LA Mayor Renews Homelessness Emergency Declaration

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has renewed her administration’s emergency declaration on homelessness, saying the worsening problem involving more than 46,000 city residents living without housing shows no signs of resolving anytime soon.

“We really need to normalize the fact, unfortunately, that we're living in a crisis,” Bass said in a press conference Monday. “This is a crisis that we know is going to be ongoing. And it requires us to have sustained focus and effort.”

Bass signed a state of emergency on homelessness during her first day in office, Dec. 12, 2022. But that declaration was scheduled to expire on July 9.

Late Friday afternoon, Bass signed a new declaration that her office says largely extends the previous order, and includes new commitments to regularly report to the city council on key homelessness indicators.

The details

This latest declaration stems from an ordinance passed last week by the L.A. City Council. That ordinance created a new section of the city’s administrative code outlining the conditions under which a mayor can declare a housing or homelessness emergency.

It allows mayors to declare a housing or homelessness emergency when L.A.’s housing supply falls 40% below the city’s state-mandated housing production goals, when the city has twice as many unhoused people as interim shelter beds, or when homelessness increases by 20% in a single year. The city is currently falling short of its housing production goals by about 60%, and only has one shelter bed for every three unhoused people.

“We can't treat this the same way we would an earthquake or a tsunami,” said Paul Krekorian, L.A. city council president. “We know that we're going to have to continue to bring this urgency over the course of a very long period of time in order to effectively address this challenge.”

Under the council’s new ordinance, city agencies including the housing and planning departments will be required to report to the council every three months on progress tackling the homelessness emergency.

The declaration gives the mayor the power to suspend competitive bidding requirements for contracts of up to one year related to the homelessness crisis. The city council can override those contracts if they see fit. The mayor will also have the power to redirect city employees from any department toward work on the crisis.

A new focus on data

Bass said her administration will monitor indicators such as the number of encampments, the number of people placed into housing, new development of affordable housing, the number of mental health and substance use treatment beds and the number of people being evicted from their homes. With the city’s COVID-19 eviction protections now expired, she said thousands of evictions have already been filed this year.

“I am extremely concerned about the inflow people who are falling into homelessness,” Bass said. “We're going to do everything we can to reduce the numbers.”

In February, L.A. city councilmembers proposed a “right to counsel” program that would provide free attorneys to low-income tenants in eviction court, but that ordinance has not come up for a final vote.

L.A. homelessness officials recently reported a 10% annual increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness within the city of L.A., with much of the increase coming from people living in vehicles. Bass said her first priority on addressing vehicular homelessness will be to find safe parking sites for those living in RVs.

So far, about $40 million has been spent on Bass’ signature homelessness initiative Inside Safe. That program has brought about 1,400 people out of tents and into temporary motel rooms, but as of last week, only about 77 Inside Safe participants had moved into long-term permanent housing.