Karen Bass grilled over broken homelessness promise, blames bureaucracy for slowed progress
Bass, who is running for re-election, did an interview with CNN at the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus, formerly a hospital, that is being transformed into a facility for mental health, addiction treatment and housing for the homeless. Los Angeles is one of many cities in California that have become known for homelessness.
Anchor Elex Michaelson asked, "So, when you talked to Jake Tapper in 2023, you said that your goal was to end street homelessness in LA by 2026. It's now 2026 and we haven't ended it. How are you so off?"
"We haven't ended it," Bass agreed. "Basically when I said that, it was at the beginning of my term. I am very committed to achieving that goal. I didn't anticipate some of the bureaucratic barriers that I would experience, but I am prepared to take those on now."
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was grilled in her interview about her past vow to end the homeless crisis in the city. (Getty Images)
She went on to argue that Los Angeles had made a choice in past decades to not address homelessness and focus solely on building, noting she has fast-tracked many affordable housing units.
"So, basically, the policy of LA City and LA County was we could accept street homelessness as long as we were building. We didn't anticipate the problem metastasizing," she said. "In my three and a half years, for the first time, two years in a row, street homelessness has decreased in our city. There hadn't been a decrease before."
Bass added that while this is a policy that impacts people from all walks of life, there are actually some bureaucrats dedicated to continuing it.
"So this is a problem that all Angelenos experience, and we have got to have a commitment that this has to end," she said. "The city and the county never made that commitment before, and I found something that surprised me. I found a lot of people who work internally in the system who were very resistant to ending street homelessness."
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In recent years, particularly after the pandemic, California has been one of the states most associated with homelessness. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
"But you promised that it would go away 100%," Michaelson said. "And it's only gone down about 17.6%. So why should people trust you that you're going to be able to get to the 100%?"
Bass said it was the first time the issue had decreased at all, arguing that the accomplishments made so far were due to her leadership.
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LA Mayor Karen Bass argued that there has been substantial bureaucratic resistance to actually tackle the homeless crisis. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
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"We need to end the failed policies of the past, which is, ‘All we're going to do is focus on building, and we are going to ignore street homelessness.’ That is what the city and the county has done for years," she said.
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