Los Angeles is one of nine winners of the Bloomberg Philanthropies' US Mayors Challenge, a $1 million prize to build backyard accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in an effort to combat homelessness.
The City of Angels was previously awarded a $100,000 grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to study the value of ADUs, and the latest money will be used as additional funds for its own backyard dwelling program. Mayor Eric Garcetti tells Business Insider, "Our homeless crisis demands that we get creative," adding that if 10 percent of the city's 500,000 single-family homes had an ADU, LA could grow its supply of homes by half in roughly five years.
Los Angeles is determined to do something about its nearly 32,000 homeless residents ... Homelessness is an especially acute problem in Los Angeles County, where around 75 percent of homeless residents live on the streets or in makeshift dwellings like cars and tents. At night, around 1,800 people congregate in Skid Row, one of the largest homeless encampments in the US and the harrowing core of the city's crisis.