Los Angeles’s Homeless Crisis Deepens Under Mayor Bass

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass promised to end street homelessness. Instead, the latest numbers show her administration is delivering the opposite. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2026 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, released in late July, the city’s overall homeless population rose 3.4 percent to 45,194 people. Even more damning, the unsheltered population (those living on sidewalks, in tents, vehicles, or makeshift shelters) jumped 7.9 percent to 29,115. Across LA County, the figure climbed 1.2 percent to 73,040.

These are not statistical blips. After two years of modest declines that Bass touted as historic progress, the trend has reversed. LAHSA attributes much of the increase to funding cuts that paused enrollments in Time Limited Subsidies, causing permanent housing placements to drop from roughly 28,600 in 2024 to 23,532 in 2025. Economic pressures and a chronic shortage of affordable units continue to push new people onto the streets faster than the system can absorb them. With those bottlenecks still in place and no meaningful course correction in sight, the next count is all but certain to paint an even bleaker picture.

Bass’s signature response, the multi-hundred-million-dollar Inside Safe program, has proven to be little more than an expensive revolving door. Roughly 40 percent of participants eventually return to the streets. Temporary hotel rooms and bridge housing may clear an encampment for a photo op, but they do not solve the problem. The mayor’s reflex has been to blame Sacramento and Washington for funding shortfalls while insisting the city has still reduced homelessness 11 percent since 2023. That is leadership by press release, not results.

Even the progressive housing activists who once cheered Bass are done pretending. Housing Is a Human Right, the leftist advocacy arm of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has openly called out the mayor’s ineptitude. Policy Director Susie Shannon declared that the 2026 count “has shown, once again, that the City’s policies on homelessness are a complete failure.” People moved from encampments into temporary shelters, she noted, “are still homeless.” Continuing the status quo, Shannon said, “is unconscionable.” The group is demanding a shift to true Housing First permanent housing rather than more of Bass’s temporary band-aids.

This is the left eating its own in real time. Bass, a mainstream Democrat elevated by progressive voters, is now under fire from the more radical faction that finds her insufficiently pure. That same faction is eyeing City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, the Democratic Socialist-aligned progressive who advanced to the November runoff against Bass. Raman has positioned herself to the mayor’s left on housing and homelessness, criticizing City Hall’s reluctance to prioritize permanent solutions. For the hard left, Bass’s failures are not an indictment of progressive governance; they are simply proof that the city needs an even more progressive mayor.

Angelenos living amid the tents, open drug use, and disorder can be forgiven for noticing the pattern. Billions spent, programs launched with fanfare, and the streets remain a mess. Ideology continues to trump practicality. Bass’s leadership has been defined by excuses and temporary fixes. Now her own side is saying the quiet part out loud. Whether that leads to a Raman victory or simply more of the same dysfunction, one thing is clear: the homeless crisis in Los Angeles is not improving under the current regime. It is getting worse.