CITY OF LOS ANGELES ~~~ CLERi!.. rr ': PLACEMENT ON NEXT #~1 / COUNU _AGENDA TO BE POSTED \ SEP 3 0 2005 RESOLUTION World Habitat Da:y WHEREAS The United Nations has designated the first Monday in October every year as World Habitat Day to reflect on the state ofhuman settlements and ~ebasic right to adequate shelter for all; and .. WHEREAS World Habitat Day is intended to remind the world of its collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat; and WHEREAS the Global Observance of World Habitat Day will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia to remind the world that countless thousands of homes were destroyed last December by the tsunami killer wave· that so devastated Indonesia's Banda Aceh coastline and other Indian Ocean countries; and WHEREAS World Habitat Day falls a month after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, which has resulted in an estimated loss of 140,000 homes and a dramatic increase in homelessness and suffering in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida; and WHEREAS the theme of World Habitat Day on Monday, October 3, 2005, the "Millennium Development Goals and the City" is chosen by the United Nations to remind all of us that in the year 2000, world leaders meeting at the dawn of the new Millennium, committed themselves to launch a concerted attack on poverty, illiteracy, hunger, unsafe water, disease and urban and environmental degradation by adopting a set of eight goals; and WHEREAS in September, the UN General Assembly will hold a five-year review meeting to weigh progress on the eight goals; and WHEREAS UN-HABITAT is working with a number of international and civil society organizations, cities and governments to realize}arget 11 ofMillennium Development Goal 7- improving the living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020; and WHEREAS in a world faced with a continual flow of poor people whose considerable contribution to the economy is rarely matched by their access to services, a key challenge is to significantly increase the level of pro-poor investment to tranSform cities into proactive developers ofl?etter infrastructure, housing and service delivery; and WHEREAS slum upgrading and slum prevention are critical to achievement of the eight goals and targets in a world where half the global population lives in urban areas, and third of them - about 1 billion people - live in slums; and WHEREAS 37 million Americans, including 12.9 million children, live in poverty; ·and WHEREAS according to the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness (NP ACH), an estimated 1.35 million children will experience homelessness in a year; WHEREAS according to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, over 5 million households experience 'worst-case' housing needs; and WHEREAS in no town, city, or State in our Nation can an individual or family working full time at minimum wage, or receiving assistance under the Supplemental Security Income program or ·. under the program for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, afford a one- or two-bedroom apartment at the {air market rental rate established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and WHEREAS the Millennia! Housing Commission reported that 28,000,000 households in the United States spent more than 30 percent their income on housing, and one in eight low-income working families earning minimum wage have to spend more than half their income on housing; and WHEREAS families without stable housing typically have to move often, making job retention difficult and forcing their children to change schools frequently; and WHEREAS in its 'Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities', the United States Conference of Mayors reports that requests for shelter by families with children went unmet 30 percent of the time in 2004; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that by the adoption of this resolution the Los Angeles City Council hereby declares Monday, October 3, 2005 as World Habitat Day and '• endorses the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals of poverty reduction. September 30, 2005 PRESENTEDBY: c -"- c; t' COUNCILMEMBER ERIC GARCETTI .