Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass used her State of the City address to announce a fundraising campaign to bring homeless Angelenos into their homes, and called on business leaders, charitable organizations and wealthy individuals to contribute to the effort.
Bass told the audience gathered at City Hall on Monday evening that her administration has already made decisive strides in combating homelessness, in part by working more closely with county, state and federal agencies.
Now, Bass is urging those with the means to contribute financially to buy or rent buildings that can be converted into homes for the city's unhoused residents.
Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness in December 2022, the day she took office. A month later, the area's homeless count found more than 46,000 homeless people in Los Angeles, an 80% increase since 2015.
“We brought the public sector together,” Bass said, standing before a room full of elected officials, department heads, business leaders and political appointees. “Now we must triumph over the humanity and generosity of the private sector.”
The pitch comes as Bass works to break a logjam that has seriously limited the city's ability to move more than a thousand homeless Angelenos out of temporary housing, such as hotel and motel rooms, into apartments they can afford.
Steven J. Klopik, a Beverly Hills-based investor and philanthropist, who attended Monday's speech, praised Bass for her work on homelessness so far, calling her a “disruptor.” Klobek said he donated $1 million earlier this year to a new fundraising initiative known as LA4LA.
“There has to be a way for people to get back into the community, be proud of themselves and add value to our community,” he said. “The mayor thinks the same thing.”
Bass also used her speech to highlight ongoing efforts to prepare the city for 2028, when it will host the Olympics. She praised her administration's work in addressing public safety, expanding public transportation and strengthening Los Angeles' business climate.
The mayor celebrated a drop in homicides last year compared to 2022. She also signaled her interest in pursuing an expensive and hotly debated project: the long-delayed modernization of the city's convention center.
Bass told the crowd that her office was challenging the status quo on homelessness — “the crisis on our streets is nothing short of a disaster,” she said — and worked more collaboratively with officials from Los Angeles County, which oversees public health and mental health services. She touted the work of Inside Safe, its signature program to move unhoused Angelenos out of some of the city's largest and most dangerous encampments.
“Inside Safe is our proactive rejection of the status quo that has left homeless Angelenos waiting and dying outside in camps until permanent housing is built,” she said.
By April 12, the mayor's Inside Safe program had moved about 2,600 people home from street encampments, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. About half of them live in hotels and motels, the agency said.
More than a quarter of the programme's participants, 613 people, have returned to homelessness. The agency said 42 were imprisoned and 38 died.
In her speech, Bass said there is a societal cost to leaving people on the street. She said the public is paying for “thousands and thousands of fire, paramedic and police calls.” The mayor said stores and restaurants suffer when “customers stay away out of fear.”
The mayor is working with a diverse group of civic leaders to create LA4LA, which will focus on acquiring hotels and apartment buildings that can be converted into temporary and permanent housing for the city's homeless population, said Sarah Dussault, Bass' homelessness advisor. Other cases. The initiative has already secured a $3 million grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and a $5 million loan from the California Community Foundation, said Dussault, chief strategist at LA4LA.
LA4LA will also raise money to rent entire apartment buildings or help finance the construction of new housing.
“LA4LA could be game-changing for Los Angeles, an unprecedented partnership to address this emergency, and an example of disrupting the status quo to build a new system to save lives,” Bass said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who attended the speech, praised Bass for his candor about the money that will be needed to address the homelessness crisis.
“She’s telling the truth,” said Mitchell, whose district extends from Park La Brea to Carson. “As a Los Angeles resident, I respect that.”
Monday's speech comes as the city's mayor prepares to release her budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The city has been under serious financial pressure in recent months, caused in part by lower-than-expected tax revenues and higher payroll costs. The increase in spending stems in part from a salary agreement Bass negotiated with the union that represents LAPD officers.
This contract will provide four raises over a four-year period and give officers new retention bonuses to discourage them from leaving to work for other law enforcement agencies. The deal also increases the officers' starting salary by 13%, bringing it to about $86,000 annually.
The City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on another package of employee pay raises that Bass negotiated — this time with thousands of civilian employees. These agreements are expected to add $1 billion to the annual budget by 2028.
To free up money for salary increases, Bass is pushing to eliminate hundreds of job vacancies in the city. These parking lots “do not fill potholes or sweep streets or employee parks,” she said during her speech Monday.
“Too many of these vacancies have been sitting around for years and years because of a flawed budget that doesn't reflect the way departments should actually operate,” she said. “So, this year we will eliminate these ghost sites, while maintaining essential services.”
Bass also defended the city's new contract with the police union, saying it has led to an increase in the number of applicants seeking to join the Los Angeles Police Department.
Bass is still far from her goal of an LAPD with 9,500 officers. Last month, the Board of Police Commissioners received a report showing that the number of sworn employees in the department had dropped to less than 8,900.
