(Headline USA) During her State of the City address on Monday. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass begged wealthy residents to buy homes for the homeless.
There are more than 40,000 homeless people in Los Angeles, according to the city. But instead of “hiding” them, “what we will do is house people,” Bass said, admitting that the “crisis on our streets is nothing less than a disaster.”
Touting her Inside Safe program, which she said has moved more than 21,000 homeless people into temporary shelters, Bass claimed that moving homeless people into temporary housing would eventually end the crisis.
Obtaining property to house the homeless in, however, is expensive and time-consuming.
To “speed up” the process, Bass argued the city’s wealthy elites should pitch in with their own resources.
“Right now, we’re working to move past nightly rentals,” she explained. “We are asking the most fortunate Angelenos to participate in this effort, with personal, private sector and philanthropic funds—to help us acquire more properties, lower the cost of capital and speed up housing.”
Bass defended this request by pointing out that the homelessness crisis has affected everyone in the city, including businesses, customers and all taxpayers.
“I will just not accept this and our city can’t afford to accept it,” she said.
Just this week, a state audit report found that California failed to track how billions of dollars allocated to the homelessness crisis had been spent.
California has the highest number of homeless people living outdoors in the country. And despite the state spending a record amount of taxpayer dollars to address the issue, the homeless population continues to rise in the Golden State. It is up 6% compared to last year, with about 181,000 people considered as homeless in the state’s 2023 count. Most are suffering from drug addiction or mental illnesses.
