Newly elected officials Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilwoman Traci Park announced a homeless encampment cleanup in Venice on Jan. 4 amid California’s stormy weather.
Bass said she and Park, who represents the area, conducted outreach with homeless individuals in the area that morning. Sanitation trucks could be seen in the neighborhood cleaning up trash and abandoned belongings in the days following the announcement.
The move is a part of what’s called the Inside Safe initiative recently launched by Bass, which seeks to temporarily place homeless individuals living in encampments into hotels and motels. The initiative doesn’t include enforcement of the city’s public encampment ban, so if the individuals deny resources, they will not be forced to move.
“I’m proud to be locking arms with Councilwoman Park to change the way we approach homelessness in Los Angeles to bring people inside in a strategic and lasting way. ... Through Inside Safe, we will save lives and restore our neighborhoods,” Bass said in a Jan. 4 statement.
Park said the initiative—which will be fully in motion by March, according to the mayor’s office—would provide greater access to mental health care and substance abuse treatment for those struggling.
“This initiative is to show that the Government can be a place to heal. We don’t just want to say it; we want to show it,” Park said in the statement. “Putting people in rooms without the care they need doesn’t work.”
Some homeless individuals living in encampments at the intersection of Sunset Avenue and Pacific Avenue accepted the housing, officials said in the statement, without specifying how many.
According to the blog, some homeless were transported by bus to a hotel reserved for the Inside Safe program.
Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness in the city on Dec. 12, 2022, the day after she took office.
