Long Beach residents and advocates gathered outside City Hall Tuesday morning to demand major revisions to the city’s proposed budget.
The press conference took place at 10 a.m. on August 12 and drew a crowd of community leaders, advocates and directly-impacted residents who spoke out against what they describe as gaps in the City of Long Beach’s fiscal plans—specifically the lack of sufficient funding for immigrant protections, eviction defense services and permanently affordable housing.
Advocates are calling for the city to allocate $2.2 million in new, structural funding for the Long Beach Justice Fund, which provides legal representation and deportation defense for immigrants. They are demanding $2 million to bolster eviction defense services, as thousands of tenants face increasing rents and the end of COVID-era protections. Finally, they are calling for $400,000 for the Long Beach Community Land Trust, which secures land for permanently affordable housing…