Mayor Karen Bass Gives First State of the City Address
In her first State of the City address, Mayor Bass focused on discussing the homeless crisis, policing and the city budget.
On April 17, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass gave her first State of the City speech since taking office at the L.A. City Hall’s John Ferraro Council Chamber. The largest part of the speech was dedicated to the city’s homelessness crisis. She also discussed how her upcoming budget will address the topics of policing, safety, and housing. The plans include a $1.3 billion investment toward solving homelessness.
“I told the Administration, if you want to meet your homelessness goals for the nation, you can do so right here in Los Angeles,” said Bass, referring to the Biden administration. “I want to make sure L.A. is one of the target cities for their plan to prevent and end homelessness.”
The address began with an invocation by Chaplain Adam Siegel, Muslim Scholar Salam Al Maryati, and Father Juan Francisco Gonzales, who delivered his prayer in Spanish. The event’s live stream on the city’s website did not include closed captions or sign language interpretation for the prayer in Spanish. Recently, Rep. Robert Garcia criticized CBS for not including Spanish closed-captioning during their broadcast of the Grammy Awards in February.
L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian and L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn were chosen by Bass to give introductory speeches before her own address. Krekorian said the mayor is entering office at a time when “people have lost confidence in their institutions” and praised her collaborative approach to politics. Hahn highlighted the challenges Bass will face when dealing with the homelessness “humanitarian crisis.”
Bass opened her address by briefly mentioning her part in mediating talks during last month’s Los Angeles Unified School District strike. She then quickly turned her attention to the city’s homeless crisis, an issue central to her 2022 campaign platform.
Bass was elected in November 2022 with 54 percent of votes against businessman Rick Caruso, who reportedly spent $100 million on his campaign — the most expensive in the city’s history. Bass is the first woman and the second African American official to be elected mayor of L.A. after Tom Bradley, who served between 1973 and 1993.
Bass promised throughout her campaigning period she would work on housing 17,000 people during her first year in office. On her first day as mayor, Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness and activated the city’s Emergency Operations Center. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, 69,000 people are experiencing homelessness in LA County in 2022.
She said that in the first 127 days of her tenure, 1,000 people have already been housed through her Inside Safe initiative. Bass explained that her first budget will allocate $250 million to the program and a total of $1.3 billion to tackle the crisis.
“This is a truly historic City budget commitment,” said Bass. “We are now working through more than 3,000 city-owned properties and looking to fund the purchase of motels and hotels across the city.”
She explained that bureaucracy is one of the leading challenges in dealing with homelessness. Unused housing vouchers and reluctance from apartment owners' in adhering to housing programs were examples she used to illustrate the problem.
In comparison to Bass, former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s last State of the City address in April 2022 also focused on the issues of homelessness and public safety. In his speech, he announced a budget proposal to spend $1 billion to tackle the unhoused crisis. In his first State of the City address in April 2014, Garcetti gave no mention of homelessness.
Bass vowed to also direct funds to treatment centers, pointing out mental health and substance abuse as some of the contributors to homelessness. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced a plan to invest up to $5 billion into the treatment of “the mentally ill and drug-addicted population” statewide.
Expanding on this topic, Bass said her budget will also enhance mental health training for police officers and support the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety. The office will “build capacity for community intervention workers, social workers, clinical psychologists and other experts to respond when law enforcement is not required.”
“Safety is not just about policing,” said Bass, explaining that she plans to explore unarmed alternative response solutions to improve safety across the city.
Bass confirmed she will invest in hiring hundreds of police officers for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The department has hemorrhaged officers in the past years, dropping to low numbers not seen since 2002. As part of her staffing efforts, she vowed to promote recruitment campaigns, offer incentives to new recruits, and invest in a measure informally known as the “bounce program.” The program aims to bring recently retired officers back to the force.
The mayor’s position on policing has proven to be controversial in the past months in light of the growing popular cry for directing fewer funds to the city’s police department. The official Twitter account for the L.A. chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement decried Bass’ statements following her State of the City address. The term “LAPD” featured among the social media platform’s trending topics in Los Angeles on Monday night.
Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, a L.A.-based economic justice nonprofit, stated on Twitter that city resources should be focused on expanding social services and affordable housing, in response to the mayor’s position that strengthening the LAPD will increase safety.
“We don’t need more police, we need alternatives to policing,” the nonprofit wrote.
For the past month, the LAPD has been involved in controversy for suing a reporter who shared legally obtained information on police officers. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the group lobbying on behalf of LAPD officers, argued that the release endangers the lives of officers working “undercover.” Bass called the incident “an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk,” while First Amendment experts denounced the lawsuit as meritless.
Bass also spoke briefly on investing in the Fire Department, improving the city’s physical infrastructure, and continuing efforts to combat climate change and support sustainability.
Discussing the city’s economy as one of the closing topics of her address, she said she will expand and improve tax credits for the city’s entertainment industry, stating that it is “the bedrock of our middle class.” Bass also said she is “laser-focused” on settling the ongoing labor disputes at the Port of Los Angeles, highlighting that the Port accounts for one in 15 jobs in L.A.
“Under my administration, Los Angeles is open for business,” she said.
