According to Mayor Karen Bass, the L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) was just starting to show signs of significant progress. Then, on Tuesday, the County Supervisors voted to pull its funding from the city-county collaboration.
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"First of all, I believe for the second year in a row, we were going to see that street homelessness has decreased," Bass told KNX News' Craig Fiegener. "This is the first time there's been a decrease in homelessness in years."
The mayor emailed the County Board of Supervisors asking them to reject the proposal to start its own homeless services program, but the initiative passed.
Under the approved plan, the county-run agency is expected to launch by Jan. 1, and all funding will be pulled from the LAHSA by July 1, 2026.
Bass called the county's decision unfortunate and is worried that "creating a new bureaucracy is not the solution."
"The system absolutely needs to be reformed and transformed, but I don't think this is the way to do it," Bass said, including in that assessment her administration's flagship homelessness program, Inside Safe.
Though the Supervisors' decision does not directly impact Inside Safe, Bass said she would need to examine the overall consequences for the city and what the right next steps are, especially amid the city's well-documented budget deficit.
"Actually, I don't want to continue what we're doing moving into the future forever," Bass said. "We have to come up with a more cost-effective way of housing people. We are refining as we go. Part of building the plane and flying it."
Los Angeles Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez has been the mayor's most vocal critic regarding her homelessness housing program.
Keeping with the airplane metaphor, Rodriguez said, "I think there are missing pieces of the plane. I don't know how it flies." Highlighting an ongoing concern about the program's lack of transparency regarding spending.
Bass is pledging more accountability when tracking provable outcomes from Inside Safe.
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