LOS ANGELES (AP) — Democratic Mayor Karen Bass, who was elected in November after promising to take on the city’s out-of-control homeless crisis, announced Monday she would recommend spending what she called a record $1.3 billion next year to get unhoused people into shelter and treatment programs.

The funding to be included in the mayor’s upcoming budget could be used in part to buy hotels or motels that would be converted to housing, while the city combs through its inventory of properties for those that could be used for sheltering homeless people. The former congresswoman’s remarks, in an annual address to City Council on the state of the city, came roughly four months into her first term.

Bass added that the budget also would include funds for substance abuse treatment beds for the unhoused, but she did not specify how many. And her signature program, dubbed Inside Safe that offers homeless people motel rooms and a path to permanent housing with services, has over 1,000 enrollees so far, she said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to deliver 500 units of temporary housing to the city, while the Biden administration has sent the city and county more than $200 million for homeless programs, she added.

“After years of frustration … we can see a clearer path to a new Los Angeles,” Bass said, speaking inside the ornate City Council chambers. And “we have finally dispelled the myth that people do not want to come inside. They do.”

However, Bass added that much work needed to be done. “I cannot declare that the state of our city is where it needs to be,” she said.

Bass’ overall optimism would be expected for a mayor in the early months of a first term, but it also belies looming challenges that could reshape her time in office.

The city has expanded spending on homeless programs for years — then-Mayor Eric Garcetti signed a budget in 2021 with nearly $1 billion in homeless spending — but the unhoused population has continued to increase. Bass’ challenge is in plain sight in just about any neighborhood: homeless people living in trash-strewn encampments or rusty RVs along streets, below underpasses and clustered around freeway exits.

About half the homeless population — totaling over 40,000 citywide — struggles with drug or alcohol addiction, and about a third have serious mental illnesses. Homeless deaths average five a day.

Some economists see a recession coming that could slash city tax revenue at a time when Bass is expanding homeless spending, though opinions are divided on the direction of the economy. A recent report from city Controller Kenneth Mejia outlined a series of other concerns, including the need to investment more in repairing crumbling streets and sidewalks and higher pension costs for retirees that “already consume fully 15% of the city’s general fund budget.” Meanwhile, crime rates have been climbing, including for car thefts and shootings, while the police department has seen its staffing levels drop. Bass warned the number of police officers could drop below 9,000 – a tally not seen since 2002.

Bass said her budget for the year that begins July 1 recommends hiring hundreds of officers, along with a recruitment campaign and incentives for new hires. It also funnels new dollars into a team of social workers and clinical psychologists who could respond to emergency calls when a police officer is not required.

“We know safety goes far beyond lights and sirens,” she said.

Bass, the first Black woman to serve as LA’s mayor who was on President Joe Biden’s short list for vice president, defeated billionaire businessman Rick Caruso in the November election. She anchored her campaign to getting homeless people off the streets and into shelters, reversing spiking crime rates and developing housing that working-class families can afford.

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With the 2022 primary elections less than six months away, candidates are diving head-first into one of California’s most visible and persistent problems: homelessness.

The phenomenon is particularly evident in Los Angeles County, where about half of the state’s at least 49,000 chronically homeless people live. On Friday, Democratic Rep. Karen Bass, who’s running for Los Angeles mayor, pledged to house 15,000 people by the end of her first year in office and “end street encampments.” Meanwhile, tensions are escalating between Democratic City Councilman Kevin De León — who’s also running for mayor — and homeless advocates, who have accused De León’s office of “coercing people against their will into temporary shelters that are not always a good fit for them.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t mincing words, either: “We’ve gotta clean up those encampments,” he said last week while unveiling a $2 billion plan to build tiny homes and other temporary shelters, which would act as a “bridge” to permanent supportive housing with services such as medical and mental health care and substance abuse treatment.

But, as CalMatters’ Jackie Botts found in the two years she spent following Fernando Maya, a 56-year-old chronically homeless veteran, through the state’s plan to end homelessness, even permanent supportive housing is far from a perfect solution. As Jackie details in this beautifully written, poignant piece, Maya came very close to voluntarily returning to his tent under a Los Angeles overpass.

Maya, in a text message to Jackie: “You know I didn’t even think that the transition would be as tough as it has been. I always just assumed that others who struggle are just weak to begin with. When in reality thinking back it’s not a weak thing to begin with. It’s a readiness I’ve never really had.”

As the state pours unprecedented amounts of money into building permanent supportive housing, Jackie takes a look at five key challenges — and their potential solutions.

Another challenge: California doesn’t know how many people are currently unhoused. That’s because, as CalMatters housing reporter Manuela Tobias notes, the pandemic prompted the state to cancel last January’s point-in-time count, when service providers and volunteers fan out across cities and counties to count the number of people sleeping on the streets and in shelters. And as omicron rages, many counties — including Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area — have postponed this year’s count, scheduled for Jan. 26-27, until Feb. 23-24.

Meanwhile, the state’s rent relief program is running short on money — something the Legislature’s new housing leader, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland, identified as a top priority while talking with Manuela and the Los Angeles Times’ Liam Dillon on the “Gimme Shelter” podcast.

But advocates worry more aid won’t come before March, when most cities are set to allow landlords to resume evictions for nonpayment of rent.

Jonathan Russell of Bay Area Community Services: “We will very likely … see the impact on homelessness … slowly grow and accrue in coming months and years.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed seven new laws on Wednesday aimed at addressing the state’s homelessness crisis, pleading with a skeptical public to have patience as the nation’s wealthiest and most populous state struggles to keep people off the streets.

Among California’s myriad problems — including wildfires, historic drought and a changing climate impacting them both — homelessness is perhaps the most visible, with tens of thousands of people living in encampments in cities large and small across the state.

California’s homelessness crisis was the top talking point among Newsom’s critics prior to the pandemic, a topic Newsom addressed in a big way when he devoted his entire 2020 “ State of the State ” address to the issue.

In the past three years, California has spent more than $2.4 billion of state and federal money on a handful of major homelessness programs, with most of it going to local governments for things like leasing hotels and motels for housing the homeless during the pandemic.

The programs have had success, but have done little to change public perception of the homelessness problem — a fact Newsom acknowledged during a Wednesday news conference in Los Angeles.

“We live in a situational world where people want to see results immediately,” he said. “But when it comes to these issues, it takes years and years to see those results.”

California’s budget this year includes about $7.4 billion to pay for 30 housing and homelessness programs, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The budget commits about $12 billion for homelessness programs over the next two years.

Nearly all of that funding will go to local governments. But a law Newsom signed Wednesday will, for the first time, give the state more say over how local governments spend that money. Newsom signed a law authored by Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, a Democrat from Arleta, that creates a new governing body to dole out up to $2 billion in homelessness funding to local governments.

The California Interagency Council on Homelessness, which replaces an existing homelessness council, will include the directors of half a dozen state agencies that must review and approve local governments’ plans for spending the money.

“No plan, no money,” Newsom said Wednesday. “We’re coming in not just with sticks, but with real carrots.”

Newsom also signed a law requiring all of the state’s 1,037 school districts, including charter schools, to identify their homeless students and refer them to services for them and their families.

“In California, there are enough homeless children to fill Dodger Stadium five times,” said Rivas, a reference to a 2020 UCLA study. “We have to end that.”

Newsom’s administration has identified 100 of what he called the state’s “high profile” homeless encampments and has “attached timelines and strategies to begin to clean them up permanently.”

He hinted he would announce something soon with Los Angeles’ mayor about that “infamous encampment that you all know well.” That’s a possible reference to LA’s Skid Row, where a federal judge previously ordered the city and county to find housing for everyone, only to have that ruling overturned on appeal last week.

Newsom also signed a law requiring California to prioritize its share of federal housing money on projects that serve homeless people with chronic health conditions. California is projected to get about $130 million from the National Housing Trust Fund, according to a legislative analysis.

“Housing and health go hand in hand, and this law will save lives because it recognizes the importance of both,” said Julie Snyder, director of governmental affairs for the Steinberg Institute, a nonprofit that sponsored the legislation along with other groups.

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