It appears newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass plans to tackle her city’s homelessness crisis by building homes for every homeless resident, even if the home is built in a neighborhood that doesn’t want the homeless living there in the first place.
She expressed as much during an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Listen:
WATCH: LA Mayor @KarenBassLA says the city can’t address its homeless population of 40,000 people “without building housing everywhere.”@chucktodd: “What’s a fair way to address your success or failure” in 4 years?
Bass: “There should not be 40,000 people who are unhoused.” pic.twitter.com/dumbwD6c53
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 18, 2022
During the appearance, host Chuck Todd asked her about an emergency declaration she’d just signed Friday.
“You talk about the issues you have with developers. The biggest issue the city sometimes has when it comes to tackling these housing issues are these homeowners’ associations. They’re extraordinarily litigious and extraordinarily powerful. Does your emergency declaration give you any more authority in dealing with these powerful institutions or not?” he asked.
Basically, HOAs in Los Angeles have been preventing the city from building homes for the homeless — i.e., “affordable housing” — in their neighborhoods. And what Todd wanted to know was whether Bass’ emergency declaration gives her the power to override the HOAs.
“It does give me more authority to do that. But I do think there’s a way to get neighborhoods to cooperate. You know, this problem is so severe in our city. In mean, literally five people a day die on our streets. It’s so severe that I think some of the resistance that we’ve experienced in the past I’m hoping will be softened,” Bass replied.
“So there’s some neighborhoods that want buildings to be built in certain areas, but it’s still within their general neighborhood. You cannot address 40,000 [homeless] without building housing everywhere. You can’t just build all of the housing in the low-income areas that are already overcrowded,” she added.
Signed Friday, her emergency declaration specifically orders “city departments to rid their procedures of the bottlenecks that slow development of affordable housing and shelters,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The homelessness crisis is an emergency.
People building affordable and temporary housing should not have to wait years just to start.
Enough is enough — let’s get to work. pic.twitter.com/685MEM9oJQ
— Karen Bass (@KarenBassLA) December 17, 2022
“Bass’ first executive directive instructs the departments responsible for processing affordable housing and shelter applications to complete all reviews within 60 days. Such reviews typically take six to nine months,” the Times reported Friday.
“Another key element waives discretionary reviews on projects that do not require zoning changes. Currently those reviews, which can include public hearings and additional environmental reports, are required on all projects of 50 units or more. To avoid those reviews, developers have often planned projects of 49 units when the zoning would have allowed more.”
And so the emergency declaration basically calls for the local deregulation of housing, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The problem, critics say, is that the city’s homelessness crisis has little to do with “affordable housing” and much more to do with mental health and drug abuse.
Look:
Until she acknowledges the overwhelming mental health & drug abuse running rampant and start talking to RNs in the few hospitals we have regulated for it and not non profits she will fail.
— Sangria w 5 Roaches in 33 (@Sangria1992) December 17, 2022
Any plan that doesn’t include helping people with drug addiction and mental illness is not a serious plan.
This is not a “building housing” issue. Pay attention Karen!
— Brett Alphin (@brettalphin) December 18, 2022
Throwing money at the homeless doesn’t work, giving them places to live doesn’t work. Address the problem of most of the homeless and that is drug addiction. Get rid of the drugs and drug dealers.
— PM Maj (@PMMaj1) December 15, 2022
She will fail because the problem isn’t a lack of shelter.
The problem with homelessness is all about mental illness and drug addiction. These people need treatment first. Until the @DNC Dems understand that the problem will only grow worse.
— Mike (@MikeKory3) December 15, 2022
Many homeless seem to be suffering from mental illness or drug problems. Will they be able to be unsupervised, unmedicated and use drugs in the affordable housing? If not, this will not work. The only people benefiting are the developers. #bassbeenbought
— concerned citizen (@Ideaideaidya) December 18, 2022
According to critics, the problem also has to do with lack of police enforcement caused by liberal bleeding-heart policies.
For instance, during the interview Sunday, Bass also announced that she’ll no longer allow the police to perform homeless camp “sweeps.”
During a sweep, the police “sweep” into an area and boot the disruptive homeless residents who’ve set up shop there.
“Sweeps” are extremely useful for clearing the homeless out of public spaces, but many liberal cities have banned them. It appears LA is about to as well.
Listen:
“Are you still going to allow LAPD and sanitation officers to do these sweeps of [homeless] encampments?”
Democrat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass: “No…this is moving people from tents to hotels or motels.” pic.twitter.com/ETAI0bPda4
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 18, 2022
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