Advocate
How does advocacy work?
Inner City Law Center’s Homeful.LA program provides opportunities for you to use your civic voice to encourage elected officials and policymakers to promote strategies designed to ensure that every Angelino has access to a safe and affordable home.
In order to effect change, it is important for you to know your local, city, and district representatives. You can also find key information about your city and county officials and the committees that influence housing and homelessness policies.
Ways you can advocate and make an impact with your voice
Make a phone call
Send an email
Sign a petition
Show up to a hearing
Not sure where to start?
Follow this real-life example of advocacy and right to counsel (RTC)
Advocate for Safe Street Parking
Sign the petition to acknowledge that you support Safe Parking LA’s mission to coordinate Safe Parking Programs for the neighborhoods of Los Angeles where volunteers and organizations provide safe off the street parking for families experiencing homelessness. For more information click here.
Identify yourself as a constituent and include where you live and a few more details about yourself (job, family, background, etc).
I envision strong Los Angeles county communities where an affordable home is available to everyone. Southern California has the most acute need for affordable housing. In Los Angeles County, there is a shortage of more than half a million rental homes for families and individuals earning less than $41, 500. There are also more than 66,000 homeless people who lack the services, opportunities, and access to permanent housing they need to get off the streets.
Lack of affordable housing slows economic growth, reduces mobility, drives up healthcare costs for the state, and traps families and communities in poverty. The shortage is the direct result of underfunded federal, state, and local housing programs that don’t meet our communities’ needs. Since 2008, funding for affordable housing in LA County has fallen 64%–that’s a loss of $457 million annually! We voted for and approved Proposition HHH, Measure H and Measure JJJ, all of which aim to increase the availability of affordable housing in Los Angeles County, but there is still work to be done!
As the nation’s most populous county, one of the most ethnically diverse and the fourth largest economy in the country, Los Angeles County has a responsibility to ensure housing for its residents. Please support affordable housing for all Los Angeles County residents.
Thank you for your time and your work serving our district.
Codified Right to Counsel (RTC)
Many Los Angelenos are evicted each year. Eviction uproots families, leads to long-term adverse health effects, and causes homelessness. 90% of tenants do not have access to legal representation in eviction proceedings, which leads to discriminatory and illegal evictions. This needs to change.
Identify yourself as a constituent and include where you live and a few more details about yourself (job, family, background, etc).
I envision strong Los Angeles county communities where an affordable home is available to everyone.
The current system is deeply unfair. Nationally, 90% of tenants facing eviction do not have legal representation while 90% of landlords do. As a result of this gross imbalance, two civil justice systems emerge one for the rich and one for the poor. Due process is a constitutional guarantee but it is inaccessible to many under this two-tier and unequal system Leveling the playing field means ensuring due process and equal protection under the law – constitutional rights!
RTC must be a RIGHT
Simply increasing funds for legal assistance for people facing eviction is helpful, but it is not enough. A benefit conferred by the city, county, or state that can be denied or terminated if political support wanes. A Right to Counsel will institutionalize justice. By codifying a Right to Counsel, the courtroom will become a place where tenants feel heard and where justice and fairness is served.
