LA Mayor Karen Bass launches outreach to house the homeless

The pledge by newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to find roofs for the city’s tens of thousands of homeless residents has begun.

The mayor launched her “Inside Safe” plan to move people off the streets and indoors and end homeless encampments, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The move came after she declared a state of emergency on homelessness her first day on the job and then signed her first executive order to fast-track the approval of homeless shelters and 100-percent affordable housing.

By last count, the city has an estimated 42,000 homeless residents.
The Inside Safe program will have outreach workers go into homeless encampments to discuss eligible housing options and support services with residents, who won’t be forced to move. The tent camp residents will likely be placed in hotels or motels until permanent housing is built.

“People should not be left to live and die on the streets because the city isn’t giving them someplace to go,” Bass said at a news conference. “We are giving people safe places to move inside, with ongoing support, so that they can stay inside and safe for good.”

The rising number of tents and homeless encampments were a chief issue during the mayoral election in November.

Until more permanent housing units become available — which Bass said should not take more than a year, despite the slow and costly pace of building permanent supportive housing — the mayor insisted homeless residents will get immediate “quality” housing.

“It’s not our desire to move people from a tent into a slum,” Bass said.

A reporter asked whether police would be called upon to relocate people under the Inside Safe initiative. In most cases, no, Bass suggested.

She said her program isn’t intended as a punitive measure against those living on the streets — that Inside Safe’s approach is different from a city anti-camping ban passed last summer that allows homeless encampment sweeps.

“This is not about cleaning up and clearing out,” Bass said. “Of course, that will happen in the context of it, but this is about outreach to people and getting them housed.”

Inside Safe, which would cost less than $100 million, will target its outreach at the most chronic encampments. Officials will then come up with a strategy to expand the program citywide.

It will be run by Mercedes Márquez, the mayor’s chief of housing and homelessness solutions, and will include a cabinet made up of the general manager from the city’s emergency management department, the CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the city’s chief administrative officer and the general managers of city departments.

Bass has directed members of the cabinet to provide her with an action plan report by March 31.

— Dana Bartholomew

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