Increased homeless funding a priority
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass delivered her first State of the City address on Monday from City Hall. She outlined her proposals to increase the ranks of the LAPD officers, opening hotels and buying apartments for the homeless, and using unoccupied land to build mental health facilities for people in need.
“After years of frustration, tonight we see a clearer path to a new Los Angeles, where the city is stronger, happier, healthier, and safer,” Bass said. “The state of our city is really about the state of our neighborhoods, the state of your households, and the state of your minds. The state of our city is strong when you can pay the bills with no worries, go to the park without worries, and walk the streets at night time without worries. Once that happens then we can't say the state of our city is strong.”
Bass thanked the city council and county officials for cooperation in handling homelessness with their Inside Safe initiative that began last year. The program seeks to proactively bring unhoused residents indoors and prevent sidewalk encampments from returning.
“Today, more than 1,000 people are living inside and safe from this initiative,” Bass said.
Bass intends to announce the next step of Inside Safe by releasing her planned budget of $250 million to be invested in inside safe to scale it citywide.
“My budget also includes a $1.3 billion investment to accelerate our momentum on homelessness,” Bass said in explaining why renting hotels is not a sustainable way to cure the homelessness crisis, but purchasing motels and hotels is the necessary step to take and the reason why the budget is high. Bass is also working with city officials to rehabilitate nearly 3,000 city-owned properties to use for housing.
Bass also wants to help rebuild the police department to not only keep the streets safe but provide proper service with trained people to deal with situations that average police officers aren't trained for.
“My budget proposal calls for urgent action to hire hundreds of officers next year to restore the department to full strength. I have also made it clear we must extend the capacity of the city's mental health crisis teams to operate citywide and available 24/7,” she said.
Bass also wants to reduce the number of officer-involved civilian deaths, revamp the LAPD disciplinary system, and provide enhanced mental health training to every officer.
To watch the whole speech, please click this link https://tinyurl.com/4r2p2357 to learn more about the plans Mayor Bass has for Los Angeles and how she will accomplish these goals.
Tags: local, Karen Bass, Inside Safe, LAPD
