LA Mayor Bass’ Newly Touted Homeless Measures Face Backlash

Backlash against Mayor Karen Bass’ Monday State of the City Address continued on Wednesday, with many residents and analysts charging that her new plans to alleviate homelessness would only result in more failure.

Bass’s series of failed homeless initiatives dates back to when she was elected. In November 2022, Bass narrowly defeated developer Rick Caruso and announced she would be going after homelessness on day one. Sworn in the next month, Bass’ first act as Mayor was declaring a state of emergency in the city over the homeless crisis. She quickly created Inside Safe, a program to house more of the cities homeless temporarily in hotels and motels, a move that led to extreme backlash from hotel and motel owners across the city. Nearby cities also declared an emergency, barring Bass from implementing a plan to move many of LA’s homeless to an area in the Antelope Valley.

In 2023, Bass’ homeless projects again failed to gain traction. In March 2023, many in Los Angeles, from lawmakers to the homeless, were calling the program a failure. The next month, Bass touted that the program had 1,000 of the city’s roughly 45,000 homeless in temporary shelter, and used this to justify her incoming budget, including $1.3 billion for homeless funding. As the crisis grew worse during the spring and summer, the state of emergency was extended.

Homeless figures released in June found that Bass’ programs were not working, with LA seeing a 10% bump in homeless people since she was elected.

By the end of the year, homelessness was up exponentially, with Inside Safe, her signature program to combat homelessness, only moving 255 people to permanent housing so far out of the 46,000 in LA, despite $67 million already going into the program.

While 21,000 did get housing of some type in her first year, few stayed for long because of the highly restrictive conditions and Bass’ focus on housing and not on other areas regarding homelessness, such as job placement. It should be noted that while many encampments were also removed during this time, they were a result of policies made by either the City Council or her predecessor Eric Garcetti.

So far in 2024 there has been little improvement. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Inside Safe had moved about 2,600 people indoors from street encampments as of April 12th. However, of these, 613 people, have returned to homelessness, 42 have been incarcerated and 38 have died, with an unknown number currently trying to get out of the program because of the temperature getting warm again, like many did last year. Many of these people are also in temporary shelter, a far cry from the amount needed to house 46,000 homeless people in the city.

State of the City

So on Monday, during her State of the City address, she decided to focus on her fledgling program, and trying to get a segment of the population to voluntarily give more money to help solve the crisis. Specifically, she’s asking rich Los Angeles residents to give even more so the city can buy new buildings and help fund housing programs.

Kicked off last year, LA4LA urges rich residents to give funds to the city to help pay for conversion programs and the purchase or lease of buildings to help create new temporary and permanent housing for homeless residents.

“We refuse to hide the fact that it’s 46,000 people,” said Bass on Monday. “We will not hide people. Instead, we will house people. We have brought the public sector together. And now we must prevail on the humanity and generosity of the private sector. LA4LA can be a sea change for Los Angeles, an unprecedented partnership to confront this emergency, an example of disrupting the status quo to build a new system to save lives.”

“The crisis on our streets is nothing less than a disaster. Inside Safe is our proactive rejection of a status quo that left unhoused Angelenos to wait and die outside in encampments until permanent housing was built.”

Bass did receive some support for these initiatives afterwards, including from a few millionaires in the city and some lawmakers, who praised Bass’ continued efforts.

“She tells the truth,” said LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell following the speech. “As a resident of the city of L.A., I respect that.”

However, many more blasted her on her latest attempt, calling it at best, an attempt at guilting wealthy residents into paying the city more. Many homeless experts also noted that Bass’ tactics were still too housing focused, as surrounding services were needed to truly get people out of homelessness.

Opposition against Bass

“The wealthiest already contribute a lot. They’re called taxes,” chided lawyer Early Kelly, who helps facilitate large donations and gifts from wealthy clients to different philanthropical groups and organizations. “I know from the clients I spoke to, as well as some other people who I know donate a lot, they’re now less likely to donate to LA4LA. They’re not showing any real results, and it is a bad game plan.”

“Now if there was a big homeless hiring event, some of my people would then be on board. They’re more ‘jobs first’ people, and that’s what they would rather have. Or they want improvements elsewhere. Many are big on education, so they pump money into scholarships, or university donations, or institutions that supplement learning like libraries or zoos or museums. Homelessness is the trick area though. They don’t see the funds being used correctly, so why should they put more into a broken program? Bass tried to appeal to their hearts, but she missed big time on Monday.”

Homeless experts also disparaged Bass’ homeless appeal on Wednesday.

“She keeps trying to make it seem like housing is the only part of this equation, and now she is trying to hit up rich people to buy buildings. She’s trying everything at this point,” said Mark Wagner, a Philadelphia-based researcher on homelessness, to the Globe on Wednesday. “Well, everything but more effective solutions.

“Homeless experts keep saying that, time and time again, it’s not just housing. These people need jobs, health care, mental care, skill training if needed. Then, with everything together, they can move up. Sticking them in an old hotel under a curfew greatly limits them and what they can do. Is it better than being on the streets during below 50 nights? Yes, it can be. But they lose valuable job time slots, they need to travel farther for assistance and job opportunities. A better solution would just to make affordable housing available to all so it helps poorer residents and gives incentive to homeless people to work and get that housing. It’s not a lack of shelter, it’s the lack of affordable shelter.”

“Bass and her flying monkeys in LA just don’t get this for some reason.”

More on Mayor Bass’ homeless policies are due to come out soon.