This encampment was a block away from City Hall and a block from the courthouse in front of the building that used to belong to the L.A. Times.
Mayor Karen Bass has a beautiful Mona Lisa smile. It is the kind of benevolent look that assures Los Angeles residents that all will be well.
But maybe Bass should take note of Arizona where voters overwhelmingly (nearly 60 percent) approved Proposition 312. Her beatific smile might take a turn downwards.
That Arizona prop will require local governments to compensate property and business owners for damage created by the homeless.
In Phoenix, many of the homeless were shunted into a downtown area known as the Zone. The equivalent in Los Angeles, might be Skid Row.
Phoenix City officials reportedly instructed police officers to leave the Zone alone, and the result was it became a site of panhandling, violent crime and destruction.
Victor Riches, the president and CEO of the Goldwater Institute, said in piece in the Wall Street Journal that property values plummeted . . .small businesses suffered . . .people lost their livelihoods, and some has no choice but to close their shops. “The city spent more than $180 million to address the crisis (only a fraction of which is publicly accounted for).” The result was that homeless people in Phoenix increased by 92% between 2018 and 2023.
Sound familiar?
The City of Phoenix was sued for maintaining a public nuisance and last year a state court judge ordered the city to clear the Zone. Prop. 312 was seen as insurance so that future politicians will not be able to create a new Zone.
Riches concluded, “Proposition 312 should be a wake-up call for elected officials forcing law-abiding businesses and residents to pay the price for a crisis they didn’t create. The message to politicians couldn’t be clearer: Do your job. Enough is enough.”
As the 2026 World Cup approaches and the 2028 Olympics beckons, Mayor Karen Bass in a December 9 statement assured us that more people have been housed than ever, that homeless numbers are down and that her Inside Safe program is a huge success.
Explaining how successful she was, she smiled magnanimously: all was well click here.
Maybe she’s missed the problems with the LAHSA Point in time count, that the number of actual homeless is questionable. Maybe she missed the reporting that nonprofits don’t track actual outcomes—just interactions.
Maybe she missed the scathing report from Federal Judge David Carter, insisting that LAHSA (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority) be held accountable because there was a lack of documentation. Or that Westside Current’s report Audit Reveals $218 Million Wasted on Unused Shelter Beds Amid L.A. Homeless Crisis, which sited a new audit by City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
Earlier the Current had reported on “properties acquired through Project Homekey, a state-funded initiative to convert hotels and motels into permanent supportive housing. Of the 2,157 rooms purchased by Los Angeles County, over 71% remain unoccupied years after acquisition.”
After reading the Mayor’s report, Tim Campbell wrote in December 12 CityWatch (Homelessness: Delivering Results or Delivering Deception?) “I was left with a mix of thoughts and emotions: amusement, astonishment, indignation, and, quite honestly, fear that our mayor is either delusional or an outright liar. Even casual followers of Los Angeles’ homelessness programs know how dysfunctional and inefficient they are. If Mayor Bass really believes what she wrote, she is clearly out of touch with reality. If she knows how poorly her programs are performing but tried to spin them as successful, she is trying to deceive four million people.”
A quote from American Stock investor Philip A. Fisher, might best sum up the Mayor’s presentation and her smile, “I have already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts.”
Share this article with the LA TIMES and every other local newspaper. See if any dare to print it (with permission of course). This article says it all and puts so many of the missing parts together as to why and what is actually happening regarding the homeless, our taxes, and what could be the cause of continual needed cleanup of homeless encampments. The TRUTH NEEDS TO BECOME PUBLIC INFORMATION soon.
The uniformed public needs to become informed.
How do I sue the city of Santa Monica is there a lawyer out there who wants to help me?