Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing criticism from Hollywood residents as homeless encampments are returning despite efforts to move people off the streets and into hotels and motels.
Under his predecessor, Eric Garcetti, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), the focus of the state’s homelessness policy was to use government funds to pay homeless people for hotel and motel accommodations and provide alternative options. The purpose was to provide accommodation. But that approach does not address the root causes of the problem: mental illness, substance abuse, permissive law enforcement, and the high cost of living, especially housing, in the state.
LOS ANGELES, CA – AUGUST 12: Refugees sit on a sidewalk with two dogs on Hollywood Boulevard on August 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Nick Ute/Getty Images)
Bass was elected in 2022 after his opponent, businessman Rick Caruso, nearly won by making homelessness a key issue. She made big promises and the ‘Inside Safe’ campaign has made progress, she claims.
but Los Angeles Times report Many people decline hotel and motel rooms, or are simply replaced by new arrivals, creating fire hazards and other problems.
The Jan. 7 fire was the first in the neighborhood to be targeted by Inside Safe, an initiative created by Mayor Karen Bass to move homeless people from sidewalks to housing. The area is also one of the few areas in Los Angeles to receive a second visit in the mayor’s program.
But with each of these encampment operations, the streets that were first targeted by Inside Safe in 2022 (Cahuenga Boulevard, Wilcox Street, and parts of Franklin) have been repopulated. Homeless residents set up tents, tarps and other structures next to apartment buildings, along median strips and on Cahuenga’s sidewalks, which run under Highway 101.
At least four fires have broken out at homeless encampments in the area over the past three months. No injuries were reported, but some people in the area are nervous. Residents say in recent years they have also had to contend with screaming in the middle of the night, human waste on sidewalks and porches, drug use outside and sometimes threats of violence.
Frustration with the state’s elected Democrats has been growing since Newsom found a way to remove homeless people from the streets of San Francisco for several days during a visit by Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping in November, leading to It shows and suggests that the problem is a lack of political will. That communist dictators care about more things than local taxpayers and voters.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of a new biography, Rhoda: “Comrade Cadderly, you are abnormal.”. He is also the author of a recently published e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
