This post was updated April 29 at 11:05 p.m.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city has made progress in fire recovery, crime and homelessness but faces a budget deficit in her April 21 State of the City address.
The annual address provides an update to LA residents on the work of the mayor and city council over the past year and introduces the mayor’s priorities for the upcoming year, according to the Los Angeles Times. In this year’s address, Bass emphasized unity and discussed her plans for economic development in the city.
Bass began the address by thanking the firefighters who helped contain the January 2025 fires, in addition to the people who have aided relief efforts. She said the recovery from the Palisades fire is on course to be the fastest fire recovery in California history, due to the city issuing permits to rebuild and restoring water and power quickly.
Bass also announced the establishment of a self-certification program for architects to certify their plans adhere to the California Residential code and an initiative that would use artificial intelligence to expedite the permitting process.
Kenya Covington, a professor of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, said she is wary of Bass lifting restrictions in order to speed up the rebuilding process. The regulations have specific purposes, and some people may try to exploit the system and build housing in ways that harm the environment, she added.
“The process of building housing, building back, increases our footprint on the planet,” Covington said. “We don’t want to open up the floodgates just for people to do things that stretch our footprint.”
Following her discussion of fire relief efforts, Bass transitioned into discussing public safety, adding that both violent crime and property crime has decreased in the past year. In 2024, homicides decreased by 14%, gang related homicides in the most impacted communities decreased by 45% and the number of shooting victims decreased by 19%, she said.
Subsequently, Bass addressed homelessness in LA, including issues affecting people experiencing homelessness, such as having no shelter while permanent housing is being built.
Bass said the current system, which she called “broken,” had caused the number of people experiencing homelessness to grow before her tenure. When she took office, there were over 46,000 people experiencing homelessness in LA, she added.
Zev Yaroslavsky, a former city council member and the current director of the LA initiative at the Luskin School, said Bass did not avoid addressing the unhoused population in LA unlike previous mayors. In her first act in office in 2022, she declared a state of emergency on homelessness.
Bass discussed policies that make finding housing difficult for people experiencing homelessness – including requiring proof of no income to be eligible for public housing and veterans being ineligible for housing vouchers if they receive disability checks, both of which her office worked to change. She also emphasized the work her office has done to find temporary housing for people, including utilizing underused motels, but she said more work needs to be done to increase the accessibility of temporary housing.
For the first time in years, the number of people experiencing homelessness decreased in the past year, she said, adding that there was a 10% decrease in street homelessness and a 38% decrease in makeshift shelters.
“More Angelenos are being moved into permanent housing than ever before,” Bass said.
Yaroslavsky said he noticed a visible decrease in the number of homeless encampments that he saw in the city following Bass’ initiatives and emphasis on addressing the issue.
Zeke Sandoval, the associate director of public policy for PATH, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness, said Bass’ work to increase housing has been “transformational.”
He also added that the mayor and her office have been a consistent partner to PATH since taking office, coordinating transportation and housing for people living in outdoor encampments that are being taken down. Sandoval added that the city pays for hotel rooms and for nonprofit workers who help people experiencing homelessness assess their next steps.
Since the beginning of the year, over 350 unhoused people have been moved to shelter through Bass’ Inside Safe program, an initiative committed to bring people inside to shelter and aiding the dismantling of over 90 encampments, according to a report released from her office.
However, Sandoval said Bass, the city council and the state need to focus on building affordable housing in places where housing costs are high. He added that many other cities resort to law enforcement to remove encampments, but he is glad Bass is doing otherwise through the Inside Safe initiative.
Looking toward the future, Bass acknowledged the challenges her office will have in balancing the upcoming year’s budget because of the city’s over $800 million deficit. In the upcoming year there will be consolidation and restructuring of government departments to make the city run better for Angelenos and to become more fiscally stable, Bass said, adding that the layoffs listed in her proposed budget were a “last resort.”
About 70% of the city’s budget is dedicated to the fire and police departments and public services, such as libraries, parks and street repair, which are likely to be impacted by the high deficit, Yaroslavsky said. The budget is a statement of Bass’ priorities, he added.
The January 2025 fires and the current economic downturn, especially in relation to the Trump administration’s tariffs, are likely to impact the revenue the city collects in the coming year, Yaroslavsky said. He added that he believes it is better for Bass to make hard decisions regarding budget cuts and be conservative in estimates of revenue earlier rather than later.
“The city is in the people business, everything the city does is supposed to be to improve the quality of life,” he said. “While you’re trying to make cuts and raise revenues, you also have to keep in mind, ‘How does that impact the services?’”
Bass said she believes there should be a multiyear city budget and that the City Charter should be amended to allow for this so the city can run more efficiently. She announced the establishment of a capital improvement plan to coordinate longterm capital projects, adding that the executive director and first appointees of the charter reform commission would be announced by the end of the week.
While the city has made progress, there is still significant work to be done, Bass said.
“The state of our city is this: homelessness is down, crime is down,” Bass said. “These are tough challenges and they show that we can do so much more. We still have a long way to go. We need a citywide turnaround.”
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