In the six months since Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass took office, more than 1,300 homeless people have moved off the streets and into temporary housing through Bass’ Inside Safe program, according to the mayor’s office.
With additional temporary and permanent housing placements under other programs, the city has housed 14,381 people since mid-December, Bass and members of her administration reported on Tuesday, June 13, one day after the mayor hit her six-month mark.
Bass had said while running for office that her goal would be to house 17,000 people her first year on the job.
“We believe that the (homelessness) emergency obviously continues, but we do see a way forward,” Bass said during a roundtable with reporters.
According to her office, the more than 14,000 people placed in temporary or permanent housing during the mayor’s first six months were helped through the following programs and services:
– 1,323 in interim housing through Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homelessness program. This number includes unverified estimates.
– 8,726 in interim housing provided through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
– 1,591 through emergency housing vouchers.
– 1,397 through other tenant-based voucher programs.
– 1,344 placed in permanent housing.
Another Inside Safe program was expected to roll out in the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday – this time in Chatsworth – making it the eleventh City Council district to have an Inside Safe operation. Twelve of the 15 council districts are expected to have rolled out at least one Inside Safe operation by the end of June, said Mercedes Marquez, the mayor’s chief of housing and homelessness solutions.
Bass said the first six months of Inside Safe was a pilot program and spoke of plans to scale up since the City Council approved $250 million in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget for the initiative – five times the amount it approved for the pilot program.
Asked by a reporter how…
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