During Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ first year in office, the city housed more than 21,000 homeless people, including more than 1,950 who found shelter through Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homeless program, according to figures shared by Bass’ office on Wednesday, Dec. 6.
The 21,000-plus Angelenos brought indoors in the past year surpasses the 17,000-mark that Bass set as a goal during her campaign to become mayor in 2022.
To be clear, many of the city’s housing programs were established before Bass took office, and her administration has continued to build on that momentum.
At the same time, more than 9,000 affordable housing units are being built at a faster pace due to a directive that Bass issued to streamline City Hall processes, her office said.
While there is some progress in dealing with the city’s homelessness and housing crises, the picture isn’t all rosy.
Bass, who will reach her one-year mark as mayor next week, said during a roundtable with reporters that she initially thought people being housed by Inside Safe would only be in interim housing for about three months before being placed in permanent housing. Now, she’s come to realize, the waiting time is more like a year-and-a-half to two years, not three months, because of a lack of permanent housing.
Earlier on Wednesday, at a press conference in Hollywood where Bass visited the site of a former homeless encampment next to an elementary school, she alluded to challenges she has faced. She cited the city’s incomplete data used to track people who are homeless. In the past, she’s also spoken of a shortage of service providers and restrictions that affect who is eligible for services.
“This has certainly not been easy, and I’ve always said that confronting this crisis is like peeling an onion,” Bass said during the morning press conference.
“When you peel an onion, you cry along the way,” she added. “Because every time we’ve taken a step forward, we…
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