U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joined Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, where the two leaders agreed that the Biden Administration and officials in L.A. should together focus on root causes that leave people on the streets.
Their focus was on the difficult task of combating homelessness while treating individuals’ substance abuse and mental health disorders.
“If we can break down these silos, these walls and these silos that keep us from being able to share resources and share flexibility to do this right, well then we won’t succeed. But if we can break down those barriers, we give ourselves a chance,” Becerra said after meeting local service providers at the non-profit Asian American Drug Abuse Program’s administrative building.
He said neither the federal government nor the city of L.A. can solve the problems alone, but by working together, there is hope. Becerra said that more than 100,000 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses in 2021.
Bass said that more than 1,000 people died on the streets of L.A. last year, and the majority of those deaths involved drug overdoses.
Part of the problem, she noted, is that government regulations prevent residential drug treatment facilities from housing a patient for more than 90 days. That means homeless individuals who have battled addiction for years — and can’t get sober in three months — wind up homeless again after 90 days in treatment.
“If we are serious about ending homelessness, we have to understand that — front and center,” Bass said. “We have to address substance abuse and mental health.”
Becerra’s visit comes two weeks after officials announced that L.A. was one of five cities, plus the state of California, selected to participate in the federal ALL INside initiative, part of a broader effort by the Biden Administration to prevent and reduce homelessness nationwide by 25% by 2025.
Through ALL INside, city and White House…
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