Karen Bass

So some people are on the street.

Some people have reunited with their families.

You know, a number of people who are unhoused actually work.

And they might have reached the point where they could do a first and last month's rent.

So several fundamental problems.

The system does not evaluate itself.

So we don't know where these people go.

I think it's higher than 15%.

And the community-based organizations don't have the capacity to provide the services.

Fortunately, I have a healthcare background.

I worked in the emergency room.

I've worked with unhoused patients.

I have a different view of this, I think, than most people.

This might be an overgeneralization for me, but I believe that a lot of people that have been in this field for a long time know housing, but they don't necessarily know the people, if you know what I mean.

Because everybody talks about mental health and substance abuse.

I'm concerned about diabetes and cancer and high blood pressure.

All of those things really can lead to people being homeless when their health care collapses.

And they can't afford, you know, and they wind up missing work because they're not taken care of.

And so I think that there are a lot of reasons why people wind up on the street again.

But the truth of the matter is we're not sure what happens to them because the system is not in place to track them.