Will Mayor Bass Make Good On Homelessness Promises?

What do 4,339 Southern Californians say needs immediate action from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass?

Tracking Mayor Bass' Promises On Homelessness

At LAist, we want to help you navigate the workings of this city - whether it's the latest policy decisions by the Bass administration or the complex processes it takes to make things happen – and assist you in making the change you want to see. That’s why we spent the first three months of the Bass administration surveying Angelenos about what they would like the mayor’s office to make a priority. During that time frame, we heard back from 4,339 people who weighed in on what was most important to them.

What issue came out on top? Homelessness.

Two-thirds of the individuals who responded said that Bass needs to prioritize what many Angelenos feel is the city’s largest crisis. About a third of respondents said homelessness caused them personal stress more than any other issue.

Mayor Bass seems to know this. After being sworn in late last year she declared a state of emergency and promised to move 17,000 unhoused people into a mix of interim and permanent housing.

It is a huge effort that will take movement on a bunch of different fronts, from her Inside Safe motel shelter program to federal emergency housing vouchers. And LAist is watching progress on each of them with our promise tracker. We will update metrics once every three months, and potentially more often if data releases more frequently. This is what we’re watching out for:

• The number of people housed in Bass’ first year 
• The number of people who’ve entered and left Inside Safe 
• The total cost of the Inside Safe program over time 
• The number of federal emergency housing vouchers leased 
• The number of housing units completed under Proposition HHH 
• The number of people experiencing homelessness in L.A. over time 

Mayor Karen Bass will be on LAist’s AirTalk later this morning in the 10 o’clock hour to address our questions about this.

Now, if you are confused on how we even got here with the homelessness crisis in the first place or need help navigating who is in charge of what, we’ve got you covered. LAist’s Unhoused Communities Reporter Nick Gerda wrote a guide on how to understand homelessness in L.A.

While you’re at it, listen to the latest How To LA podcast episode as Nick and How To LA host Brian De Los Santos discuss the state of affairs when it comes to this ongoing crisis in our city.

There’s more news below — just keep reading.

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• Environmentalists and tribal representatives are asking state water officials to stop diverting Mono Lake’s water to L.A. CalMatters Alastair Bland has more details about the legacy of Mono Lake and what rights L.A. actually has to water from the Mono basin. 
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• On Tuesday, the state appeals court voted to overturn Newsom’s decision to prohibit parole for Leslie Van Houten, one of Charles Manson’s murderous followers. Read the latest update about the Charles Manson commune here. 
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Wait! One More Thing...

Why Did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And James Baldwin Go To Beverly Hills in 1968?

The documentary MLK/FBI shows the surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (labeled by the FBI as the "most dangerous" Black person in America). (Courtesy IFC Films)

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Today for Way Back In L.A., we’re going to Beverly Hills, 1968.

If you know a little bit about history, you’d know that year was a notable time stamp in our history books. There was a major turning point in the Vietnam War that played a part in weakening U.S. public support for it. Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. And NASA’s Apollo 8 space mission launched.

Let’s hop into my yellow DeLorean low-rider coupe to travel to Beverly Hills — an area known for its glitz, glamour and wealth — not to shop like the rich and famous, but to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin speak, just 19 days before King was killed.

Harmony Holiday, a contributing writer for Los Angeles Times’ Image magazine, wrote about a benefit for the Vietnam War where Baldwin spoke with vitriol and King with urgency about the growing concern over the war. King connected it to poverty in the United States.

As many people know, in his later years, King became more radical in his tone and advocacy for civil rights and on this day, Holiday wrote, “King was not in Los Angeles to deliver more flowers to the grave of that brotherly love which he had openly mourned and prayed over for decades in his calls for solidarity and unconditional peace; he seemed intent on exposing the necrotic contents of that crypt without remorse."

The Vietnam War was just one of the many things he spoke out against later on in his life, along with poverty and capitalism. So, if you can imagine, this was King in his most revolutionary form.

Read the rest of Holiday’s article about this historic, eventful night in Beverly Hills here.