Bass brought some of LA’s homeless people indoors

from Jim NewtonCalMatters

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has staked her political future on a promise: as a candidate
in 2022, she vowed to make homelessness her top priority and make a dramatic
reducing the city’s population of homeless people.

She won the campaign. To fulfill that promise, her first act as mayor was to sign Executive Directive 1, which aimed to streamline the construction of affordable housing and signal the new administration’s urgency on the issue. She also rolled over Internal safea program that breaks down homeless encampments and offers a safe alternative to those living in them.

Three years later, as he enters the final year of his first term, he embarks on it
re-election campaign, Bass can point to real accomplishments on the homeless front, but she
wrestles with a difficult problem of perception: What if the number of homeless people in Los Angeles is down, but not enough so that most Los Angeles residents feel the problem has been solved?

There is evidence of progress. According to City Hall, Inside Safe has
has conducted 117 surgeries since Bass released it and brought in 5,496 people
from the streets. Of these, 1,321 have found permanent housing. others
have found temporary shelter or, unfortunately, returned to the streets.

How much progress?

Against a citywide homeless population of more than 40,000, these
the numbers may appear to be growing, but they are helping to reverse years of neglect. The
the number of unsheltered homeless people—the focus of Bass’s work—has declined from
17.5% of mayoral inaugurations according to the county’s annual census.

Austin Beutner, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, who so-called
far is Bass’s most serious challenger in the mayoral race, questions the numbers and
claims of progress.

(Disclosure: I worked as a senior editor and columnist for the LA Times when Beutner was its publisher in 2014-15.)

Beutner points to a recent RAND Corp. study that sounded skeptical about Los Angeles County’s annual homeless count, suggesting it may significantly underestimate the extent of the area’s homeless population.

The RAND study indicated an increase in the number of so-called “rough sleepers.”
who sleep on the street without even a tent or a car, which he says has caused a county
the annual homeless count is becoming increasingly inaccurate. This is partly due to the fact that rough sleepers are found and included in official reports.

RAND tried to verify the numbers in the county, focusing on three areas – Venice,
Hollywood and Skid Row — and comparing its number to that produced by Los
Angeles Homeless Services Agency.

The results, according to RAND, suggest that LAHSA is missing out on a large number of vulnerable people. But even the RAND report notes that the number of homeless people in the study areas is declining, sometimes dramatically.

In 2024, RAND found that the number of people without housing in the study area had decreased by 15%.
In Hollywood, the drop is 49%.

That’s not enough to declare victory against the scourge of homelessness, but it is
hardly grounds for declaring it a failure.

The unforgiving facts of politics and the tensions they compound further complicate matters
put to every incumbent of the mayor’s office in Los Angeles. No matter how much a mayor has in mind
concentrate on one issue, life intervenes, throwing up new challenges and
distraction.

In Bass’s case, the past year sent her two big things: the wildfires that destroyed
large sections of the Pacific Palisades, in Bass’s area of ​​responsibility, and Altadena,
outside of it. And then came President Donald Trump’s decision to turn Los Angeles around
in the testing ground for his demonization of immigrants and militarization of America
life.

Variable focus

Both could have drawn Bass’s attention to homelessness, and it’s true that the news
coverage of the mayor has largely sidelined the issue that brought her to office.

As she enters her re-election campaign, critics are more likely to focus on her hesitant response
fires, while supporters point most readily to her staunch resistance to Trump.
Politically, both issues may prove compensatory, as the fires have highlighted what not
as the mayor’s administrative weaknesses as Trump’s attack reminds
voters, she has served as a bulwark against a deeply vilified president and his
a legion of not-so-clever servants.

As 2026 begins, the Palisades are being rebuilt and the troops Trump sent to deploy
down non-existent insurgencies have returned to homes and bases.

Homelessness continues.

That outlines a central question in this mayoral race: Has Bass done enough to
to address the shameful reality of a city that boasts extravagant wealth and yet tens of thousands of its people sleep without shelter?

It is also politically complicated, in part because there is only one measurement of the problem
part of her policy. It may not be enough for Bass to tell voters they should be
pleased with the city’s progress because the annual census shows the problem slowly
slacking off or because RAND discovered huge advances in Hollywood.

What really matters is how most people come into contact with homelessness. In this sense, homelessness as a political problem resembles inflation. It does little good for a politician to tell voters they should be happy with the economy if they are not.

Joe Biden learned this the hard way, and Trump is busy learning it today. Everyone
When President Trump dismisses “affordability” as a “scam” or a Democratic scheme, it backfires with voters feeling squeezed by rising prices or stagnant wages.

Hence Trump’s march into the dark abyss of public disapproval.

Likewise, it is not enough for Bass to insist on it fewer people are homeless than were
three years ago, if the voters do not feel this for themselves. If there is a camp
corner, it hardly matters that there are 49% fewer homeless men and women
Hollywood. Homelessness is still felt.

This could prove to be the wildcard of this campaign. If the voters feel it theirs
neighborhoods are better, it will land as evidence that Bass is progressing and
deserves four more years to complete the work it started with Executive Directive 1.

If not, Beutner or another candidate might get the chance to finish what he started.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.