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After she took office, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass first and perhaps most dramatic: declared a city emergency regarding homelessness.
The move, backed by the city council, awarded Bus a non-bid contract to non-profit organizations, giving the power to rent hotels and motels for temporary homeless housing. The base was also able to abandon regulations restricting the size and size of certain types of affordable housing.
Now, two and a half years after Bass’ tenure, some of the council are trying to reaffirm their authority by rescinding the emergency declaration of homelessness.
Councillor Tim Makosker said he wanted to return the city government to its normal processes and procedures, as spelled out in the city’s charter. Leases, contracts and other decisions relating to homelessness will be re-evaluated at public meetings, where councillors will be testified, taken in written opinion and ultimately voted.
“Let’s go back to why these processes exist,” Makosker said in an interview. “They exist, so they can make the public realize what we are doing with public dollars.”
Makosker said the city should address “the rest of this crisis” even if the declaration is revoked. For example, the homeless services the city currently offers could be permanent, he said. The city could also do more to county agencies providing public health, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment, Makosker said.
Bass on her side pushed back Makoscar’s efforts this week, saying the emergency declaration “has reduced homelessness for the first time in years, taking away trends across the state and nationwide, resulting in a decline in homelessness.”
“The mayor is encouraging the council to resist the urge to return to failed policies that saw the homelessness explode in Los Angeles,” said base spokesman Clara Kerger.
The Los Angeles Department of Homeless Services, also known as Lahsa, reported homelessness fell 2.2% last summer in LA, the first in years. The number of unsheltered homeless people (people who live in temporary housing such as hotels and motels) fell by more than 10% from 32,680.
Pushing from McOsker and at least some of his colleagues comes at a pivotal time.
Last month, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to subtract more than $300 million from Rasa, an urban county agency that provides a variety of services to an unsatisfactory population.
Meanwhile, the LA Alliance, which has fought the city in court over responding to the crisis, is pushing federal judges to put city homeless initiatives on receiving vessels.
Alliance lawyer Matthew Umhofer said the city “lively shows” due to the emergency declaration in terms of progress on the streets.
“It’s our view that while emergency relating to homelessness is appropriate, cities are not engaged in conduct that reflects the severity of the crisis and that cities are not doing what is necessary to resolve the crisis,” he said.
Inside Safe, the base signature program for bringing homeless people indoors has moved 4,316 people to temporary housing since it began in 2022, according to the Rasa Dashboard, which covers the period until April 30th.
Council members voted this week to extend the mayor’s emergency declaration of homelessness for another 90 days, with Makoscar voting the only vote against. However, they also began to take preliminary steps towards the end of the declaration.
Last week, while approving the city’s budget, the council established a new department in the Los Angeles Housing Division to monitor spending on homeless services. On Tuesday, the council urged city policy analysts to provide strategies to ensure nonprofit homeless service providers are paid in a timely manner “even without a declared emergency.”
The following day, McOsker, who heads the Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, and Councillor Nithya Raman, co-authored a proposal to ask city policy analysts to report in 60 days with plans to address the “operational, legal and financial impact” that ends the emergency declaration.
The proposal, signed by councillors John Lee and Isabel Jurad, is now heading to Raman’s committee for deliberation.
Some councils have already expressed support for repealing the emergency declaration, while others say they are open to ideas, but that is only if there is a seamless transition.
“If we’re going to get rid of it, we want to make sure we do it responsibly,” said Bob Blumenfield, a council member representing the southwest San Fernando Valley.
Blumenfield hopes to protect Executive Directive 1 issued by Bass shortly after declaring a local state of emergency by ensuring that provision into the Urban Act. The directive raises the height limits for 100% affordable housing developments and other planning restrictions, and charges rents below market rates.
Raman said the city must face many issues stemming from the homeless crisis, including improving data collection. However, she also expressed interest in exploring the end of the emergency declaration.
“It’s also a very important conversation and I’m hoping for,” she said.
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