USC’s street medicine services program will be expanded after a vote by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.
The council voted to provide $1 million in funding for the program, which began in November 2021 as the first city-funded full-time street medicine team in Los Angeles.
The program, which provides services to the homeless, will expand from one team to three teams, and from covering two municipal districts to six.
“USC is unique because it just doesn’t wait on people,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a briefing Tuesday. “It goes one by one to every patient they see.”
The program will expand to cover the South Los Angeles and Hollywood neighborhoods, and is expected to see about 900 patients at full capacity, according to Garcetti.
Councilor Nithya Raman said the street medicine team can help fill the need for shelter beds in the city.
“This kind of care can mean the difference between life and death,” Raman said. “Expanding a system like this, programs like these that can accommodate people who need shelter and who need care with a city that we know can deliver it directly to them.”
Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez said Los Angeles County should do more to fund such programs.
“But here we are again, the city of Los Angeles, funding the same services and interventions that the county should be willing to provide,” Rodriguez said.
“That is why we must continue to advance our work and our progress in building that collaborative response model with Los Angeles County,” he said.