The Failings of LA Mayor Bass’ Inside Safe Homeless Initiative

For the last several months, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe Project, a “housing first” homelessness initiative that places many in hotels and motels, has been in operation in LA. While the Globe has reported that many, especially the owners of the motels, have been upset with the plan, many homeless have also been less than thrilled with the plan as well.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times reported that many homeless people have grown frustrated with the plan, as the city has shifted them from motel to motel throughout the city. And as the Globe found out on Tuesday, it has begun to wreck many lives in the process.

“Inside Safe has just plain hurt us,” noted Wanda Walker, a homeless woman who has been housed by the city since late last year. “Before all that, I was living on the street in a tent. It wasn’t glamourous, but I generally stayed close enough to work to walk there, and was chipping away at a savings account for a down payment on a small apartment. Again, I know this isn’t much, but I was getting there.”

“But once I was brought to the motels, and moved around again and again, keeping the job proved impossible. Each new place meant a new bus or metro schedule to go on, and it reminded me why I left [Operation Roomkey Housing] a year or two back. A lot of us really so want to work and get out from being homeless. Once you get an apartment, you can get food and health benefits and begin your own life again with the goal of getting off them. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of us hate having to rely on the government nd handouts, and a good job is the base to get out of that. But when they send you to a hotel far away from work, you need to suddenly choose between street living and living in a motel free of charge.”

The failings of Inside Safe

For others Inside Safe was good at first, but as different needs arose, many homeless quickly turned on the program.

“For awhile, having housing like that was great,” added “Ronaldo”, a homeless man who wished to use a pseudonym out of fear of not being allowed housing in the future. “But some of us started getting jobs far enough where it would require taking the bus or something, and we asked for closer housing, and it just didn’t work out. I know there is concern over entitlement,, and it could seem that way, but this was a need on our part, and we were just shut down.

“And this is it. This is the failing of the system. A lot of us want to visit family who couldn’t put us up, or go to work, or really start our lives up again, but being tied down to this housing drags us down. Especially when they essentially can move you at any time. LA and Mayor Bass just want it to seem that you’re so grateful to be housed that you won’t have other concerns. And, granted, they’ll do a lot of things for you, but a lot of us just want to be self-sufficient again. Many of us just fell on hard times and want to find a way back. And that may mean not having an apartment for awhile. We need close housing to places to work to get out of the system, not be shuffled around at their whim. And be treated like humans. At some places, we aren’t even allowed guests, like family, to come and visit. And the city wonders why so many of us are beginning to hate this program.”

John, a third homeless person, briefly added “We just want a pathway back to being regular citizens. It can be some shifts at a McDonalds and a bare studio apartment, but we want a normal life again. Whatever the city is trying to do now ain’t it.”

Statistics on the LA Inside Safe Project are likely to come soon.