Written by United Way of Greater Los Angeles, in partnership with Inner City Law Center and Abundant Housing LA, and provided to LA2050 as part of its mid-year report.

United Way's Everyone In campaign is committed to educating and activating 100,000 residents across LA County to connect the dots between housing affordability and our current homelessness crisis. There are more than 52,000 people experiencing homelessness and thousands more who are just one paycheck, crisis, or emergency away from losing their home. The high cost of housing, stagnant wages, and lack of affordable units only exacerbate the problem. We need to build more supportive housing and bring in those that are at most risk of dying on our streets.

After receiving the LA2050 Activation Challenge award, Everyone In has been ramping up efforts to activate local residents around real solutions to end homelessness. Our field organizing campaign is strengthening our work as we partner with more community-based groups, meet with stakeholders, and receive endorsements from local organizations, faith communities, and small businesses. Each week, more people sign up for the campaign by engaging with us online, participating in trainings, and attending town hall meetings. We have invested more resources in canvassing, phone banking, mass texting, and call-in trainings – tightly coordinated with our digital media and engagement strategy.

EVERYONE IN BY THE NUMBERS as of January 31, 2019

Facebook 31,281

Twitter 12,703

Instagram 2,992

Email 25,013

Online petitions signed 12,525

NEARLY DOUBLED SINCE AUGUST 1, 2018

In the inaugural year of the campaign, most of our efforts in siting and approving interim and permanent housing were focused in the City of Los Angeles. Our organizers have been actively building community support around 23 Proposition HHH-funded supportive housing and 12 bridge housing developments. We are also working on an additional five supportive housing developments in L.A. County.

With the support of the Goldhirsh Foundation and LA2050, we are expanding our organizing and advocacy capacity to reach all 88 cities across the County. This is no small feat. To start, we are targeting seven jurisdictions and building strategy based on their current policies on housing, available resources, and public/political support on the ground.

In the first phase of the LA2050 grant, Everyone In set up planning meetings with our partners, Abundant Housing LA and Inner City Law Center to develop a policy and legal approach to streamlining development and preventing homelessness through a “right to counsel" ordinance for tenants facing eviction. The ordinance would guarantee tenants have access to the information and representation they need when faced with landlord harassment, eviction, and other issues. An average of 54,239 unlawful detainer eviction cases have been filed per year over the last three years in Los Angeles County. The 2018 Homeless Count showed over 9,000 people experienced homelessness for the first time based on the combined impacts of evictions and rental housing unaffordability.

BUILDING CAPACITY IN 2019

‣ 10 FIELD ORGANIZERS

‣ NEW DEDICATED ORGANIZER IN LONG BEACH

‣ HIRING AN ORGANIZER IN PASADENA

‣ PARTNER WITH ABUNDANT HOUSING LA AND INNER CITY LAW CENTER

‣ INCREASING EVERYONE IN STAFF

‣ BI-WEEKLY CALL-IN TRAININGS

‣ TWO TRAININGS PER ORGANIZER/MONTH

Upcoming: Long Beach, Pasadena, San Fernando Valley, and Hollywood

In the next six months, we will be creating and executing city-specific strategies that will propose policy improvements to increase the supply of affordable and supportive housing. We will conduct a series of workshops to educate elected offices, stakeholders, and residents on policy recommendations that can be made to address homelessness and prevention in each jurisdiction. From there, we will coordinate with the Everyone In organizer team to begin mobilizing the community support necessary to site housing and pass new policies.

To evaluate our progress in the next six months, we will be tracking:

• DIGITAL GROWTH IN ZIP CODES COUNTYWIDE

• NUMBER OF ATTENDEES AT EVENTS

• NUMBER OF PEOPLE TRAINED

• NUMBER OF POLICY IMPROVEMENTS PROPOSED

• NUMBER OF POLICY IMPROVEMENTS PASSED

• NUMBER OF “EVERYONE IN" CITY RESOLUTIONS RECEIVED