Mayor Eric Garcetti says more resources coming to combat homelessness

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the city's homeless crisis Monday, providing updates that highlighted recent successes, but also discussing what has to be done to fix the problem.

"We will provide public health services to encampments to ensure that the hardest hit areas receive regularly scheduled cleanups and hygiene services, and our teams will deliver resources like daily trash collection and mobile restrooms," Garcetti said.

Garcetti's monthly update on homelessness tried to focus on the successes in the task to house the tens of thousands of people living on the streets.

The mayor rattled off the positives.

"Where we had 110 projects just a month ago, we now have 150 projects that are in the pipeline, representing 10,669 affordable and supportive units," he said.

According to City Hall, in July alone, city workers made roughly 1,800 contacts and staged 455 homeless area cleanups.

In those sweeps, the city removed nearly 1,500 tons of trash and more than 3,000 needles.

However, the crisis persists. Garcetti points the finger at cuts in federal and state affordable housing funds.

"Twenty billion dollars in this last decade that could have kept people from becoming homeless has been cut out of our state and federal funds that go to the local government," he said.