State of emergency on homelessness to end

Three years later, Bass notes a shift in right direction but says 'crisis remains.' Some council members say the special declaration has gone on too long.

- NOAH GOLDBERG

A HOMELESS person voices his displeasure to police at an encampment in 2024.

(JASON ARMOND Los Angeles Times)

On her first day in office, Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness.

The declaration allowed the city to cut through red tape, including through no-bid contracts, and to start Inside Safe, Bass' program focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into interim housing.

On Tuesday, nearly three years after she took the helm, and with homelessness trending down two years in a row for the first time in recent years, the mayor announced that she will lift the state of emergency on Nov. 18.

"We have begun a real shift in our city's decades-long trend of rising homelessness," Bass said in a memorandum to the City Council.

Still, the mayor said, there is much work to do.

"The crisis remains, and so does our urgency," she said.

The mayor's announcement followed months of City Council pushback on the lengthy duration of the state of emergency, which the council had initially approved.