LA Mayor Urges Affluent Residents To Fund Housing For The Homeless

(LibertySociety.com) – Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass discussed a new city campaign to end the homelessness crisis during her State of the City Address on April 15. She admitted that over 40,000 people living in the city’s streets was “nothing less than a disaster,” while calling on the wealthy for financial assistance.

The new campaign, called LA4LA, would provide permanent housing for homeless people in the city. An earlier program launched by Bass relocated more than 21,000 of the city’s homeless individuals into temporary shelters. She said that the effort would eventually help end the crisis, but the goal was to “move past nightly rentals.”

Bass directly called on the wealthiest individuals in Los Angeles to provide personal financial assistance for the effort, while also asking for philanthropic and private sector funds to expedite the process. The money would be spent on acquiring more properties for permanent housing in the nation’s second-largest city. Bass acknowledged that the crisis had driven businesses out of the city and caused safety concerns. Additionally, taxpayers were footing the bill for the additional city resources needed to deal with the problem. Bass said that the city could not afford to accept the effects of the crisis, while also claiming that she would not allow the crisis to continue.

Billions of dollars have been spent over the years to address the homelessness crisis in the LA area, but the problem has only grown larger. Homelessness in the city surged 10 percent in 2023 as 46,200 people were without permanent shelter. In LA County, over 75,500 people were reported as homeless, a nine percent increase. Bass said that the numbers could keep increasing due to the end of pandemic aid for low-income residents and evictions.

Over the years, residents and business owners have grown tired of empty promises, although Bass appears to be committed to a solution. One coalition of fed-up Angelenos sued the city in 2020 long before Bass took office for allegedly failing to address the homeless crisis. The city council recently agreed to an audit of its expenditures spent on dealing with the crisis at the request of a federal judge.