Live: LA Mayor Eric Garcetti Gives Coronavirus Update | NBC News

light and that hope that we refuse to

live

in fear today there was

news

coming out of China from Wuhan, which was the epicenter where the Kovat 19 crisis began, that people were finally able to leave and return to some normality. The

live

s they once had 76 days after their stay at home order shows us that this will not be an easy path, but it will be one that we will walk, there will be a day and that day is somewhere ahead of us. on the calendar when we will see each other again in three dimensions instead of two where we can hug each other and which schools and companies will return but until then we have to do everything we can to accelerate that date by staying home and doing our part and I thank you as always for what you do to keep this city running and to save lives too, we always make decisions that are rooted in the advice of our medical professionals and the data we have.

In light of that, let's start as we always do, we continue to monitor what we as Angelenos are doing to slow the spread of kovat 19 and as you know, this is an army of people, doctors and nurses, public health professionals led by dr. Ferrer and other county officials, city and government officials, bus drivers, grocery employees, people who are in the warehouse, are making sure that we can live through this crisis, but also that this crisis is as short as humanly possible. I have shared with you that our overall momentum our movement in terms of our acceleration in the number of cases has slowed, but we also saw today that the number of cases continues to increase and I also want to share with you other data about our movement in the city.

I mentioned that we had been raided in a we went down to C, we have been B, and we went back to C, let's do everything we can, especially this week in the next week to stay home, we monitor our traffic patterns and we are seeing more movement in some of our roads we're also getting concerned calls to our hotline about this movement, which means people are back on the if you look at some of those traffic maps that we see, for example, on PCH, at some times when PCH south of the LAX area is in yellow, See some hotspots where we don't have any red in the city, but not everything is green, so make sure you stay home and only drive if absolutely necessary and even if it is necessary. you can stay home please try that too so I ask you to get off the road as we are downgraded via unicast.

I challenge us all to try to get back up to a, which means more of us will stay home. the neighborhood will preferably stay home if you exercise stay close to where you are to make sure it doesn't spread between neighborhoods and communities so let's dig into today's data there were six hundred and twenty new cases which is huge compared to what They were just a week or two ago and that brings the total number of cases in Los Angeles County to seven thousand five hundred and thirty cases. The slightly positive

news

is that this is the third consecutive day of increase. less than ten percent, this represents a nine percent increase since yesterday, but the third highest number of cases we have seen and, most tragically, the second highest, sorry, the highest number of deaths, 29 deaths that we saw, bringing our total to 198 fallen Angelenos. a 17% increase since yesterday and our deaths continue to double every four days if that doesn't help you become aware of what is to come nothing will and these are not numbers these are people and as always especially as As we enter these holy days ahead, our heart aches for those who are lost on this journey we are on, but as we prepare for the peak we are also focusing very carefully on the beds we have available in our hospitals. and the hospitals and medical professionals are doing an incredible job. able to expand those beds move the architecture of the hospitals build other places, obviously the USNS, the Convention Center and others, but today in our general emergency hospitals alone there are 1548 beds available, including 247 ICU beds and an inventory of just over a thousand 1042 to be exact ventilators available this testing as you know has been absolutely critical to our ability to know who has coverage for 19 and get them the help they need.

I shared with everyone earlier this week, the good news now is that anyone who has symptoms does not. Anyone without symptoms but anyone with symptoms can go to the City of Los Angeles

coronavirus

testing organization and go to a city or county drive-thru or walk-in center. We now have over 18 of them across the county. This is great news and we are working with other providers who are working with our senior population, our homeless population and others, to continue to increase this capacity today, we had a tremendous number of tests, four thousand on the first day, we had so many tests in one day, which brought us to 28,000 700 tests completed through these centers, in addition to what the hospitals and providers are doing, and tomorrow we will reach the 30,000 milestone that I talked about last week a day before as planned, even if spaces are full for a given day. remind you that if you log in, they will tell you that there is nothing else available, now they will send it the next available day, so go ahead and check at noon if you haven't been able to do that, because sometimes we see about fifteen or twenty percent of the people no-shows, so you may be able to get an appointment in the afternoon, even if you couldn't get one the night before.

Let me share some announcements about our new steps to keep Angelenos safe and support all those neighbors. of ours who are doing their good work by staying home each year. I know it's one of the great traditions of Los Angeles to go to the park to celebrate Easter, maybe it's to hunt for Easter eggs, maybe it's after church services to sit and have a picnic but this is not normal here and for That's what I announce to you that on Sunday our parks will be closed before we have closed the facilities and the trails that are in our parks but for this Sunday the parks will be completely closed except for the bathrooms that are being used at this time, the homeless and others will have park rangers and LAPD out there, we can't be everywhere all the time, so I'm counting on all of you and I know your hearts are breaking like many of them. the things we have had to do this is a very fun time for our children this is a great tradition that many families have but we cannot afford for a group of just a few people together to spread this disease to more people and kill them, We are doing very well so far.

I am so proud of each of you and while we can always do more, we want to make sure we don't slip while we have these better days, so we will be absolutely critical, we will be closed from the afternoon of Saturday April 11th until the morning of Monday the 13th. of April. The county has taken the same measures and that includes lakes and botanical gardens, in addition, all closures we have announced in recent days remain in effect. Our trails our facilities our beaches our playgrounds remain closed today Sunday and after Sunday, but this is only for walking in a park or spending time in a park on Sunday to stay safe.

Well, we have asked everyone to stay safer at home, not everyone has a place to call home and so from the beginning since January we have been focused on what we can do for our fellow Angelenos who are homeless . Today's testing moved forward for Angelenos experiencing homelessness and we now have 10 locations where homeless people can now go to trusted doctors and clinics that they already go to for their health problems and thanks to those clinics, the community clinics, to those doctors who have stepped up to ensure, whether on Skid Row or elsewhere in the city, that testing can be there for people.

Regardless of whether we have housing or not, we know that people who are homeless are susceptible and vulnerable, they are susceptible because they live on the streets and vulnerable because many of them already have underlying health problems and I hope that all of us after what happens kovat 19 will recognize that by being on the streets you are twice as likely to die as those of us who are housed to maintain this momentum. Public health is not just about kovat 19, it is about humanity, an emergency that we have on our streets every day and from the beginning I have been committed to improving our sanitary conditions, aware that our homeless Angelenos live by putting more of 300 handwashing stations on our streets, dozens of port-a-potties, but I was disappointed to learn that many of those handwashing stations did not have water, soap, or paper towels, so thank you Judge Carter and my Deputy Mayor Kristina Miller for the quick action, we have spoken to the people who are our sellers and instead of being checked once a week, they will. will now be reviewed daily to ensure that people living on the streets can maintain sanitary conditions and we can all help stop the spread of kovat 19 starting tomorrow and we are continually adding capacity to our emergency shelters at our facilities recreation and parks. to meet the need, as well as bringing motel and hotel rooms online through the state's Room Key project which is supported by the city of Lassa, our homeless services authority and the county, as well as many homeless partners. for-profit and a total of 1069 beds in 15 hotel sites. secured and transferred the staff so that it is operational and I thank so many people who have brought us hotels.

Councilman Joe Buscaino had one today in his district by the port. We have seen hotels from Van Nuys to downtown near Skid Row and other steps. up we need more we need to get them faster I'm committed to that so please with our hospitality community talk to us let's sign an agreement and get more rooms today. The project's room keys work to bring particularly vulnerable homeless people into their homes, those who are elderly. or who are medically compromised and it provides an opportunity for everyone to step forward, so I would like to make a big announcement with this to accelerate what we are doing tonight.

I am appointing John Vane to the City of Los Angeles to lead this effort. As my ambassador to the hotel and motel community, yesterday was his first day in this position, but John is a business leader, he is already the president, as a volunteer, the president of our convention and tourism development board, so has relationships with our hotel industry. Proven leader and someone I know will save even more lives. Thank you John for your help, so for the hotels and motels that want to get involved, let me tell you where you can go to the Los Angeles city organization clipping rooms, it's that easy and we welcome you.

Your help when we talk about saving lives is not just about lives, it is also about livelihoods, that's why I want to take a second today because many people are suffering, they have been laid off or they have fewer hours and they don't know what their future is. It means that some of them won't qualify for federal assistance, can't pay their rent, and fear being homeless when this is over. This is a time of immense stress for working class people in our lowest income Angelenos and even ordinary Angelenos who had something in the bank but are wondering how long it will still be there, the greedy hit our economy extremely hard and in future speeches I will begin to talk about what we are doing to think about how to restart the economy and the investments that we can. do and make sure that people have jobs that companies and businesses don't lose, who are our key employers and everything we can do to have a stronger social safety net to catch the people who are suffering so much right now like all of you.

Remember, we launched an $11 million small business emergency microloan program, which represents about two out of every hundred dollars in the country that local governments have offered from their own budgets to ensure we can put capital into hands of small businesses so they can keep employees on the payroll and we have been 4 times oversubscribed and we are looking for dollars to continue investing there but some of those loans are already going out the door but everything the city can make our I've always said it's really our federal government and our taxes in Washington that while we havecents they have dollar after dollar to help us with the Washington

coronavirus

legislation, the relief, let's say the legislation helps a lot, but as I've said before the $349 billion in loans from the Small Business Administration is a start to survival, not a path to recovery, so I have been in close contact with our national leaders, congressional leaders, people in the Senate and House of Representatives in the administration, and to gallop along with my fellow

mayor

s.

To ensure that we get in the next round the priorities that we need to see to save livelihoods here in Los Angeles, the relief legislation establishes two types of loans, Economic Injury Disaster Loans and the Paycheck Protection Program that You've probably heard it described as PPP and there is a lot of confusion about which one is correct and which one to apply to. Adding to that frustration, many companies go to the banks and tell them they don't qualify. They have never done business with those banks. Those banks are oversubscribed. so they are helping the companies that they already work with and the smaller companies in particular that are already undercapitalized and that don't have those connections with the banks are missing out in the lurch, which is why tonight I urge the banking community of Los Angeles Be part of the solution with us and announce the core of the cares.

This is a partnership between the city and county, the private sector, and volunteers to help give small businesses the help they need to apply for these federal loans. Remember these are competitive loans so if another part of the country is better than us at this that means there will be less money for our businesses to apply for, we have to be fast, we have to be knowledgeable and we have to assume that a lot People don't know how to go through the bureaucracy of applications, so this court of care are angels who literally practically do not personally help people apply for these loans to determine which one is better and which ones. they can apply at the city, county, state and federal level and there is an informational website that we already have and we are announcing today at coronavirus LA City org slash cares core which is with cor PS cares core and business owners can get a clear explanation of these two different programs and we have a call center in eight three three two three eight four four five or where business owners can get help from train loan counselors and complete these SBA loan applications and finally to businesses that are not eligible for SBA loans and Know that if you are a nonprofit employer, you are eligible for federal and city programs, so whether you are a religious institution or an educational institution, you can too request them.

There is information on how to apply for our city's small business loans. there too or for assistance through one of our commercial source centers. I want our small businesses to know that our city is here to help, but I also want to send that message to our immigrant and undocumented communities because they have been ignored by Washington, they are an integral part of our city, they pay taxes, but also through If your children may receive some additional benefits or food stamps, Washington has not passed anything to help those workers, which is why Congress needs to come back to the table and provide relief for the approximately 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in our state , including 375,000 here in the city of Los Angeles.

Countywide, we estimate there are around 650,000 undocumented workers who may not be working today, more than half of their jobs are at risk from the Cova 19 crisis, and it is estimated that at least a quarter will be lost. part of them. Governor Newsom has taken a positive step to fill this gap by announcing fifty million dollars in microloans for small businesses, including immigrant-owned businesses that are not eligible for federal aid and I am very encouraged and want to thank Governor Newsom for working with the legislature on a package for undocumented immigrants. Families in need don't have time to wait for a lifeline, they need it right now and let's be clear with the people here if not We will not allow immigrants to spend on Main Street.

Our entire economy will not return. We are all in this together. Every life matters and every person matters. We need to make sure we are in this boat together. That is why today, along with several of my fellow

mayor

s of California Mayor Breeding in San Francisco lekar doe in San Jose Steinberg in Sacramento chef in Oakland Polito and Santa Ana Garcia and tubs of Long Beach in Stockton I again call to the state to fill the gap for our undocumented community by retroactively extending the California Earned Income Tax Credit to all Californians, regardless of their immigration status, this step would immediately provide 600,000 people, of which 200 thousand are our children, a Much-needed relief to get through these difficult weeks together and learn how much you can save and this. it is eligible for all low income working class Californians go to Cal e I see the number four it means org which is Cal ee i ee dot org and click earn it to see how much you can get if you are eligible this is meaningless common and compassionate action and I hope we can all support this, regardless of our party, regardless of our zip code, regardless of our ethnicity, we must all help.

I also want to talk about immigrants. I mentioned this yesterday in a question, but there is absolutely no place for the discrimination and hate crimes that we are seeing across this country and even in this region against members of our Asian and Pacific Islander community. There is no excuse for that and it will be dealt with and prosecuted. Please report any anti-Asian hate. The crimes we see report any hate crime ever, but particularly during this crisis by calling 877, asking the LAPD if there is anything going on, of course, call 9-1-1 or take advantage of 3-1- 1.

This is a proudly Asian and Pacific city. one where our destiny has always been built on and included people whose ancestors trace back to Asia and we have no place for that kind of intolerance in the face of this crisis that should unite us now, there are more than a dozen right ways Now that we are helping everyday Angelenos to deal with this moment and since the beginning of this crisis, Angelenos have expressed concern about what happens if you lose your job and can't pay your rent, so let me spend a couple of minutes on this also.

Today, city, county, state and federal agencies are helping low-income individuals and families obtain food to pay for basic needs like rent and health care to earn supplemental income and qualify for programs. safety net. In the next few days I will welcome a county official here who along with me can explain to you what some of these programs are and the confusion together is a very strong arsenal to face the crisis of this moment when it comes to housing. We are doing our part as a city from the beginning. issuing the strongest protections for residential tenants to ensure that no one will be evicted if they cannot cover their payments due to this pandemic and courts at the state level have joined us in stopping evictions by closing a very important loophole that could have allowed people to be evicted the day after this emergency was declared over.

I also froze rents on all rent stabilized units which represent about 80 percent of our city's rental units and all of the lowest rents and I want to reiterate tonight my support for direct federal assistance for renters and for Mortgage holders, those homeowners, the families, to get through the payments that they have to make for our lowest income residents, they don't have jobs, they don't have income, they can't pay rent for any of the people. who also owned these family apartments, they can't pay their mortgages, they can't pay their rent, we need the federal government to help them directly to be able to help them get through these times and I have joined other mayors, I am proud to see the Council Municipal will present motions to that effect and I will sign each and every one of them when they reach my desk.

Getting through this emergency requires us to be flexible and understanding so let me tell you some more tips if you are a tenant and/or landlord it requires tenants and landlords to work together first with tenants know your rights if you can't pay rent don't get out your home, but understand that your landlords might be struggling too so contact them, that's good for you in terms of your legal rights, it's good for all of us in terms of communication, let them know in writing about your financial circumstances as a result. from kovat 19 as soon as possible, do it tonight if you have done it.

I haven't, make a plan for how and when you'll start paying rent and seek income assistance so you can take care of that, whether it's from the federal government or local efforts like the Angel fund I'm calling for. people to donate each night providing cash assistance to Angelenos and families in need. Landlords cannot force you to provide loss of income or hardship documents, that is a misconception and you are not required to sign any payment agreement, and our housing and community investment department is here to help, they are investigating complaints from tenants and informing landlords and tenants about the rules.

They can answer your questions. Provide you with a sample letter and you can go to their website. It's called H CID, so H CID la-la city org is H. CID la-la city org and while we work to protect our vulnerable tenants and support responsible landlords, we also make it clear that we will not tolerate illegal activity by part of the owners that threaten public health and people's lives. We have received some disturbing reports. from property managers conducting unauthorized short-term rental operations that violate city law in apartment buildings, in some cases we have learned of illegal units being used for parties that defy our safer at home order.

We have heard from residents, including seniors. and those with medical conditions who fear for their lives because their landlords are reducing rents and allowing tourists to occupy nearby rooms, these operators are not only flagrantly violating city code but also critical emergency orders I have filed to protect the health of everyone, who cannot and will. It will not be tolerated, let me reiterate that short term rentals are only permitted at the owner's primary residence and only after obtaining a proper registration number from the city. If illegal short-term rentals continue and endanger those who follow physical distancing rules, then we will take aggressive action. enforcement actions including fines and criminal charges to that end, we have now taken enforcement actions against the operators of Ellison Suites in the City of Venice, attorney Mark Mike Feuer and his office, working alongside Councilman Mike Bonin, have filed a 26 count criminal case for substandard conditions at this site along with a civil suit to prohibit this property from being used as a hotel this global pandemic is not an opportunity for unscrupulous actors to take advantage of us.

I will not tolerate that in this city and this is a crisis or not. I will not allow these activities to continue, period, now on a more positive note, the strength of Los Angeles has always been the way we bring together the good that we appeal to each other, that extraordinary neighbor who is buying groceries for her elderly neighbor, that person who goes out and works at a food bank, the people who are donating to help us with efforts to ensure that there is cash in the hands of families who can't pay rent and can't buy food.

The Los Angeles philanthropy community has been absolutely amazing during this, and every night I try to highlight some of the people who have stepped up and helped us for 70 years. The WM Keck Foundation has been an integral part of the USC Southern California Endowment X School of Medicine and has been a key element. I am a supporter of PBS here in the Southland and I am very grateful to report that the Keck Foundation led by President Robert Day and co-chairs Joe Day and Steve King have contributed five hundred thousand dollars to the Los Angeles Mayor's fund to help us with those care efforts child care for health workers, meals for seniors and cash assistance for families who join them is another donation of five hundred thousanddollars from the ring foundation headed by my dear friend and former colleague, former City Councilwoman Cindy, Mrs.

Kowski is named after her husband Doug Ring and Layton and her late mother Norma Ring, who are two of the incredible pillars of Los Angeles, a friend of mine Doug Ring and a great man and Cindy. I thank you in memory of him and your great work for joining us in this. effort, these funds are being put to work right now, as I mentioned, grocery carts already out the door, cash assistance coming this week, senior meals being served as we speak, these things make a difference and are part of our safety net. I am here to show what a City of Angels is truly all about and I am also grateful to our hardworking men and women who make up the United Brotherhood of Carpenters who have contributed half a million dollars, as well as to the people who are working hard right now to do things like build our homeless shelters and our critical infrastructure and those who came with their own dues in their own pockets to give $500,000 even to those in need or to the people that are out there, thank you and I want to thank Dan Langford, so like our general president of Los Angeles. native Doug McCarran for his commitment to rebuilding the middle class and helping us all finally hold on everyone in Los Angeles knows that there are movie stars who bring tourists here, actually it's the set carpenters and lighting technicians, the construction workers behind the scenes. workers in this industry who have helped us and we have another incredible donation that comes from one of the most famous companies here in Los Angeles and I want to thank the Fox corporation whose historic studios and backlot are an iconic part of our city and tonight they donated 1 million dollars to the Angelino fund to help the people most in need here in Los Angeles.

Thank you very much to all of you who can help in the mayor's fund. The organization. Every donation counts. It's $5 donations that help as much as a million dollars. especially if you're on a fixed income or you don't have much savings and I'm very touched by people who write stories or talk to people on the phone saying: I know how bad things are for me, but there's someone worse off and I'm giving tonight there's no nothing that is direct or simple right now there is nothing easy about what we are going through but let me end where I began tonight as some Angelenos sit at a seder with a few less people this year as we celebrate what this night means to many of us.

My Rabbi Sharon Brous expressed in a sermon here today that this is a decision we can all make every day. Passover reminds us and many of our religious holidays not to live in fear knowing that in the history of humanity we have had dark moments of slavery pestilence of moments when we did not know when the light would come but we refused to living in fear everything is possible and we can take what is called Mithila Laura moving from darkness to light, that is my wish for all of you tonight, as many prepare for Easter as the Muslim community prepares for Ramadan, a week and a half later, may we all take advantage of this moment to be grateful not only for what we have but for the idea of ​​something bigger than ourselves to save lives and help other human beings and for those of us who are destiny of faith and we can see that, made in the image of God, we are all expected to do so.

Let's do something bigger and bigger than what we are, so as always, I would like to end by saying: stay healthy, stay safe and stay home. Hug Sameeach for those who are celebrating tonight. I wish you all the blessings of God and all the strength and love of the Angels with that. will be happy to answer questions thank you hello mayor we have a question from Alex Michaelson the line is open hello Alex hello Hawks Am

eric

a and happy Easter to you and your family thank you very much you too let's talk for a moment about the topic of antibodies in Regarding the antibody testing, there's been a lot of thought that if you can test antibodies, you could see if someone could potentially make them safe to return to work, what's the status of that?

Are you working with any local companies to obtain it? that we absolutely have a small number of those tests, we are using them and trying to figure out where to best deploy them and also working with USC County Public Health Stanford and other people like Sean Parker who are funding studies right now to look at them. It's great to see the prevalence, in other words, how many people have this virus and might not have symptoms, but we can get a more honest number. If we take a few thousand random people who are representative of the county, for example, we give them each of these antibody tests. and we can actually see a real percentage, what we report every night is not the percentage of people who have the crown of the new coronavirus, we only report the number of people who tested positive through the tests that were done on them and I know that there are many, many more.

I don't know if it's the tip of the iceberg, but it's a fraction of the total number per second. We hope the national government will help us expand this across the United States if there is a place it can I would love to see Washington step up and help the private sector. It would be to make sure that not only these tests work and have a good response rate because at first some of them give some false positives but now they look pretty good but secondly see how we can spread as many of these as possible around the whole country today.

I spoke with many of our business leaders on a conference call. I spoke to our religious leaders and many of them spoke about this. Could we do a business test ourselves? our employees and then looking at those that are immune and having them start to come back to work in the future and I think it's a solid plan so we're just having those initial conversations. I know the county is working on that too, but we need to have one the quantity - the quality of them and then three the process by which we would allow people to do that in China people have a red yellow green card, you know, here we have a different society with different freedoms that we will have to see what works well with our system, but the idea of ​​people having an immunity passport or something that allows them to work would certainly accelerate for me our economic recovery and my ability as mayor to lift the orders for some people in the next few weeks. but I don't want people to have false expectations, there is still some time left in Wuhan, which had a very strict lockdown, as I said, it was 76 days here.

I think they intervened on us before, but we haven't reached the peak we gained. It won't peak for a week or two and a month according to most of the projection, so it's something we can look at in May and June, but if we can prepare for it now, I would love to see Los Angeles lead the way and we are having conversations with companies and researchers to see if we can get that kind of amount for the future thanks Alex, next question, good evening, about people who have done it, because sometimes people do several tests and then I also wonder if you know if first responders and health care workers are getting... you know before they start showing symptoms, so for the general public they should show symptoms, but I wonder for people who will come into regular contact with people coded as 90 positive. or possibly positive if regular tests are done even without some time.

Yes, we actually started our first responders when the first self-service center opened. We had a few other people, but it was mainly for our firefighters, our police officers and others. on the front lines or who had wondered if they had been exposed, but we are not necessarily symptomatic, that started with 200 people the first day in a parking lot near Dodger Stadium, now that is a fixed group, now it is a small fraction of the general test. that we have so many, but regularly yes, and to anyone who is one of those healthcare workers and/or first responders who needs a test, we provide it to them in terms of the first question, no, this is the number of individuals that I give to them. individuals, so if I didn't make it clear.

Sorry, if you looked at the general testing, you're right because some people have two or three tests, it would be a much larger number of general tests done, but that's the number of people that now through our drive-thru centers and that center without appointment as well as our distribution through our networks now for homeless people and for seniors that we are doing thank you next question thank you we will go to Elizabeth Chow with the Los Angeles Daily News please move on quickly and Also, which ones Are some of the steps you are taking to quickly establish more permanent housing for people after perhaps three months of furlough?

So the 15,000 goal that the county proposed, which I support one hundred and fifty percent, is certainly very ambitious and That's why I announced tonight some help by having a sort of chance in hotel and motel rooms with John I'm coming to the city's side to help them get these deals done even faster, though I want to thank the state and county for doing this. Initially there was state money for this, but the good news was that FEMA said this is a reimbursable expense, so while we can use that upfront state money that was given to us for the homeless response, the response emergency should be for the most part to reimburse 75 or one hundred percent of that from FEMA the first time I talked about this I think a couple of nights ago this has never been done in the history of the United States it's something I asked for three years ago when I said it would be great to have a state of emergency in the Nationwide, earlier I was remembering when El Niño was coming and I said why can't we get FEMA dollars to help people living on the streets not die or in the riverbeds, but the policy back then and for previous administrations was not unique to this FEMA only reimbursed after something bad happened, not when we knew something bad was going to happen.

This is the first time we are able to accommodate people who have not yet contracted Cove at 19, so they will be refunded and that is what they are. partially reimbursable by FEMA and that has allowed us to be so aggressive so I hope we continue to try to get thousands of these to the second part of your question what happens next that is also a point I have been making until I am with my face blue we cannot allow this to be a time where the federal government and/or the state give us these dollars and then say hello, when it's done, good luck and these people are back on the streets.

I mean, that would be one of the best. tragedies of this moment I don't entertain the idea that one by one they will move 100 percent of the people out of the motel and into hotel rooms and everyone will have a quick and happy ending by going to housing, but we better get as close as possible one one as we can, so I asked a separate part of my team to start working with our Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, whether that means more construction, it's very difficult to do and you know , two months to put up new housing is practically impossible, but there are some modular things that we could do or potentially with some of these motels and hotels, as I think I shared with you, there was a hotel that is looking to help right now, but they said no received funds for their development project and that they would do it.

Maybe he's interested in selling us the entire hotel that we could then keep to keep homeless people off the streets, but we have to look at each of those buildings, make sure we can staff them, make sure that there are facilities for people to live there, but I think it would be a wasted opportunity if we don't get many of those thousands of people who go to hotel and motel rooms permanently, either in those places or through other housing, to stay , so we're increasing Get ready for that as we simultaneously try to find those rooms to put in today and thank you very much for that question, it's a really critical point, next question please Hi Steve, about the freelancers, we're getting a lot of feedback from listeners on the The impacts that eb-5 has had on freelancers and people in that community seem to be stuck in the middle where they can't really get resources and because of the new law, it's confusing them a little bit as well. shortly before the city starts to see the federal dollars really start to come into the budget here in the coffers here and finally, when this is all said and done, looking forward a little bit, from now on, do you see anything that may be permanently affected or changed asAs a result of this pandemic, anything in the city, any politics, anything you can see off the top of your head, you know what has changed and will probably stay that way, in fact, at the latest, it's probably too soon. say it specifically, but I certainly hope so.

I hope we learn the lessons of how quickly we can come together when we need to, whether we're looking at poverty or racism, whether we're looking at homelessness, whether we're looking at issues. like domestic violence and I want to thank everyone who stepped up and donated to help us continue to expand beds for victims of domestic violence in the midst of this. I hope we can continue to reduce bureaucracy at the federal level. I hope we have something permanently changed that will allow us to get reimbursed for the disasters that happen every day on our streets, like our homelessness crisis here and throughout California, in Washington and across the country.

I hope we also look for ways we can help each other in negative ways. Somehow we will change things or have less interactions, well, we will have more Zoom meetings. You know, we'll have times when people are a little more hesitant to be around each other. I think that in the medium term, yes, I think sporting events will be slower. to comeback gigs, things like that, but I don't think they're permanent. I think human beings want to get back together, we want to congregate, we want to celebrate, we love our sports teams. I've been watching too many reruns while going to sleep. of old games and I love watching Lakers Showtime, but I miss our current teams playing and seeing that, besides the second question, the federal money hasn't started flowing to us, but we know it's coming, it has already flowed, probably we have to do it.

I guess some companies because some of that money came out the first day, but I don't have a number and the SBA hasn't given us a report for the Los Angeles area, although we have the largest SBA office in the country and a very good one again through the banks that the SBA has the umbrella under, but we know they're good because we know what these specific amounts are and now we know a lot of the requirements and I want to thank FEMA again for doing that. It really is an extraordinary job, it's good to see them taking charge of things and helping us, whether it's getting mercy or getting refunds for hotel and motel rooms, which has really been an extraordinary step forward and then with the freelancers, you're right.

It predates this crisis, but a b5 some loved it, others hated it, it was certainly an opportunity to make sure freelancers weren't left in the lurch, but it was different to other states. Some freelancers have complained, well, my company is no longer in business. in California and lost my job. I hope that we can be part of a national movement to recognize that every job matters, that people should have benefits no matter who they are, and as we're seeing even in this, something like the PPP, paycheck protection. The program is great for a business that has regular employees, but if you are not a regular employee and you are left in the lurch, you may receive some of the cash assistance that all Am

eric

ans receive, but short of that, what?

Why shouldn't I receive it? able to get that kind of assistance through the company you freelance for and I would like to see that addressed in the federal legislation moving forward from here. Yes, those were the three questions. Thank you very much Steve, next question please. Go ahead, hey Adrian, I'm mayor, several cities have announced the creation of funds that will actually allocate public money to direct payments for undocumented immigrants and others. This mayor's fund it's not clear to me if there's public money there and I'm wondering if that's something you're looking into or willing to do and if not all of our programs both raise private and foundation philanthropic money and our public money will ensure that anyone, regardless of whether they are an immigrant or not, has documents or It is not that all Angelenos are treated the same, so there is access to all of them for everyone.

We're working with immigrant rights groups and others who have those networks and, frankly, the work we do all the time with people to make sure that no one is left out. In the same way that the federal legislation did, there is direct cash assistance for people, including the undocumented, that will come from the We are pretty close to the Angel fund where we are trying to raise ten million and some of that money will continue, but I think that We could easily try to double or triple that amount and look all the time and ask for more donors for that and for our and our city programs where we're using funds, for example, for our small business assistance that can go to immigrant-owned businesses. , including undocumented immigrants, so absolutely, unless there is a federal ban on the money that we have from the federal government, the state does not put those requirements and we do not put them, so it is absolutely open to everyone and we will go to the people regardless of their status.

Thank you, next question with UCLA Bruin, please continue, some workers who are at higher risk of exposure but may not be. able to obtain protection, especially postal workers, and how the city plans to protect these nominated co-workers who may not be able to obtain this protective equipment, but the orders and order do not protect them. Yes, so we try to look as comprehensively as we can, these are dynamic orders, we can always add postal workers to consult with my staff, but I think there were no direct store type interactions and that's why we certainly have made sure there are people like taxi drivers, rideshare drivers. people who are working on construction sites, etc., but those seem to be the ones where public health tells us that the type of interactions that they have, face coverings could have an impact on slowing the spread of Kovat 19.

I want to be clear: I don't know if this was in the question we said: non-medical emergency workers, of course, there is an even higher threshold that is being used by first responders and medical workers with n95 masks with surgical masks with PPE with shields facial and with clothes that help protect them so that it would not be to exclude them, they have an even higher one, but these other people were not covered, we kept saying that the people were our heroes, that they are supermarket employees, people who helped us drive buses, etc., now we wanted to make sure that that was mandatory, that employers knew they had a responsibility, that employees knew they had protection and that it wasn't just about face coverings, the ability to go to the bathroom, wash hands every half hour, these are proven things that can help slow the spread and we want to make sure they were covered, but I'll follow up if we have anything specific on postal workers, but that didn't seem to be in one of the categories that ran higher risk, according to the advice of the Public.

Health next please thank you our next questions are in Spanish and that will come from Abel Ella meow with telemundo 52 please go ahead when I started this good night Jaime hello Mary good night yes just uh if you could please expand more in Spanish on how The plan The Earned Income Tax Credit could possibly benefit Angelenos, including the immigrant community, and do you think this plan would actually become a reality? Well, I actually have that in my Spanish talking points, so I'll do that in the longer speech if that's okay. Do we have any other questions in Spanish or from the Spanish media?

We have another question. Okay, why don't I answer that one too? I'll be sure to include it there. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. I'll go next door. Víctor Cordero with krca channel 62 please go ahead Spanish I don't know if you said you are going to do this now but I will ask you in English can we do as my colleague from Toronto asked you regarding the tax reduction of taxes for Latinos, especially undocumented people in the city Number two, something to do with the border, like you did yesterday with the masks, some of these companies and employees are afraid that their boss won't be able to provide them to them if they don't provide them. the masks, which means they would be fine, great, let me say that in English and then I'll translate it into Spanish and then I'll give my bigger address and I'll address your earned income tax credit, so if there are employees who have an employee who He says no we won't get you a mask or refund you for the mask because the order says so, so cover your face, you can give them the bill, you don't know, nothing gold plated, not even hundreds of dollars obviously. just a regular face mask, the employer has to pay you for that or provide it to you, so that's the order and that's the law, if you have any questions about that or have an employer trying to tell you that you have to go home, you can No works, call us, call us on three, one, let us know and we will make sure to bring our team of business ambassadors in immediately.

This violates the law. No one should lose their job because they are trying to protect themselves. and we know we add restaurants to this, we know there are a lot of restaurant workers that work in pretty dangerous conditions, the kitchens are small, it was one of the places where we felt like we needed food, we want to keep our restaurants and businesses, but also the public. health advice which was one of the riskiest areas, so it is really essential that all employers comply with this. So in Los Angeles, the police cover areas, number alleys, all the bikinis and presses, go around the businesses.

Try Devon on giving the money for a mask or give one. muscaria Susan play ADO's is a violation of the law see a oz they can't do this and please dominoes a trace on se C to to when you are a your business no this complaint the as of order this Order is very important to our people it is very important for the employees and Ristorante is he ought rose business stores he s of order not suna option as obligatory Oh with that I'm going to do a little more Spanish thank you all very good afternoon los angeles thank you for coming tonight the mayor of the angels I go V Aaron say sorry pass to new cases in Los Angeles County n total da Gama's to seven milk in in tows thirty cases in the city of the an SUV to Rondo hundreds Renta cases Jager on a total of three thousand three in toes Sixty I know Aaron paint one people more this is a bigger amount and my story they Stay crisis Uganda in total I feel ninety and eight Alma's case so Phi C Aramaki and this is my god number and Huertas and I am very sorry for the families who are suffering as a result of this in us' Bears potala stan demos a thousand kin in tha's Forty-Eight commas available entrance areas I feel square ent seven are in the care units sentence evos and we have a thousand Forty-two hours for Dora's available today ASIMO's address tests to three milk nee before people mess forgive me more than four thousand people in total we have tested Bente or cho thousand people in this Center's we are on the way to be trenton a thousand tests for tomorrow IF you have coronavirus error tape casita the page coronavirus dot the series dot or diagonal testing to do a screening test this year with the Easter party we cannot react areas car know al Montaner the parkas open s' for THAT tonight lay or donated the department the Recreation Eparchies KCRA all public parts between the night on Saturday Anza rubble as of Monday April 3 in the morning following expanded emergency services to protect an was neighbors in Oh God in Clue and Oh Aloha dou a homeless person to no Tellez Oh to this in Ooty and to our President of the fifth convention center SE Tourism John then come on Russell and Bahadur and community hotel was those interested z-- n participate can visit the page coronavirus tip the series point or diagonal rooms we continue our work and Dondo a bikini SM presses but we need help too the Washington il pocketed a stimula economic calendar on is not enough for THAT tonight a stolen sand or the cares core a collaboration Entry the county and the city to offer help to bikinis and presses seek material application wait federal credits the spec æneas and presses can visit the page coronavirus point the series point or diagonal cares cadaver for more information also perineum are our self feel thirty-three tow hundred thirty-eight Forty-four Sinko enta or visit our nose austin bulls of resources for impress o's to receive assistance we know that the federal distance excludes vulnerable mass people and while we wait for a congress to take action the cities are taking action together with several rent from California I am asking the state again to fresh the credit oh poor income from work for all California Janos seen care if he is to smear Torrio this is critical all the people of California Marys and help during thiscreasy's e Sacramento has the power to dark as the assistants here at all the people The goats the immigrants s immigrants is with documents it is also seen during this difficult time to store later ah Olivia important ad says hundreds thousand people in qui and o2 hundred thousand Nino's please visit this site Cal say number four ma a Punto org Cal a tes a Quattro ma a Punto or to see IF you are the he bleh but I hope we get band o e rasool allah his Latura pompous our estes actions or Order the governor or Newsom immediately Isis tier gnosis immigrant eze e the program is the city of los angeles persistence to financial with the fund and Haley no not some poor people from Texas - very soon to grant a scam document to see no Coke Mentos or any immigrant from Arizona $1 people in Los Angeles Tony guar yes the assistants assistants iya De Niro is the same for everyone brings chaos who does not 7z to pay their rent we have taken action and local rel for Prabir daesil eyes and we are also asking the loss in Quigley no see pro pitarrio's who work together you must communicate poor written in important writing about your current situation yoga a plan for when komova Pay the Rent smart and you have two more for this see need help you can visit our the page to che SE e of the point the series point org also repeat good not permission T Ramos the bear temporary housing units owners for parties knee for tourists this puts in areas queues lives of neighbors enosis residents the bear temporary housing says allowed only sky property s the place of res place of residence prime area the owner It is only after above having a city registration number if the short-term rental of housing continues upon enrico the sauna rules distance tomorrow Mo's aggressive action ax who amo mutas it criminal charges to have our future friends in this crisis no It is with Of course for the moment TRO we know that the angels always ah super odd oh oops obstacle Asst very difficult in the story of our you the story of Easter is a story of hope of res choice I hope that all of us of people of faith the many traditions can the flescher r the best of the city and the hope of these stories is important that all of us know that we are in this Chrissy's together so cadenza a in Good health Karen says protected two X yes at home thank you for all thank you for your actions a thank you also for your love where there is more Los Angeles yes the morning thank you all thank you for tuning in see you tomorrow