A project in Los Angeles designed to address homelessness has seen a sizable portion of its participants returning to the streets, according to a new report.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive order in December 2022 launching the Inside Safe program, which helps provide interim housing, typically in the form of motel rooms, to people experiencing homelessness.
“Each Inside Safe site is overseen by a nonprofit service provider that administers comprehensive case management, housing navigation, and meals,” the city’s website states. “Hundreds of Inside Safe participants have been housed in life-saving permanent housing.”
The $300 million project has helped move some 5,800 people into interim housing, but data from December revealed about 40 percent of them have returned to the streets, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Bass told the outlet it’s important to learn why people are leaving.
“It’s critically important that we look at the people who left, why they left [and] what do we need to do strengthen the interim housing that we have,” Bass said. “I have my opinions about it, but the opinions have to be based in science.”
Some community members who spoke to the newspaper also criticized the program’s rules, such as its ban on guests, while nonprofit leaders who help run Inside Safe sites told the the outlet these rules are in place to keep participants safe.
Jonathan Torres, an Inside Safe participant, said the restriction on guests feels “unfair.”
“It’s nobody’s fault but my own, but I just feel it’s unfair,” he told the LA Times. “In the real world, you’re allowed to have people come over. You have visitors. That’s part of keeping your sanity, you know?”
UCLA Law School professor emeritus Gary Blasi told the newspaper that there were not enough housing vouchers and low-cost apartments to provide permanent housing for program members, putting the program on track that is “just not sustainable” and funnels money into expensive motels rather than long-term solutions.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Bass highlighted her work to address homelessness in Los Angeles.
“The bottom line is that before Mayor Bass took office, past city leaders didn’t even bother with a comprehensive encampment strategy. Now, after so many years of increases, her new program is driving an almost 18 percent reduction in street homelessness,” the spokesperson told The Independent. “She is the first mayor in L.A. history to reverse these numbers, and she’s done it two years in a row while also achieving the first decline in homeless deaths on record.”
“Anyone who has faced homelessness or addiction — or loved someone who has — knows this is a journey that far too often ends in tragedy,” the spokesperson added. “Despite this reality, Los Angeles is defying the national trend and making tangible progress that is saving lives, reuniting families, and making our neighborhoods safer.”
The findings arrive in the middle of a broader fight to secure funding for programs that combat homelessness under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has issued a series of executive orders and campaign pledges to restrict funding and criminalize homelessness, making it easier for law enforcement to punish people who are forced to live on the streets.
Last year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Women’s Development Corporation sued to block the Trump administration’s new criteria for a 40-year-old program that was thrown “into chaos” after the administration imposed new conditions on grant funding that held the funds “and the people they help hostage,” according to the lawsuit.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that the administration’s attempt to change the rules was unlawful.
“This ruling is a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs,” Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said in a statement following the ruling.
The news “reinforces a fundamental truth: that the work to end homelessness is not partisan, and never should be interfered with for political means,” she added.
