LOS ANGELES—Karen Bass, in her first official act as mayor of Los Angeles, declared a state of emergency on homelessness Dec. 12 in an effort to underscore the severity of the housing crisis in the nation’s second-largest city.
Bass signed the declaration inside the city’s Emergency Operations Center in a room designated as the “United Homelessness Response Center.” She described the declaration as a method to unlock tools and powers to “make sure we are using every resource possible” to address homelessness, claiming that it marked a “sea change” and “monumental shift” in the city’s approach.
“Using the emergency order is our ability to fast-track things,” Bass said….