Karen Bass Talks Community Power and Progress in Los Angeles

59.627 - 83.549 Mike Shearow

And I think not just me, but I think everyone that's listening and watching just wants to say thank you. And, you know, Mayor Bass, I love starting off my episodes with that question of what is your because? That thing that's deeper than your why. And so if I were to say, Mayor Bass, like, why do you do what you do? Why do you give what you give? Why do you fight the way that you fight?

83.73 - 84.591 Mike Shearow

What's your because?

85.151 - 114.092 Karen Bass

Well, I love that question because it definitely defines my life. I grew up as a kid. Couldn't wait to be an adult so I could get out in the world and fight for justice. It has defined me. And I think it's really about the time period in which I grew up. which grew up watching the civil rights movement on TV as a child and listening to my father explain what life in the South was like.

114.573 - 139.927 Karen Bass

My mother was born in Los Angeles, very different, considering it was years and years before the big migration after World War II. And so I just always wanted to devote my life to fighting for justice. To me, our country... offered all of the opportunities in the world with all of the capacity, all of the resources, all of the wealth.

140.628 - 162.27 Karen Bass

And I've never understood why certain sectors of our population had to suffer, had to suffer economically, had to face gross injustice. And so to me, when you're in the land that has everything, why can't that be shared? And that has defined my life and never, ever thought about running for office.

474.995 - 501.188 Karen Bass

Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, it was most important that we address the crisis that was facing Los Angeles. So the day that I was sworn in the next day, instead of going to city hall, I went to our emergency operations center and I declared the city to be in a state of emergency. And that state of emergency was over the fact that we had 40 plus thousand people on our streets.

501.607 - 524.263 Karen Bass

And we set out a campaign to reduce the number of people who are living on the street, street homelessness, to address that situation and to involve people in the process. And I think one of the most important things that we were able to do was disprove the notion that people were on those streets willingly and didn't want to leave the streets.

524.745 - 556.118 Karen Bass

By the way, I must say to you that the African-American population of Los Angeles is 9%. That's 9% out of 3.8 million people. But when it comes to who is unhoused, we are over 30% of the people living on the streets. Los Angeles is about 50% Latino and about 40% of the people on the streets are Latino. So you are talking about an African-American and Latino problem, 74% of the people.

556.699 - 575.188 Karen Bass

And so bringing the communities together to say that we have to solve this problem was critically important. Now, I do believe we have a long way to go. We have reduced homelessness for the first time. second year in a row. And so I think to me, we have a clear pathway out of this.

575.869 - 597.19 Karen Bass

I don't think that that was done before in the sense that in my opinion, the city nor the county was committed to ending homelessness. They were committed to managing it. And I think somewhere in somebody's mind, they thought it would eventually go away. And of course, what happened was that we were trying to address homelessness in the 90s as well.

927.314 - 952.999 Mike Shearow

It is like a normal day in Los Angeles. And I'm like, wait a second, like what is going on? And then... there's this one little bitty section, one corner, like one corner. And it's not even protests. It's just people gathering, but it's all people. It's people, it's brown, it's black, it's white, it's Asian. Like all people are there supporting the city in a very peaceful, calm manner.

953.2 - 971.882 Mike Shearow

And so I didn't call everyone back, but I called a handful back and said, turn the TV off. This is not what's going on. Like change the channel. Mayor Bass has this very much under control, like nothing that you see there. But how do you deal with that as the mayor of a city like Los Angeles?

972.014 - 978.58 Mike Shearow

top two, three largest cities from a media perspective in the world, not just the United States, but in the world. How do you deal with that?

978.841 - 999.861 Karen Bass

Right. And that is very troubling. You know, it's very important to get out, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, is to tell the truth about what is happening. And so I did spend a fair amount of time doing press conferences and getting in the media and saying this, Los Angeles is 500 square feet of

1000.465 - 1031.416 Karen Bass

The protests happened in about one square foot, about four blocks, and they were relatively peaceful as happens often in big mass protests. At the end, you will have some stragglers who will vandalize property in the form of graffiti and maybe even commit some violent acts like setting Waymos on fire. It does not characterize the vast majority of protesters. That typically happens at the end.