By: Benjamin  He

Recently, Mayor Karen Bass, the mayor of the U.S.’s second largest city, LA, began fighting an uphill battle to lower rates of homelessness In late 2022, the effort began to move people off the streets and into motel rooms. Mayor Bass warned that homelessness rates may grow before the program, called Inside Safe, made a significant dent. Good news for Inside Safe arrived on Friday.

For the first time in six years, L.A. saw a decrease in the number of homeless individuals from the year before, at least, according to the most recent point-in-time count in January. The decrease was approximately 2.2 percent. The unsheltered number of people in the city (homeless people who are not in emergency shelters and are sleeping on the street, in tents or in cars) decreased by 10.4 percent.

A few hours before the Friday information was released, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that would make it easier for cities and for local governments on the West Coast to ban sleeping in public. But this may not be the morally correct or even best solution in the first place. Ms. Bass said that Los Angeles’s progress in convincing people to move indoors had demonstrated that arresting homeless people was a “failed response.”

“We know for a fact it will not work,” Ms. Bass said of arresting people who are homeless. “It will not get people housed. It will not get people off our streets.”

All along the West Coast, homelessness has become a problem and sets a precedent among today’s voters. California is experiencing a severe housing shortage, and encampment areas emerged during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.