Homeless count leaves LA voters with impossible – Latest News
Karen Bass is in serious trouble.
Her reelection bid was already shaky, because of lingering public outrage over the Palisades Fire.
Then she started shedding employees, even after successful the first election with a plurality of the vote.
After longtime aide Doug Herman give up, she needed to exchange him with Julie Chávez Rodriguez, who managed Kamala Harris’s shedding presidential marketing campaign.
Karen Bass is in serious trouble. Getty Images for Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)
But the mayor continued to argue that she had earned a second time period, because of the progress that LA had made in decreasing homelessness. Andy Johnstone for CA Post
Not precisely a hopeful signal.
But the mayor continued to argue that she had earned a second time period, because of the progress that LA had made in decreasing homelessness.
Her marketing campaign web site boasted: “In the three years of the Bass Administration, LA has achieved its first-ever back-to-back decreases in homelessness.”
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That argument is now toast.
On Friday, the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) launched its delayed homeless count for 2026.
It reported that the homeless population had risen virtually 3.4% since 2025. And the quantity of “unsheltered” people residing on the streets or in automobiles rose 7.9%.
On Friday, the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) launched its delayed homeless count for 2026. Andy Johnstone for CA Post
That’s a lot worse than LA County, which recorded a 1.2% rise in homelessness and a 3.3% rise within the unsheltered population.
Bass tried guilty President Donald Trump.
“The Trump Administration has driven up the cost of gas, groceries, and rent — pushing more families to the edge — and slashed critical safety net funding,” her workplace claimed in a assertion on Thursday.
Nobody’s fooled.
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The metropolis and LA County mixed spend roughly $3 billion per 12 months on homelessness. For that quantity of money, LA ought to see dramatic progress, yearly.
But as an alternative of implementing ordinances in opposition to homeless encampments, or addressing root causes like substance abuse and mental sickness, town invested in “housing first.”
Four partitions don’t clear up the issue for people who pursue their cravings and their demons on the streets.
And LAHSA has been a catastrophe, with money flying out the door with little oversight or accountability. The metropolis did not monitor the company and has been too sluggish in taking on its capabilities.
Four partitions don’t clear up the issue for people who pursue their cravings and their demons on the streets. Andy Johnstone for CA Post
The homeless numbers are a main political drawback for Bass. And below bizarre circumstances, the information ought to benefit Bass’s opponent within the basic election, socialist City Council member Nithya Raman.
But there’s one drawback: Raman chairs the City Council’s committee on homelessness. She is simply as a lot guilty because the mayor.
If the homeless numbers had been obtainable earlier than the June 2 major vote, it’s doable that challenger Spencer Pratt would have certified for the final election.
It doesn’t appear that the homeless count was delayed for political causes. Though it arrived later than anticipated, the homeless count has usually been delivered in late July.
Still, it might have been good for voters to know what was truly occurring, as Mayor Bass claimed she had achieved great success.
“Los Angeles, we have been doing it for the last three years, and it’s the first time homelessness has gone down,” she declared during the televised mayoral debate.
Raman claimed that LA had made “incremental” progress, and launched a new plan that, she mentioned, would clear all of the homeless encampments by the tip of her time period.
Pratt cautioned in opposition to believing both of his two rivals on the homeless concern.
If the homeless numbers had been obtainable earlier than the June 2 major vote, it’s doable that challenger Spencer Pratt would have certified for the final election. London Entertainment for CA Post
“This is an absolute failure for both of them,” he mentioned. “They’re a team.”
Pratt, who misplaced his household home within the Palisades Fire, made homelessness a main focus of his marketing campaign.
He drew consideration to the problem on social media, and notably to the abuse of animals within homeless encampments.
Pratt entered the election with super momentum, and appeared to have completed in second place, till late ballots put Raman forward of him, and into the final election.
In a additional irony, Raman appeared to have benefited from a surge in LA neighborhoods with giant numbers of homeless people. Critics suspect that she was boosted by poll harvesting at homeless shelters.
Pratt, who misplaced his household home within the Palisades Fire, made homelessness a main focus of his marketing campaign. Jon Rou/LMU
So not solely did Raman fail to improve homelessness, however she additionally might have benefited from that failure through the use of homeless votes to advance her marketing campaign for mayor.
LA voters are left with a irritating alternative. On one hand, we will reelect a mayor who claimed to have improved homelessness, and failed. On the opposite hand, we will gamble on a radical politician whose socialist insurance policies would arguably make the issue worse.
Voters ought to have had a actual various. Spencer Pratt was that various. Now he’s on the sidelines.
And because of California’s “jungle” major system, there’s no option for a write-in vote within the basic election.
This is a disaster for native democracy.
Leadership goes to have to come back from someplace. But it received’t be the mayor’s workplace.
Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.
