LA Mayor Karen Bass critiqued over her new homelessness fix
Tori Richards
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made good on her campaign promise to address the city’s homelessness crisis by declaring a state of emergency on her first day, but critics say she needs to do more.
Bass was sworn in on Sunday by Vice President Kamala Harris and immediately made a homelessness declaration, which would cut red tape and make the city eligible for additional state aid.
Yet an academic homelessness expert said he was hoping to see something novel to solve the problem of housing more than 63,000 people on the streets.
“Unfortunately, treating homelessness as an emergency has too often just led to an emphasis on shelters, thus perpetuating the problem,” Salem State University professor Christopher Hudson told Fox News. “She needs to put forward specific plans not only for the immediate ‘emergency’ response but for addressing the many systemic problems that homeless individuals in LA face.”
California is the nation’s capital of homelessness, with 161,548 people having no permanent housing in 2022. Los Angeles has the second largest homeless population for a city, behind New York.
The issue has only worsened over the years, despite billions in tax dollars spent at the local and state level to eradicate the problem. Homelessness, and an accompanying criminal element, was front and center in Bass’s mayoral debates with billionaire Rick Caruso.
Democrats have long favored funding permanent housing, while Republicans want to address root causes first, such as mental health and job training.
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Professor Elizabeth Bowen at the University of Buffalo School of Social Work said Bass’s plan needs to contain permanent affordable housing to be successful.
“Without significant investments in affordable housing, policy success in addressing homelessness is likely to be superficial or temporary,” she said.
The mayor’s office defended the plan to Fox News, saying, “This is not rhetoric, this is action.”
“The order immediately gives Mayor Bass the power to lift rules and regulations that slow or prevent the building of permanent and temporary housing for the unhoused; to expedite contracts that prioritize bringing unhoused Angelenos inside; and to allow the city to acquire rooms, properties and land for housing for Angelenos in need,” a spokesperson said.
Bass held a press conference to discuss the first order she signed as mayor, saying there will be no holding back.
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“Today, on my first day of office, we hit the ground running with a sea change in how the city tackles homelessness. … I will not accept a homelessness crisis that afflicts more than 40,000 Angelenos and affects every one of us,” she said. “It is a humanitarian crisis that takes the life of five people every day.”