Los Angeles city leaders are planning to house dozens of homeless people in trailers on a city-owned downtown lot as a possible model for citywide temporary shelters, it was reported this week.
A proposal that will be submitted to the City Council on Tuesday calls for installing five trailers on a parking lot at Arcadia and Alameda streets by the beginning of summer, the Los Angeles Times reported. The trailers would house about 67 people and target the homeless who sleep on the sidewalks in the area around the historic El Pueblo site off of Main Street.
The shelter would operate for three years with the hope that residents placed there would move on to permanent housing within six months.
The proposal comes from a task force formed by Mayor Eric Garcetti to brainstorm on how to get thousands of unsheltered people off the streets. If approved by the City Council, the initiative to provide temporary shelter would mark a new strategy for the city, which has focused primarily on encouraging the construction of permanent housing through $1.2 billion in voter-approved bonds.
Garcetti has said he hopes temporary housing can be placed on other city properties throughout Los Angeles to help serve the estimated 25,000 unsheltered homeless people in the city.
If approved, the measure would authorize city funds estimated at $2.3 million for the first year. After that, running the shelter will cost $1.3 million annually, according to The Times.
