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 out-of-control 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. The issue dominated her mayoral race against billionaire developer Rick Caruso and the crisis has continued to worsen despite vast public spending increases.
She said Sunday that the many, disparate arms of government must unite to confront homelessness in the nation’s second-largest city. To move in a new direction “we must have a single strategy” bringing together government, the private sector and other stakeholders, she said at the ceremony.
Trash-strewn encampments and rusting RVs have spread to virtually every neighborhood of Los Angeles, and her declaration on 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. About half the homeless population — totaling over 40,000 citywide — suffers from drug or alcohol addiction, and about a third have serious mental illnesses. And 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, said the city’s previous “piecemeal” approach to the crisis too often involved law enforcement instead of service providers. She expressed hope that the move would cut down on red tape, bolster outreach and include “tangible housing solutions.”