Los Angeles is facing a renewed rise in homelessness, putting fresh pressure on Mayor Karen Bass as she defends City Hall’s record and casts blame beyond the city’s borders.
After highlighting two consecutive years of reported declines in the homeless population, Bass and Los Angeles are now confronting a 3.5% increase in people experiencing homelessness compared with last year, according to reports released Thursday.
Bass attributed the setback in part to the Trump administration, while also pointing to reduced state funding and arguing that Los Angeles County bears responsibility for gaps in services.
“For two years straight, we drove down homelessness by historic margins — but as expected, last year our efforts ultimately couldn’t keep up with policies and funding cuts on the federal and state levels,” she wrote in a statement to Fox 11.
“The Trump Administration has driven up the cost of gas, groceries, and rent — pushing more families to the edge — and slashed critical safety net funding.
“And, last year’s state cut of over $70 million severely impacted our work to keep people housed and get more Angelenos off the streets.
“The lack of adequate services continues to be a real problem and a contributing factor to people cycling in and out of homelessness, and these services are controlled by LA County.
“Despite these headwinds, we have reduced homelessness in Los Angeles by 13% since 2023 — placing tens of thousands of Angelenos in interim housing, moving 6,000 people off the streets through Inside Safe, and housing more than 1,000 homeless veterans.
“This crisis was ignored by city leaders for decades, it’s only now that we’ve seen a historic decline — I will never stop fighting until no Angelenos are sleeping on our streets.”
Bass appeared to anticipate the release of the new statistics on Wednesday, putting out a curated video aimed at glorifying her efforts toward the homeless. “No Angeleno should be living on our streets,” she wrote on X.
The new increase shifts the LA homeless population back to 2024 levels, erasing two years of progress on the front. Bass has used her Inside Safe program to tout homeless progress, but it’s had mixed results.
Downtown Los Angeles — home to the nightmarish Skid Row — continues to lead homeless discussions about the city.
Jens Midthun, president of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, told Fox 11 that abandoned properties are adding to the challenges.
“These are nuisance properties. There’s not enough inspectors, there’s not enough funding for these programs. They’re not operating in a way that is acceptable to the neighborhood,” Midthun said.
“Downtown, we face the brunt of it. Downtown is the heart of the homelessness crisis,” he added.
Bass is set to face socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who leads the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, in the November elections.
Raman has faced plenty of criticism about the homeless problem, too, championing a failed $60 million affordable housing project to get people off the streets that used just three out of a planned 2,000 apartments for the homeless.
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