LA mayor vows to help homeless

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass began her first day in office Monday by declaring a state of emergency to grapple with the city’s homeless crisis, bidding to move swiftly to get thousands of unhoused people off her city’s streets.

Bass called the declaration “a sea change in how the city tackles homelessness,” making good on a campaign pledge to call the emergency the day she took power.

To move in a new direction, “we must have a single strategy” — bringing together government, the private sector and other stakeholders, she said Sunday at an inauguration ceremony.

Her declaration Monday included a grim statistical rundown of the many problems stemming from the homeless crisis.

Fires caused by homeless people constitute a majority of all blazes handled by the Los Angeles Fire Department, averaging 24 a day, according to 2021 figures. Homeless deaths average five a day.

Despite more than $1.2 billion in spending for homeless programs in the current city budget, there is scant evidence of change on the streets, and the declaration said the crisis has grown “beyond the control of the normal services, personnel, equipment and facilities” in Los Angeles.

Advocates for the unhoused cheered the declaration.

Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of the homeless services nonprofit PATH, expressed hope that the move would cut down on red tape, bolster outreach and include “tangible housing solutions.”

“From individuals just falling into homelessness, to those living outdoors or in interim housing … we know that the affordable housing they need is just not here,” Dietz said Monday in a statement that backed efforts to speed creation of affordable housing.

Bass, 69, is the first woman and the second Black person to hold the job.

She took her formal oath privately but was sworn in ceremonially Sunday at a downtown theater by Vice President Kamala Harris, former California attorney general.

Bass has said she will marshal “all of the resources, all of the skills, the knowledge [and] the talent of the city” to get homeless people into housing.

She has said she intends to get more than 17,000 homeless people into housing in her first year through a mix of interim and permanent facilities.