Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Focuses on Homeless Camps in First Year

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. More than a year into her term, Mayor Karen Bass has cleared encampments and moved thousands of people into motels. What happens next is unclear. In her first year as […]

T Kauer T Kauer
Mar 25, 2024 - 17:55
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Focuses on Homeless Camps in First Year

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More than a year into her term, Mayor Karen Bass has cleared encampments and moved thousands of people into motels. What happens next is unclear.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, wearing a green jacket, smiles as she greets other leaders wearing suits and business attire at an intersection in Hollywood.
In her first year as Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into motels through her Inside Safe program.Credit…Mark Abramson for The New York Times

Jill Cowan

By Jill Cowan

Jill Cowan tracked the mayor’s efforts and spoke to dozens of people about the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles for more than a year.

When Karen Bass took office as Los Angeles mayor with a mandate to tackle homelessness, Venice Beach was at the top of her agenda.

By late 2022, more than 100 people were living there in wall-to-wall tents alongside seven-figure bungalows, a shop selling $180 linen pillowcases and the Gold’s Gym that Arnold Schwarzenegger made famous.

On a recent morning in the neighborhood, however, dog walkers navigated the wide sidewalks with little trouble, and there wasn’t a tent in sight.

This is what Ms. Bass and her allies say is progress. More than a year into her term, the sidewalks and parks in Los Angeles are, on the whole, cleaner. But momentum in the nation’s second most populous city is fragile.

Inside Safe, the mayor’s flagship program providing motel rooms for homeless residents who leave encampments, is too costly to sustain as the city faces budget problems. The people staying in motels say their lives are in limbo until they get permanent housing. And every day, more Angelenos become homeless and new encampments form.

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Some unhoused Los Angeles residents have been given temporary housing at Hotel Silver Lake.Credit…Mark Abramson for The New York Times

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