LOS ANGELES (January 24, 2022) – Local business leaders are building a centralized coalition of coalitions to more efficiently track, treat, shelter, uplift and otherwise serve unhoused Angelenos, and to prevent high-risk individuals and families from becoming unhoused.
The Los Angeles County Business Federation “BizFed” announced a new partnership today with elected officials from Los Angeles County and the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach to organize and accelerate responses to the region’s homelessness crisis. As part of the partnership, BizFed will invest staff and resources to convene regular monthly meetings between business, government and nonprofit partners to negotiate commitments, establish benchmarks and hold each other accountable.
“Partnering with business leaders will go a long way in making sure we use a ‘whole community’ approach to developing homelessness solutions that work. Their expertise, support, and input will help our county eliminate bureaucratic red tape and obstructions to services that provide both housing and healing. This is another example of rowing in one direction to achieve results that last,” said Los Angeles County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
The initiative enhances coordination between the business community and various city and county agencies and homeless service providers by:
✔️ Empowering BizFed’s massive network of business members to share fast developing intelligence with public sector partners.
✔️ Establishing a formal structure for ongoing collaboration and accountability involving buy-in from public and private partners including government agencies, homeless service providers and housing providers.
The broad business community’s multidisciplinary approach to tackling homelessness has already yielded encouraging results. BizFed leaders announced their decade-long “Anti-Poverty Initiative” in 2018 and committed to lifting 1,000,000 Angelenos out of poverty by 2028.
“Business leaders have been identifying available land for shelters, putting affordable roofs over heads, getting people back on their feet and creating jobs for Angelenos. We’re now turbocharging this effort by bringing city and county leaders inside our war room,” said Tracy Hernandez, Founding CEO of BizFed.
“We’re fighting a humanitarian crisis together. The grassroots army of diverse business leaders we built over 15 years is now joining forces with the public sector,” said David Fleming, Founding Chair of BizFed.
“We represent a massive group of business entities that have different resources, contacts and ideas. Instead of inviting government agencies to call these business leaders when they think they need them, we’re transforming this relationship into a regular standing commitment to open communication and collaboration,” said John Musella, Chair of BizFed’s Board of Directors.
