Homeless In Karen Bass’ Los Angeles
The Globe speaks to homeless people in LA about Inside Safe one year in
By Evan Symon, December 16, 2023 2:30 am
This week, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass celebrated her first year in office, and highlighted the “success” of her Inside Safe project. However, as the Globe and other outlets have pointed out, her program has been far from a success, with LA’s homeless problem growing even worse under her tenure. Homelessness has gone up 10% under her watch, with only 255 homeless people out of 46,000 getting permanent housing through a $67 million program. While 21,000 were housed in some way, shape, or form, almost all of these were temporary slots, with no statistics showing how many stayed in shelter long-term or went back on the streets.
To get a sense what life is like under Bass’ program, the Globe talked with several homeless people in LA on Friday.
“Nothing has changed,” said Malik Hayes, a homeless man who lives nearby the Skid Row area of the city, to the Globe. “I did get clean a few years ago when [former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti] was running things, but I got back on it no too long after. If I had some stability I don’t think I would have, but I did. And here is something you won’t hear from many of us: It was my fault. I’m an addict.
“But now we have this new Mayor, but nothing has changed. All except they keep pushing people to go into these shelters. That’s all they seem to care about. I want to get clean again and get my own place with a job. That isn’t too much to ask. I need help though. But a shelter bed isn’t my own place. A shelter bed is a long way where I can get work. A shelter bed is away from a place where I can get help with my addiction. These people don’t understand that.”
Another, Kyle Wright, has been in and out of homelessness since the mid 2010s.
“Please, God, do not say ‘Inside Safe’ to any of us ever again,” added Wright. “Those words make homeless people cringe.
“For a lot of homeless people like me, we go in and out of the system. Housing and costs are high. So we work up to get our own place, but then the rent goes up, or costs go up, and soon our job can’t cover it, so we’re back in our cars or couch surfing, or like where I am now, living in a tent. I want to get an RV, but those are expensive.
“The reason, the big reason, why I’m always close to getting back up is because I have that flexibility to move closer to where my job is and try to find a place around there. If you go in a shelter how they are right now, you don’t have much say. They just stick you somewhere. It really feels like they just want to stick you somewhere just so that they can say that is one less homeless person on the street. We feel like statistics to them, not people.
“This is why we hate Inside Safe. You have a better chance at recovering by not being in a shelter. We still need programs to help us out. CalFresh, rental assistance and all that. But we can do it. Shelters, you’re stuck. Some people have lost a lot more by taking shelter space, so don’t say Inside Safe around us.”
Inside Safe one year later
Others have similar feelings to Wright.
“Homelessness under Bass? Just as exhausting as ever,” said “Pauline” a transgender homeless woman who wished to remain anonymous. “The best way I can put it is, ok, like giving food to the homeless. All help is appreciated, but food is often the most useless thing for us to directly get from people. We have many ways of getting adequate food, and giving a sandwich or something else to us isn’t the greatest option. We can easily get it, we have no place to store it, and it often goes bad before we can eat it. And sometimes some sickos pee on it or put broken glass in it and see if we eat it when we are given it. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of people out there.
“Inside Safe is like that. For those who really need it, like when it gets cold or raining, its good to have. But we can often find better options ourselves. For many reasons, tents are often better than the shelters LA currently has. Honestly, a secured lot with port-a-potties would be much, much better than shelter space. But the city tries to force our hands too, like limiting public restroom times.
“I’m glad she is trying something, and I understand how tents and homeless encampments are not liked by many people, but Inside Safe is not the way to go. Plus, from some stories we have heard about those shelters, we have some alternate names like “Inside Unsafe” or “Inside Safe, Outside Safer”.
During the Skype interview, when asked if anyone had a positive experience with shelters in the past year, only one hand out of the 18 homeless people participating in the video went up.
“When it rained all those times earlier this year, I was glad to be inside,” said the anonymous homeless man. “But that was March or April right? I haven’t been back since. And they keep bugging me about going back too.”
Nearly the opposite ratio of hands went up when a subsequent question of if they had a negative experience went up.
“The shelter people were incredibly condescending, you never felt like a person to them, and they didn’t get it when you said you wanted some privacy there,” said Franklin, a homeless man.
Another, Pearl, added that “If you ever had that feeling after being evicted or another big sort of loss like that, that was the feeling on entering that shelter. Previously, it was just a sort of temporary thing and it was more on survival. But this year, in 2023, the feeling around it just changed. Before we were more grateful or relieved to get a bed for a night or two when we needed it and needed time to figure things out, like where to live. This year things have felt off. There is, I don’t know how to explain it, less humanity to it it seems.”
“It seems like you’re in a factory, just being processed,” interrupted Wright. “Before we had at least some dignity going into a shelter. That we caught a bad break and that we could work ourselves back up. That feeling is gone now. Now there is a feeling that we can’t move up from these shelters.”
More on the one year anniversary of Bass’ homeless programs is likely to come out in the next few weeks.
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Thank you Evan Symon for this first-person take on what it is like to be on the receiving end of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, as well as all the members of the Homeless Industrial Complex, absolute failure to do anything helpful or practical or useful but which will only grow the numbers of vagrancy and those who will continue to live in their own filth and chaos and mental illness and drug addiction and alcoholism, and with no end in sight with these people in charge. To add insult to injury, Mayor Karen Bass and her ilk crow about their successes and accomplishments! If you can believe it.
Best doesn’t care about anyone and literally eat unless you’re a illegal immigrant looking for housing. Oh, don’t set you up really quick with a house. Apartment money and food is disgusting
When the United Nations needs to house people, they use what’s called the Refugee Housing Unit (RHU).
These are pre-fab shelters that house six people at a cost of $1,200 each RHU.
Never mind the BILLIONS L.A. has spent on the homeless, just the $67,000,000 in this one program is more than enough money to shelter 335,000 people in RHUs. If Mayor Bass was anything but stupid/corrupt, she could have housed every single one of L.A.’s homeless five times for that $67,000,000 and still have money left over!
She is the worst mayor in the history of LA and needs to be recalled for her ineptitude in solving the homeless crisis
my name is Gloria Salas and I’m in a shelter and as I come&go from the shelter I am attack each and every time u leave or I come back I am attack outside of the place..
receiving homeless assistance in an emergency needs to be easily accessible,there’s people in dior need of assistance and don’t know where to turn because there’s always a long process before obtaining anything from the government.
Homeless assistance needs to be more accessible,you shouldn’t have to live in a shelter before you can obtain your own apartment,There are people in dior need of housing,but don’t know where to turn because there’s always a process before receiving anything from the government. without stability, we’re incapable of fulfilling our responsibilities,such as obtaining Identification,going to school,obtaining a job. We need accessibility to our resources without hassle.
I’m in a shelter (tiny house )in west lake. the people are great, they never talk down to you.I could easy keep a job while liveing here. those people you talked to ,just wants a apt. right off the bat. it don’t work that way. staying here I can save up money, and when it’s my turn. I have money to get my place. they are crazy! this bets that for sure. feeling safe is something else! blessing is a blessing.