Critically Speaking: Measure A proposes a bigger tax to cure homelessness

As we head into the final few days before the 2024 general election I thought it was necessary to focus on an important local issue. 

You’ve already been inundated with hot takes, artfully edited commercials aimed at painting the opposition in the worst possible light and endless text messages and calls asking if “Candidate X” or “Initiative Y” can count on your support. 

I’ve tried to opt out of those lists but the contacts keep coming with a vengeance. If any of you have figured out how to opt out successfully please let me know. 

But I’m not here to tell you who or what to vote for. That’s never been my job and honestly I don’t want to wield that kind of responsibility. My job is to inform and provide you with better context for issues that sometimes can seem so dense that they should have their own moons orbiting them. 

And, as the old, adage goes… All politics are local. Especially the kind that affects your pocketbook. 

That’s where Measure A comes in. The countywide ballot measure that could see a nearly 10-year-old tax to fund homelessness initiatives (Measure H) replaced with a new permanent tax that would double the portion of local sales taxes collected for homelessness and affordable housing projects. 

Measure H, which was approved by voters in 2017, was set to sunset in 2027. Measure A needs a simple majority of voters to support it to pass.

The 2017 measure added a quarter cent to local sales taxes but the proposed Measure A extension would add a half cent to local sales taxes. Long Beach, which is already at the state cap for sales tax, would be pushed into a small club of mostly Northern California cities that have the designation of having the highest sales tax rate in the state at 10.75%. 

How would that happen if Long Beach is already at the maximum level? Well, a Los Angeles-area legislator introduced a bill in Sacramento last year that will allow the county and all of its cities to eclipse the local limits on sales taxes and it passed. 

The tax is estimated to generate over a $1 billion in its first year and the breakdown of how that money will be allocated if enough voters support the measure on Tuesday is as follows. 

The county would get 61.25% to continue to administer the types of programs and grants that are already funded under Measure H but a newly formed affordable housing agency, the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (yes, the acronym sounds like La Casa) would get 35.75% of funds with another 3% going to county’s development authority for local housing production. 

Supporters of the measure say that it’s needed to not only prevent people who are currently being housed or treated via Measure H dollars from being forced back onto the streets but to ensure that more people don’t fall into homelessness in the future.

They tout an estimate that there could be a 25% increase in the local homeless population if Measure A isn’t approved by voters and the affordable housing that could be built with the ongoing funding could help stabilize those households living on the cliff’s edge of being housed or unhoused. 

Opponents though have pointed to the permanent nature of the tax when Measure H was originally pitched as a 10-year endeavor and doubling the tax at a time when inflation is already driving prices up could be problematic for residents already struggling to survive. 

They’ve also questioned whether the roughly half a billion dollars Measure H has generated each year has been spent in a way that has made the problem any better. 

Since 2017, countywide homelessness has gone up 37%, according to the county, and the numbers tell a similar tale here in Long Beach. 

That year, the city actually saw a 20% decrease from the previous count in 2015. Then, city staffers and volunteers found 1,863 people living in some state of homelessness in Long Beach. However, after years of increases, the city’s annual count found 3,376 unhoused people in 2024.

That's an 81% increase since Measure H was approved, according to a city report. 

Solving homelessness is a multi-faceted issue that includes mental health and substance abuse services but also affordable housing. Anyone living in Los Angeles County without some sort of inherited housing situation or a very nice landlord will tell you that housing is not very affordable in the region. 

Will voting for Measure A fix those problems? That’s for you to decide. But remember that this time there is no sunset clause on the tax so taking it off the rolls will require another resident initiative or a future county board of supervisors to put the question back on the ballot for voters to decide. 

What happened this week: 

The city announced that it will host two public meetings this month to discuss its Orange Avenue “Backbone” project that would create a north-south bike avenue to connect to the multiple bike boulevards that have been completed on cities running west-east in the city. The projected $30 million project would include a continuous bikeway from Downtown to the city’s northern border as well as other safety improvements like high-visibility crosswalks as well as bus islands and curb extensions to improve the flow and safety of public transit along Orange Avenue. The first public meeting is scheduled for Nov. 16 at the McBride Park Community Center from 2 p.m. to 3:30 pm. and the second meeting is scheduled for Nov. 20 at the EXPO Arts Center from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. If you’re a cyclist, advocate for more pedestrian-friendly streets, or just curious about what’s happening in your neighborhood, these meetings might be for you. 

Something to keep an eye on: 

There is no City Council meeting this week because it falls on Election Day and the council has historically canceled its meeting to allow you to spend your time voting rather than sitting inside its City Hall chambers. Yes, there is an important question of who should be the next President of this country on the ballot but there are a number of local questions On the Ballot that could affect how the city hires employees, whether property taxes will increase to fund improvements at Long Beach City College, if the city will be able to generate millions through a new tax on power plants and many others. We’ve broken those issues down at The Watchdog. If you have lingering questions about those issues just visit our site and search for “On the Ballot.”