Karen Bass

The problem is, is that in our city, that system is dysfunctional too, in terms of the building process.

So, for example, residents in L.A.

taxed themselves to address building the housing, 10,000 units they were going to build.

Well, they did get it built, but it took way over 10 years to do that.

While they were letting people stay on the street and focusing just on building, then homelessness exploded.

Now, let me compare that to New York.

New York early on

built their system where they have interim housing.

They didn't just focus on bricks and mortar building.

They bought buildings.

They got people off the street right away.

So where we have 40 plus thousand people

uh who are unhoused in los angeles new york has 80 but 97 of them are not on the street they're in some form of interim housing or shell or shelter we chose not to do that and i understand why it was well-intentioned ideology

which is a rigid interpretation of housing first.

Now, I'm a big proponent of housing first, but to me, housing first does not necessarily mean permanent housing or something that you build.

I think that we should have built a system of interim housing

where someone could stay for a year, year and a half, or two years while something was being built.

The other mistake, fundamental mistake, was not focusing or even understanding the type of support systems, services that people needed to be successful.

So what you have in this part continues today is people being housed but being churned in and out, in and out, in and out because they are today still not provided the adequate support that is needed.

Well, let me just let me just tell you that is partially true.