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Two new appointees to a $1.2 billion oversight committee in the drive to end homelessness in Los Angeles know a lot about the subject: They were once homeless themselves.

Three appointees to a citizen committee that will help oversee $1.2 billion for homeless initiatives were approved Friday by the Los Angeles City Council, while Mayor Eric Garcetti announced his four appointees.

Two — Tiffany Boyd and Tunua Thrash-Ntuk — said they were homeless at one point. Boyd is now a full-time student and a representative of the National Foster Youth Institute. Thrash-Ntuk is executive director of the Los Angeles Local Initiatives Support Corp.

“Angelenos approved Prop. HHH because residents want to take part in ending our homelessness crisis,” Garcetti said. `

“The measure was designed to give everyone in our city the opportunity to have a say in how and where dollars are spent and where housing is built. The Citizen’s Oversight Committee is made up of thoughtful, dedicated people with the integrity to help guide that process — and to make sure resources are allocated equitably and transparently.”

Proposition HHH was approved by city voters in November and aims to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless with $1.2 billion in bond money over 10 years. As part of the propostion, the oversight committee was to be made up of four mayoral appointees and three City Council appointees.

Garcetti’s appointees to the HHH Citizens Oversight Committee are Kerry Morrison, David Ambroz, Miguel Santana and Beatrice Hsu.

The City Council’s appointees are Blair Besten, Boyd and Thrash-Ntuk.

Morrison is the executive director for the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance and was a commissioner at the Los Angeles Homeless Service in 2011- 2016.

Ambroz is the director of Corporate Citizenship & Social Responsibility at Disney and also serves as the president of the Central Planning Commission.

Santana served as the city’s Chief Administrative Officer from 2009 until he recently left the job to lead the Los Angeles County Fair Association.

Hsu is senior vice president of Development & Forward Planning at Related California LLC. She is a member of the Planning Program Advisory Board of the University Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy, and a co-chair of the Central City Association’s Housing and Land Use Committee.

Blair Besten is the head of the Historic Core Business Improvement District.

Besten is a resident of downtown and told the City Council that “when I used to nurse my son in the middle of the night I used to think of the thousands of people on the street right outside my building that did not have the good fortune to have what my son had in my arms with me at those times, and I thought about it every single night.”

“At one time myself as a youth I found myself homeless. This particular matter is important to me not only personally but professionally,” Thrash-Ntuk told the council.

The council’s appointees were approved with an 11-0 vote.

— City News Service

Ex-homeless to oversee $1.2 billion LA drive to help people off the street was last modified: by

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