By Daniel Trotta
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - While more and more cities urge police to crack down on homeless people sleeping in parks and streets, Los Angeles has resisted the rush to lead with law enforcement since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled it constitutional.
In the state with the most homeless people - some 186,000 across California, including 45,000 in Los Angeles - Mayor Karen Bass said the sheer volume demands a different approach to the most visible aspect of homelessness.
"You're talking over 40,000 people. Where are you going to put them if you don't house them?" Bass told Reuters this week after inaugurating an apartment building where 58 people, taken off the streets through her signature Inside Safe program, now have permanent affordable housing.
The program has moved thousands into hotel rooms or shelters, while providing social services and keeping those former sidewalk encampments clear, even as some critics complain that police can be heavy-handed.
The city budgeted nearly $1.3 billion for homeless-related expenditures in the 2023-24 fiscal year, of which $250 million was allocated to Inside Safe, according to a report from the office of City Administrative Officer. Bass said the city is developing more cost-effective shelters, while supporting permanent housing and preventing people from losing their homes in the first place.
Syed Shah, 34, said he had rotten teeth and a beard down to his chest when he was homeless in Hollywood. Inside Safe got him into a hotel, and eventually permanent housing. Now he is working as a Hollywood tour guide.
"I feel better, I look better. My teeth are finally clean," Shah said. "It's definitely helped me out a lot."
'DOING WHAT WORKS'
After years in which a seemingly intractable problem had only grown worse, nine sidewalk encampments have disappeared over the past two years and have yet to come back in the marquee neighborhood of Hollywood, according to the city council member for the district, Hugo Soto-Martinez. More than 250 people, or 98% of those approached, accepted housing and services from Inside Safe, his office said.
"This isn't just about compassion or doing what's right - it's about doing what works," Soto-Martinez said.
Reuters visited four of those former encampments this week. Three, including one adjacent to an elementary school, remained clear of tents. A few tents were pitched at the fourth site.
As Mayor Bass marks her second anniversary in office this week, she highlighted her efforts that have moved 23,000 people inside over the first 11 months of this year and 22,400 last year. It was 17,600 in 2022, before she took office.
Los Angeles has said it would not change its approach even though California Governor Gavin Newsom urged local officials to clamp down on encampments following a June 28 Supreme Court ruling that cities could enforce camping bans.
Since then, at least 117 cities and counties in 27 states - including 39 localities in California - have passed some version of an anti-camping law, according to the National Homelessness Law Center.
"Inside Safe, while flawed, shows that politicians can find solutions to homelessness that do not start with bulldozers or jail," said Jesse Rabinowitz, the law center's communications director.
Human Rights Watch said in an August report that Los Angeles police disproportionately targeted the homeless, who were subject to 38% of all arrests and 99% of infractions from 2016 through 2022. Bass said the report covered the years before her time and that police had reduced ticketing.
Others say officials should focus on long-term solutions such as affordable housing. Just 26% of the number of people sheltered in Bass's first year moved into permanent housing, according to her office. That grew to 32% this year.
TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS?
Pete White's Los Angeles Community Action (WA:ACT) Network provides services to the poor from Skid Row, the downtown district where thousands of people camp on squalid sidewalks, the acrid smell of plastic-fueled cooking fires mixing with the ammonia-like sting of urine.
White praised Bass for taking bold, immediate action, but said, "the problem with temporary solutions, without a permanent plan, is once the money's gone people are back on the streets."
Bass describes her approach as holistic.
"One of the things that we've tried to demonstrate with Inside Safe is that you can get people off the streets immediately, which obviously helps the individuals, but it also helps the businesses, the schools, the neighborhoods, because it compromises everybody's quality of life," Bass said.
In Hollywood, the owners of iconic businesses - including Sunset Sound, the studio where rock legends like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin recorded seminal work, and Amoeba Music, a record store on Hollywood Boulevard - have praised Bass's initiative.
Another person brought in off the streets was Shameka Foster, 51, who lost her $1,400 a month studio apartment in 2023 after a slowdown in her job as a security guard. She was living on Skid Row for three months until outreach workers placed her in one hotel and then another.
While grateful to have a roof, Foster said the experience left her stressed. She said she was hospitalized for two weeks after eating spoiled food served at one hotel. Foster, who is African American, said one nurse temporarily denied her blood pressure medicine for no apparent reason.
Then she was startled by staff on a wellness check who barged into her room, she said. The mayor's office quickly referred the matter for investigation upon learning of it, a spokesperson said.
"It was very, very traumatizing. I cried all night," Foster said. "I was ready to go back outside on the sidewalk."
But she stayed with the program and two weeks ago moved into permanent supportive housing.