USICH Visits Southern California
Last week, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Director Jeff Olivet and USICH Senior Regional Advisor Helene Schneider traveled to southern California to meet with city, county, and state leaders as well as homelessness service providers and business leaders.
During their time in the region, the USICH team participated in a convening on youth homelessness hosted by Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and attended by local youth leaders—some of whom have experienced homelessness, as well as leaders from the city council, Los Angeles County, California governor’s office, and U.S. departments of Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services. The convening took place at Future LB, Long Beach’s new youth employment center that helps young people plan for their future and develop skills, knowledge, and experience to succeed in the labor market.
Later that day, USICH participated in a University of Southern California-hosted roundtable discussion with service providers and national foundations about the federal strategy to prevent homelessness as well as local homelessness prevention initiatives throughout Los Angeles County.
The next day, the USICH team participated in the Los Angeles Business Council’s 2024 Mayoral Housing, Transportation, and Jobs Summit, where Director Olivet served on a panel to discuss how local business leaders can join the all-hands-on-deck approach to prevent and homelessness.
“We believe that housing is a basic human need required for the health of people and communities. We also believe that homelessness is solvable because communities help people overcome it every day—not through finger-pointing or partisanship but by coming together across all governments and sectors to increase access to housing and services,” said USICH Director Olivet. “This is especially true for solving youth homelessness, which requires a special set of solutions that span school, work, and home. I want to thank Long Beach Mayor Richardson for taking up this challenge and setting a goal for his community to end youth homelessness by 2030.”