Los Angeles Votes to Raise Sales Tax to Fund Homeless Services

Los Angeles County voters have chosen to pass Measure A, which will raise sales taxes by a quarter of a percent to fund homeless services.

The referendum, which seemed in doubt until recently, passed with 57% support.

CalMatters.org reported (original emphasis):

 Measure A, which is leading in the ballots counted thus far, would end the county’s existing quarter-cent sales tax for homelessness that was scheduled to expire in 2027 and replace it with a half-cent tax that would begin immediately and continue in perpetuity. That new tax is expected to raise $1 billion a year, and since it has no sunset, that’s $1 billion a year forever — or at least until voters revoke it.

…

The money will be administered by the county, adhering to certain spending formulas contained within the measure itself. Officials have vowed to keep tight tabs on spending. According to the text of the measure, 61% of the money raised is slated to pay for homeless services — including money for mental health and addiction treatment — while 35.5% will go to the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency for affordable housing.

The remaining balance, about 3%, will go to the county’s development authority to help produce housing.

Voters had initially been skeptical, given that another referendum, Measure H, which passed in 2017 and raised sales taxes a quarter of a percent, failed to stop homelessness from rising (and arguably may, by funding more services, have increased it).

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.