Policy Guidance Summary: This guidance recognizes the significant health and safety stressors that unsheltered homelessness poses for the entire community, especially those living on the streets, and recommends a framework for effective engagement founded on three key principles. It is meant to support local leaders as they refine and implement practices that respect the dignity of all residents, housed and unhoused, with the goal of aligning and coordinating municipal responses that work to meaningfully end homelessness. Read the guidance here.

Development Process Overview: m88's policy guidance draws on national best practices and local expertise. The final version was shaped by extensive public comment received during a six-week public comment period, and by conversations with key stakeholders including persons with lived experience of homelessness, representative municipalities, and law enforcement officers. Providing this guidance locally is responsive to a larger, national conversation that encourages communities to explore alternatives to an enforcement-based approach to unsheltered homelessness. See the National Alliance to End Homelessness's website for more background on this topic.

About the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (m88): The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (m88) is a joint powers authority of the city and county of Los Angeles, created in 1993 to address the problems of homelessness in Los Angeles County. m88 is the lead agency in the HUD-funded Los Angeles Continuum of Care, and coordinates and manages over $300 million annually in federal, state, county, and city funds for programs providing shelter, housing, and services to people experiencing homelessness.