LOS ANGELES — The U.S. is on track to end veteran homelessness by the end of next year, even in Los Angeles, the epicenter of the problem, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said Saturday.
“I believe we can,” Castro said at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ HomeWalk to end homelessness. “We are making progress as a nation.”
All U.S. homelessness could be ended by 2020 if Congress continues to provide the resources, he added.
Castro, a rising Democratic star who’s been mentioned as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, said that under the Obama administration, Congress increased the number of rental vouchers for veterans from the 20,000-30,000 range to 75,000-80,000.
Los Angeles County has an estimated 4,618 homeless veterans, the most of any jurisdiction.
The county also receives the most vouchers, the federal government’s primary weapon to end veteran homelessness, Castro said. Mayor Eric Garcetti has pledged to get every homeless veteran in the city into housing by 2016.
Despite the increased federal aid, new homeless encampments have sprung up in unexpected places across Southern California, in part because of rising rents, experts said.
The United Way’s eighth annual HomeWalk drew 13,300 walkers, including Haley McGraham Paisley, who carried an enlarged photo of her uncle.
John Robert McGraham was mentally ill and homeless for decades in Koreatown, his sister, Susanne McGraham Paisley, said.He was burned to death in 2008 by a local barber with a vendetta against homeless people, said Paisley, who walked with her daughter.
The family “tried to get him into a psychiatric hospital and he just walked away,” Paisley said.
