(The Center Square) – Los Angeles has dedicated $341 million to its Inside Safe Housing program serving 2,728 individuals, largely through providing temporary housing in hotels. Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Meija’s report outlines how Inside Safe has spent approximately $125,000 per individual since the program was launched in December 2022, and just 30 program participants are either reunited with family or back on their feet in unsubsidized housing.
Recent city reports also lay out how 45% of the city’s homeless individuals are “service resistant,” or unwilling to make use of offered city services. Between July and December of 2023, the city attempted contacting 22,019 verified separate homeless individuals, 12,043 of whom engaged with city personnel enrolled in city programs. Of those 12,043, 2,962 took offers of city shelter, 428 exited to permanent housing (including through Inside Safe), and 328 exited to “temporary destinations.”
Inside Safe, which is currently being audited by Meija, focuses on having social workers reach out to homeless individuals to offer them temporary shelter in hotels under the logic that an individual in a hotel is safer, and easier to treat for underlying mental or physical illnesses or substance abuse disorders.
“Once in interim housing, social service agencies will provide wrap-around care to each participant to transition those previously living in encampments into permanent housing, improve their wellbeing, and promote their stability,” wrote Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in her executive order launching Inside Safe. “Such an effort will simultaneously enhance the safety and hygiene of our neighborhoods for all residents, businesses, and neighbors.”
Of the $341 million, $96 million is for buying the Mayfair hotels, $111 million is for interim housing — $105 million of which is spent at privately-owned motels — $106 million for services for participants, including the total cost of services at the LA Grand and Mayfair hotels, $19M in permanent housing programs, and $9 million on city departments.
Mejia’s report puts the program’s 2,728 served individuals into three buckets: those who are in permanent housing, 1,435 in interim housing — including 1,313 in motels — and 786 have exited the program — including 686 who returned to homelessness, 46 of whom were moved to prison or jail, and 41 of whom died — and 506 in some kind of permanent housing. Of the 506 individuals in permanent housing, more than half are housed through two-year city housing “subsidies” of $1,833 per month, a fifth are in another kind of subsidized housing, and a tenth are in permanent supportive housing. Just 14 were reunified with family, and 16 are back on their feet in unsubsidized housing.
Bass proposed cutting $65 million from Inside Safe in her 2024-2025 budget proposal, suggesting the program may be somewhat dialed back as the city faces a $476M budget deficit. However, with a Bass media event yesterday promoting an Inside Safe operation next to Larchmont Charter, a charter school noted for its popularity among entertainment industry parents, the program appears to be continuing to create public dividends for the mayor.
“The Luzuriagas believe in Mayor Karen Bass,” read one sign held by a student on one side, and Bass on the other.
