LOS ANGELES (KNX) - Karen Bass has been LA's mayor for 33 days. Today she told KNX that this day also marks the third week of Inside Safe, her initiative to house 17,000 people during her first year in office.
"We are just getting started,' Bass says. She says Inside Safe has already housed at least 100 people, and that her administration's early efforts have also been a valuable learning experience.
"When we go approach an encampment you don't know how many people are in the tents," says Bass. "That's why it's difficult to say by the end of Inside Safe we will have housed X number of people, because we honestly don't know what the number is," she said.
Mayor Bass says the program will not be successful if people accept housing just to escape rain and cold weather. "What we will so be doing is we will do neighborhood outreach... not to the people in the tents, but the people around the tents. If they see one tent come back, they call the service provider immediately,' says Bass.
The service provider will be likely be a team from the city of Los Angeles working with the county of Los Angeles. Those moments when those teams are needed will be a true test of the strength of “Inside Safe”, according to political analyst Sara Sadhwani of Pomona College.
“The department of mental health, the health department, the child and family services is all run by the county so there’s a lot of finger pointing on these issues,” Sadhwani says.
Mayor Bass says her administration is currently devising a comprehensive plan to fulfill her promise to house thousands of people living on LA's streets. It's expected to be presented in March.
Each Friday during the first 100 days of the Bass administration KNX will present its latest Original Series— "Mayor Karen Bass - Tracking The First 100 Days." Reporter Craig Fiegener is keeping tabs on what Mayor Bass is saying she'll do, and how she'll do it.
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