los angeles mayor eric garcetti is highlighting the plans in motion to tackle the citys homelessness crisis which he described as perhaps the most complex and difficult civic challenge in a generation last week the los angeles homeless services authority announced that the number of homeless people in los angeles county jumped 12 over the past year to a total of 58936 youth homelessness rose 24 in part due to improvements in counting the population and the number of seniors 62 and over rose more than 8 according to the release in an open letter to residents tuesday garcetti wrote that the problem needs to be treated like the humanitarian emergency that it is more homeless among most vulnerable as brutal cold takes over that starts with me he said more than 100 projects are in the works to help alleviate the problem garcetti said adding that the first job is to build housing because angelenos are becoming homeless faster than we can provide housing for them and like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need i am both heartbroken and impatient the homelessness budget has increased to more than 460 million for housing and services 25 times what it was four years ago and the city is ahead of its goal to build 100000 new units of housing according to the letter as your mayor i take full responsibility for our response to this crisis garcetti said and like everyone who has seen families in tents or spoken to a homeless veteran in need i am both heartbroken and impatient belongings of the homeless crowd a downtown los angeles sidewalk may 30 2019 frederic j brownafpgetty images more suspect in custody for shootings that appeared to target homeless people garcetti also called upon the private sector to do more amid the citys growing economy if youre a business owner with a parking lot that goes unused at night ill ask you to open it up to people who live in their vehicles and need a place to park he wrote if youre an executive for one of las many successful startup companies ill ask you to hire homeless angelenos and contribute to our cause ill ask more landlords to work with rehousing programs so that families experiencing homelessness can make it out of shelters and into homes a december report from a local pest control company hired by the city shows that the homeless population living near the civic center were creating a harborage for rodents in the city hall due to poor sanitary conditions that include leftover food human waste and hypodermic needles according to the los angeles times the company recommended that the city clear away the homeless people living nearby the times reported more teen sidelined for being homeless takes field again statewide data shows that california has 129972 homeless residents the secondlargest in state history after the great san francisco earthquake struck in 1906 which resulted in