For the first time since Los Angeles began tracking homelessness, the number of unhoused Angelenos has fallen for two consecutive years — including a drop in street homelessness. This decline marks a decisive break from more than four decades of rising homelessness in our city.
That is the progress I led with and am committed to building upon — but it is also progress now at risk. Just as Los Angeles is finally reversing generational trends, some local, state, and federal officials are proposing changes that would undermine our momentum and push the city backward. We cannot allow that to happen.
The truth is this: Homelessness has been growing in Los Angeles since the 1980s, when federal disinvestment, the loss of affordable housing, and widening inequality began pushing thousands of Angelenos onto the streets. The crisis deepened over the years and exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, as economic disruption and an even tighter housing market drove the number of unhoused people to record levels.
When I took office, Los Angeles wasn’t just facing a 40-year crisis — we were confronting a deeply dysfunctional system that had metastasized around it. Homelessness policy was scattered across a patchwork of agencies and processes that were outdated, overly complex, and resistant to accountability. No single entity held clear responsibility. Transparency was limited. And far too many leaders clung to the hope that homelessness would somehow resolve itself. Put simply, government had become calibrated to manage homelessness, not end it.
The progress we’re seeing today did not happen by accident. It happened because, we chose to confront the bureaucracy and inertia, to diagnose what was broken, and to reject ineffective policies that left tens of thousands languishing outside. We chose to lead with urgency and compassion — and worked to coordinate existing agencies and reimagine a system capable of actually reducing homelessness.
For too long, Los Angeles operated under a narrow and rigid interpretation of “Housing First” that treated permanent housing as the only solution. That meant people living on sidewalks, in parks, and in their cars remained outside until a permanent unit — often years away — became available. This approach was a contributing fact that turned Los Angeles into the nation’s epicenter of unsheltered homelessness.
As other major cities built interim housing at scale, Los Angeles placed nearly all its resources into permanent housing. As a result, the majority of unhoused Angelenos slept outside for years, while most people experiencing homelessness in cities like New York and Philadelphia slept indoors.
That is why, on December 11, 2022 — my first day in office — I declared a State of Emergency on homelessness. The declaration allowed us to accelerate the production of permanent housing and rapidly expand interim housing by cutting through years of red tape. It enabled us to move quickly, test solutions, and replace outdated processes with a streamlined, accountable model focused on results.
And Los Angeles has done exactly that.
Our first major effort was Inside Safe — a citywide initiative to bring entire encampments indoors using motels and other forms of dignified, interim housing. The goal was never to warehouse people or shuffle them around. It was to end street homelessness by providing stability, safety, and a direct path into permanent housing.
To make that path real, we invested heavily in interim housing — the bridge that makes permanent housing possible and gives people stability to heal, receive care, and rebuild their lives. This is the model that has worked in other cities: stabilize people first, then move them into permanent housing. Los Angeles is finally doing the same — and the results show it works.
In just two years, Los Angeles has brought thousands of people indoors and resolved nearly 150 encampments across every part of the city. The impact is real: neighborhoods are cleaner and safer, fire risks drop, emergency calls fall, and public spaces become usable again. Most importantly, people who once survived outdoors now have a real chance to move forward — with medical care, mental health treatment, addiction services, job support, and help securing permanent housing.
But just as Los Angeles is beginning to break away from national trends, new political threats are emerging that would reverse our momentum.
Here at home, certain City Council members are considering transferring resources and cash from the City’s homelessness programs to a brand-new Los Angeles County Department of Homelessness. Creating it risks rebuilding the very bureaucracy that held us back for decades.
This department does not exist yet, has no track record, and already faces a projected $300 million deficit that was closed by cutting the very programs that will almost ensure homelessness will increase next year.
At the state level, proposed cuts to Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention funds threaten the resources that have supported our surge in interim housing. And at the federal level, reductions to the Continuum of Care program would slash support for thousands of low-income households, putting many at risk of falling into or returning to homelessness.
Taken together, these threats across multiple levels of government would undermine the very programs that are working — and result in more Angelenos back on the streets. Make no mistake: Los Angeles cannot afford to go backward, especially with global events on the horizon and the world preparing to turn its eyes toward our city.
For the first time in our city’s history, we have a real chance to lead — to prove that a major American city can reverse a decades-long trend and bring people indoors humanely, effectively, and at scale. This is not the moment to retreat or roll back the programs that are delivering results. It is time to double down: expand cost-effective interim housing on public land, invest in tiny homes and modular shelters, invest in new and improved models of congregate housing, strengthen partnerships with service providers and faith-based organizations, and continue building a system rooted in transparency, accountability, and urgency.
Homelessness didn’t appear overnight, and it won’t disappear overnight. But for the first time in more than 40 years, Los Angeles is not only managing the crisis — we are reducing it. We are proving that urgency, compassion, and competence can work together.
The question now is whether we will stay the course — or slip back into the inertia of the past.
Los Angeles has made historic progress. We cannot — and will not — turn back now.
Karen Bass is the mayor of Los Angeles.