Photo courtesy of Karen Bass for Mayor
By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
The Palisadian-Post reached out to candidates running for Los Angeles Mayor to answer questions pertaining to homelessness, housing affordability, crime and what inspired their mayoral run.
Congresswoman Karen Bass shared her responses with the Post ahead of the general election on November 8. Fellow candidate Rick Caruso’s responses to the same questions can be read in the June 2 edition of the paper.
Post: Can you provide concrete steps and a timeline for how you plan to tackle homelessness?
Bass: Homelessness is a crisis for unhoused Angelenos and for every one of our communities and neighborhoods, and it requires a bold and aggressive emergency response. As mayor, I will lead from the front on this crisis and unite Los Angeles around my comprehensive and urgent solutions.
For too many years, government leaders have attempted to address the problem but not solve it. I will cut through the bureaucracy to bring every level of government together around a single plan that houses at least 15,000 Angelenos in my first year in office and ends street encampments.
We will build more temporary and permanent housing, lead on mental health and substance use services, equip folks with job training, transition individuals from the streets to housing and services, and prevent future homelessness from taking root.
As a lifelong Angeleno, coalition builder, physician assistant and elected official, I have personally treated individuals who were homeless, individuals with life-threatening substance abuse issues and those suffering from domestic abuse. Seeing and treating these individuals’ suffering reminded me that we need to solve this problem at the source. I am the only candidate with the experience and relationships to solve this crisis.
Post: Do you know of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness? If not, it is a model task force and has paved the way for West LA and the way it addresses homelessness. Would you consider working with them to address the homeless issues plaguing the city?
Bass: The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness has proven to be very successful in providing outreach and services to homeless individuals, and I hope to meet with them about how we can work together to end this crisis. We will only solve this crisis if all Angelenos are involved, so I would look forward to working with the task force on our shared goals.
Post: What are the top 5 things you hope to address within your first year as mayor, if elected?
Bass:
- Getting Angelenos inside immediately.
- Making Los Angeles safer.
- Making Los Angeles more affordable.
- Creating good jobs.
- Addressing the climate and sustainability crisis.
Post: Can you help improve housing affordability? Do you want to?
Bass: The lack of affordable housing and high housing costs across the board are major drivers of homelessness and inequality, and impact all Angelenos. Without addressing the lack of affordable housing and bringing down the cost of housing, Angelenos will continue to be forced into homelessness and the city will be increasingly unaffordable.
As mayor, I will be aggressive in making it easier to build in Los Angeles, and we’ll do it in a way that protects our existing housing stock and prevents the displacement of folks from their homes.
I will streamline all 100% affordable housing projects and permanent supportive housing projects for immediate development because we don’t have time to waste on bureaucracy. Even after a project is approved for development, it gets dragged through a maze of city departments for additional clearances and approvals.
Affordable housing projects shouldn’t just cut to the front of the line—they need their own line. That’s why I’ll create a new Affordable Housing Strike Team that has only one job: approve and expedite affordable housing projects as quickly as possible. This team will include the heads of every department that touches housing and they will be held directly accountable by the mayor.
When there are permanent supportive housing units coming in at $700,000, there’s something fundamentally wrong. Expediting projects will bring down these costs.
I will also secure bridge loans from the private sector to get projects underway, and I am uniquely positioned to work with Sacramento and Washington to streamline the complicated housing finance process and make sure LA gets additional housing resources.
Post: Do you plan to take action on climate change and sustainability?
Bass: The climate crisis is among the greatest challenges facing our city—and it’s an important opportunity for Los Angeles to rebuild its infrastructure and invest in a more equitable future.
Air pollution is putting our children in the [emergency room] with asthma. Wildfires jeopardize our homes. The perennial drought threatens to upend our businesses and communities. And communities of color have borne the brunt of these emergencies.
Substantially reducing our carbon footprint is non-negotiable. Adapting to the changing climate is the only way we can protect the health and livelihood of all Angelenos.
Los Angeles must return to the forefront of addressing climate change globally, serving once again as a model for cities throughout the world. I will take bold action to advance a clean energy economy, expand access to clean transportation and open space, enhance biodiversity and climate resiliency, conserve our natural resources, and train our workforce for prosperous green jobs—especially for frontline communities and communities of color.
What sets me apart is that I have experience working effectively in government and getting the job done. As Speaker of the Assembly, I led efforts to increase energy efficiency, create a reliable water supply for the state and expand workforce development opportunities for good-paying, green jobs. And in Congress, I helped deliver the once-in-a-generation Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—the largest investment in clean drinking water, wastewater infrastructure and public transit in our nation’s history—which will help complete key projects like the Metro Purple Line extension.
All people have the right to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment where they live, work and play.
Post: What is your vision for LAPD? Do you wish to make any changes in that department?
Bass: The LAPD is down hundreds of officers from its authorized force of 9,700. As mayor, I will return the LAPD to its full authorized force, and provide funding to the Personnel Department to aggressively recruit new officers who are invested in reform and accountability.
We will immediately hire and deploy civilians to free up at least 250 officers to take over the paperwork and free up officers for patrol, enabling the department to quickly deploy officers to neighborhoods requesting increased police presence.
Post: What is your plan to combat crime in the city?
Bass: The mayor’s most important responsibility is to keep Angelenos safe. When someone commits a crime, they must be held fully accountable.
Public safety means different things to different neighborhoods. Some communities want to see increased visibility from police patrols, while other neighborhoods find more value in proven model programs that build trust and cooperation between community members and law enforcement. It’s time to tailor crime response to the needs of individual communities.
That’s why I will bring the department up to its authorized level, hire civilians to move police officers from behind the desk to patrol as I mentioned above, and launch the Office of Community Safety in the mayor’s office to support cooperation and collaboration between the community and public and private sectors to build strong and healthy neighborhoods across Los Angeles.
Post: What inspired you to run for mayor?
Bass: I am running for mayor because our city is in a public health and public safety crisis. It’s past time to treat this homelessness emergency like the disaster it is.
When an earthquake hit this city nearly 30 years ago, Los Angeles pulled together overnight to fix it. We fixed our electrical grid, housed people who had their homes damaged and rebuilt freeways practically overnight.
We need to do the same thing today: turn toward each other and pull our city out of disaster. We need a mayor who will lead decisively and with compassion—because this is a fight for the future of Los Angeles.
When I see a crisis, I run toward it. Now, I’m running for mayor of the city I love—because we deserve a leader who can make Los Angeles a safer, more equal, more affordable place to live.
Post: What would you say is the biggest problem the city is facing right now? Why?
Bass: We have three crises happening at the same time: tens of thousands of unhoused Angelenos, rising crime in parts of Los Angeles and the increasingly unaffordability of this city. As mayor I will take immediate action to address all three.
Post: Lastly, what do you love about LA?
Bass: Los Angeles is incredibly diverse—the whole world is here. Los Angeles is my home, the city of dreams, the city of brilliance, creativity, hope and promise. We are so fortunate to live in a city where we have the skills, the knowledge and the resources to thrive.
Now we need to harness those strengths to solve our biggest challenges.
Responses have been published in full, adjusted only to fit the formatting and style of the paper.
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