversations from the Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change.” The podcast, now in its third season, was honored at PRSA-LA’s 2024 awards. Goza’s book, Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and the Remaking of America, details his awakening to the reality that true racial justice in America is impossible without reparations–and outlines a practical pathway to achieve it.

• Reba Stevens, a member of the Bring California Home Coalition, says in a guest commentary in Cal Matters: “For me and scores of others, anti-camping rules didn’t solve our homelessness; they made it harder to get back on our feet.” She pointed to the 68% of California voters who believe we must invest more in housing affordability and called for scaling up the housing and services that we know solve the problem. 

• In his column for the Pasadena Star-News, Shawn Morrissey of Union Station Homeless Services opens up about his experiences overcoming homelessness and addiction and advocates for the most effective treatment practices, including a harm reduction model for public health. You can also hear from Shawn in a recent episode of the SGV Connect podcast, where he advocates for long-term funding for the solutions that are showing promising results in getting people off the streets and into housing.

• Still refreshing poll numbers? Instead, try picking up a phone bank shift for Measure A or listening to Laura Nyro’s “Save the Country” on repeat.