Some Los Angeles city leaders are concerned about the growing price tag of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe homelessness program.
KNX News’ Craig Fiegener reported that a council committee on housing and homelessness received an update on the amount of money that’s been spent so far by the city’s homelessness programs.
“As everyone in this committee knows, the homelessness budget for fiscal year ‘23-’24 is $1.356 billion,” Matt Szabo, the city administrative officer, said. “$730 million is dedicated towards housing interventions, towards services $313 million.”
Szabo is projecting that there will be a significant budget deficit in the ‘25-’26 fiscal year.
“We will need to manage what we can afford heading into ‘25-’26,” he said. “And if other funds are not identified, we may have to consider demobilizing some of our interim housing beds.”
Szabo said that under Inside Safe, the city of L.A. is currently paying to house about 1,200 people in what he describes as interim housing sites across the city.
The city did purchase the 294-room Mayfair Hotel for a little more than $80 million to minimize costs from renting hotel rooms for Inside Safe participants. They were hoping that people could move into the hotel by Feb. 1, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
The council committee on homelessness recently learned that the Mayfair needs at least $11 million in repair work to fix damages from when it was used as temporary housing during the pandemic.
Their new goal is to complete the construction work by April.
It’s expected that Inside Safe participants currently housed at the L.A. Grand Hotel will move to the Mayfair Hotel after the repairs are complete. The L.A. Grand Hotel currently costs an average of $184 per night per person, and the Mayfair Hotel will cost an average of $83 per night.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok