*Finally! Yes finally, there’s some good news to report on the LA homelessness situation. Mayor Karen Bass is reporting that during the first six months of her administration over 14,000 homeless people are now in some form of housing.
Specifically, around 30%, or 4,332, are permanently housed. Meanwhile, 10,049 were placed in interim housing through city and county programs from December through May, Bass said. That’s a 27% increase over the same period the year before.
Of those in permanent housing, about a third moved into new housing units, with the rest using subsidies to obtain rental units.
As you can see it’s a complex problem that demands complex answers. Here’s how Bass is dealing with via the LA Times: Bass said the housing placements resulted from executive directives she enacted upon entering office, including a state of emergency on homelessness and the launching of the Inside Safe program, which is designed to clear street encampments by moving unhoused people indoors.
“We believe the emergency obviously continues, but we do see a way forward,” Bass said at a press conference at City Hall.
Since Bass took office in mid-December with a promise to house 17,000 people in her first year, homelessness has been at the forefront of her agenda.
In April, she announced that $1.3 billion of her $13 billion proposed budget would go to addressing homelessness, including about $250 million for Inside Safe. Previously, the program had been leasing rooms around the city. Bass’ team has shifted the strategy to purchasing property and is looking to acquire at least eight motels or hotels.
Here’s MORE from the LA Times: Bass said her executive directive to cut red tape had streamlined the processing of more than 8,000 units of new housing in 456 projects that are in the development pipeline.
She said approvals are now being obtained in 37 days as opposed to six months.
The numbers released Tuesday included an update of a report Bass gave after her first 100 days, more than doubling the number of people she initially said had gone indoors. In March, she had reported just under 4,000, a number that was revised to 8,726.
Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, said the earlier undercount was due to lag time and the need to verify the data that was entered.
“We didn’t have a full accounting of the people who had been helped,” Kellum said. “The data has been reviewed and corrected, and it gives a true sense of how many people were moved from tents into hotels.”
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: Karen Bass Vows to ‘Solve Homelessness’ and be Agent of Change as First Female Mayor of Los Angeles | WATCH
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