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Los Angeles County is still in the throes of a homelessness crisis, and local leaders say they need a long-term funding source to combat it. Measure A would repeal a temporary quarter-cent sales tax that’s currently funding homeless services and replace it with a permanent half-cent sales tax.

What does that mean in practice? Under the current temporary tax, for every $20 you spend on everything from clothes to fast food, the county charges an extra 5 cents. Measure A would boost that to 10 cents.

Like with the temporary tax — known as Measure H — Measure A money would fund homeless shelters, housing and mental health resources. The new tax would also provide legal support to prevent evictions.

The tax is expected to generate about $1 billion a year across L.A. County. Long Beach would get a cut of that money, with tens of millions going toward creating affordable housing, supporting home ownership, providing rental assistance, increasing mental health and addiction treatment, reducing and preventing homelessness, and providing services for children, families, veterans, domestic violence survivors, seniors, and people with disabilities experiencing homelessness.

If Measure A doesn’t pass, Measure H’s quarter-cent sales tax will end in 2027, meaning many homelessness programs will lose funding.

L.A. County leadership argues Measure H has been crucial in reducing the local homeless population. The County CEO’s office estimates that 42,000 people have been moved into permanent housing because of it. That’s part of why many homeless services groups — including the Women’s & Children’s Crisis Shelter, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles and LA Family Housing — say Measure A is necessary.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is against Measure A, arguing a sales tax is not the way to end homelessness. Layers of bureaucracy at the county, they say, will hinder its effectiveness.

Measure A also has a major impact specifically in Long Beach. If it passes, the city’s sales tax would be 10.75%, which puts it among the highest in the state. That rate, which exceeds the current 10.25% state cap on sales tax, is possible because of a complicated interaction between Measure A and an earlier ballot measure (confusingly, also called Measure A) that Long Beach voters passed to fund city infrastructure and public safety. Long story short, because the new Measure A is allowed to exceed the cap, Long Beach could collect the maximum amount of local sales tax and then lay the additional .5% tax on top of it.

Long Beach says it would put the extra money, estimated to be $24 million per year, toward investments like infrastructure and public safety. It could also help plug looming budget deficits that are expected to grow as local oil production dwindles.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to better explain the amount of money coming to Long Beach from each Measure A.