Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass began her first day in office Monday by declaring a state of emergency to grapple with the city’s out-of-control homeless crisis, bidding to move swiftly to get thousands of unhoused people off her city’s streets.
Bass called the declaration “a sea change in how the city tackles homelessness,” making good on a campaign pledge to call the emergency the day she took power. The issue dominated her mayoral race against billionaire developer Rick Caruso and the crisis has continued to worsen despite vast public spending increases.
She said Sunday that the many, disparate arms of government must unite to confront homelessness in the nation’s second-largest city. To move in a new direction “we must have a single strategy” bringing together government, the private sector and other stakeholders, she said at the ceremony.
Trash-strewn encampments and rusting RVs have spread to virtually every neighborhood of Los Angeles, and her declaration on Monday included a grim statistical rundown of the many problems stemming from the homeless crisis.
Read more at AOL.com
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