LA City Council approves $7.8 million for residential drug treatment pilot

By JOSE HERRERA

City News Service

At the request of Mayor Karen Bass, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 1, approved $7.8 million to fund an extended residential drug treatment pilot program for the homeless — though some council members continued to express frustration with a lack of details about how the money will be spent.

The move came on a 12-1 vote, with Councilmember Monica Rodriguez the lone “no,” and councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Curren Price absent.

The 2023-24 city budget includes almost $23.5 million from the Opioid Settlement and Tobacco Settlement to fund the drug treatment pilot program for up to one year of total services. The mayor’s office originally requested $23.4 million from the settlement accounts to create a program to fund longer substance use disorder treatment cycles for unhoused residents.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said the mayor’s goals are “critically important.”

“We’re going to go into drug addiction, mental health, even though that is mostly the county, but try to show them what can be done if we go at it a little differently to extend the time that people are getting that treatment,” Blumenfield said.

The councilmember added that “we need to go after this issue.” He said substance use is one of the “big issues” involving homelessness that is “not being tackled properly” in part because it’s something the city council doesn’t typically handle.

He noted the budget committee went back and forth, and came to a compromise. The committee agreed to put forward a third of the money without any details, but with the promise from the mayor’s office that the council would get some details moving forward.

The mayor’s office filed a “side report” sometime before the council meeting. Blumenfield said he had not yet read it, but would be looking forward to reading it and discussing it in committee.

“I’m comfortable continuing at the mayor’s ardent request that we move forward at least a third of this money without the details or with just whatever’s in this report that we haven’t really seen yet,” Blumenfield said.

Councilmember Rodriguez, also a member of the budget committee, said she could not support the request.

“This really stems from the fact that I don’t believe that we should be allocating resources to fund programs without any details,” Rodriguez said. “I’m really concerned about continuing to put the cart before the horse when it comes to our expenditure programs, practically as it relates to the opioid settlement dollars.

“We continue to have this pattern of a last-minute transmittal, which is also unacceptable in my opinion,” she added.

The report, which can be read at https://bit.ly/47cp0ed, outlined background for the pilot program, including its proposed design, implementation and evaluation.

Homeless individuals who are moved indoors through Inside Safe, or into interim housing such as Tiny Home Villages, A Bridge to Home or Project Home Key, will be assessed for eligibility for the program.

The mayor’s office will work closely with council district offices and the 16 contracted agencies and service providers who are managing the city’s interim housing sites to “properly identify” the population that is “ready and willing to pursue in-patient treatment.”

Participants will be provided with five treatment center options with residential beds available across the city that are state-certified substance use and mental health treatment providers that hold L.A. County contracts, according to the report.

Participants’ treatment services will be paid for by their eligible benefits, such as Medi-Cal, but in the event that their benefits end or are denied by the state, the city will “reimburse the treatment providers for their additional time and services needed,” the report said.

The report indicates that treatment will last at least six to nine months through inpatient treatment — withdrawal, residential treatment and recovery housing. Treatment centers will be required to submit biweekly reports.

In addition, the mayor’s office intends to evaluate the pilot program by collecting data, including the number of referrals, number of participants admitted to inpatient treatment, number of participants exiting from the program, number of participants permanently housed and the average cost per participant.

Councilmember Kevin de León said he would “reluctantly” support the expenditure, given that in his 14th District there’s an “epidemic of Fentanyl as well as meth overdoses.”

“I do share many of the concerns that Rodriguez brought up with a lack of details and the consistent pattern of asking for money without so many details,” de León said.

“We just have to make sure that we’re spending the money correctly, efficiently in the most strategic manner possible to deal with the crisis that we’re all dealing with in so many different ways.”