FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 5, 2024
CONTACT: Daniel Flaming, danflaming@economicrt.org, (213) 892-8104

Hosting the 2028 Olympics with Clean Hands

Restoring, Not Displacing, LA’s Unsheltered Residents

LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles’ most glaring flaw as host of the 2028 Olympics is the nation’s largest population of unsheltered homeless individuals living on its streets. If LA fails to make inroads on the problem, 2028 is likely to be a disaster for unhoused people and LA’s reputation.

The just-released report, Excelling for the 2028 Olympics: Restoring, Not Displacing, LA’s Unsheltered Residents, concludes with 10 specific actions that will make Los Angeles a credible host for the 2028 Olympic Games. Foremost is ensuring that individuals have an income through employment or a basic income grant, and ensuring that they are stably housed.

“Lack of income and the high cost of housing cause homelessness,” said Daniel Flaming, Economic Roundtable President. The median monthly income of unsheltered individuals is $387 a month.

Surprisingly, 70 percent of people sleeping outdoors are homeless for the first time. The age when they become homeless is increasingly young, 25 years old on average. The average amount of time they report being homeless has increased to 1,927 days. During this time, more people are getting criminal records.

Sixty-one percent of all unsheltered working-age homeless individuals are engaged in work activities. This entails looking for a job much more often than having a job, but the motivation of homeless individuals to support themselves through work is an under-utilized asset for society.

Despite all of the calls to increase the supply of rental housing, things are heading in the opposite direction. New building permits in Los Angeles during the first half of 2024 were 10 percent lower than last year and 60 percent lower than five years ago.

Fewer new apartments going up is likely to result in higher rents and more homelessness.

Some cities have already announced intentions to displace homeless residents, causing them to relocate to a different neighborhood or city without reducing homelessness. “This puts the LA Region on a collision course with a public relations and human rights disaster,” said Gary Blasi, UCLA Law Professor Emeritus.

Restoring the lives of unsheltered residents is an immense task. It will be an Olympic achievement for Los Angeles to accomplish this. Instead of masking a streetscape formed by economic inequality, Los Angeles will become an exemplar for other cities.

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The Economic Roundtable is a nonprofit urban research organization based in Los Angeles that carries out large-scale data analyses to identify actionable solutions to social, economic and environmental problems. To learn more, please visit https://economicrt.org