Los Angeles Mayor-elect Karen Bass promised to solve the city’s homelessness crisis in her first speech since winning election as the first woman to lead the nation’s second-largest city.
In a speech Thursday at the historic Wilshire Ebell Theater, the Democratic congresswoman called on voters across the city to be part of the solution as she begins an effort to try to house more than 40,000 people living on the streets. Touching on her own roots as a coalition builder, she sent a warning shot to wealthier neighborhoods that are resisting plans to build affordable housing in their areas: “You’re not going to be able to house 40,000 people just in the low-income areas — It’s just not the case.” .
“The crisis we face affects all of us, and all of us must be part of the solution,” Bass said. “Being a coalition builder is not about getting together to sing Kumbaya. … To be a coalition builder is to bring together all the resources, all the skills, the knowledge, the talent of this city.”
“The people of Los Angeles have sent a clear message. It’s time for change and time for urgency,” Bass continued. “Many Angelenos do not feel safe in their neighborhoods and families are being displaced from their communities. This has to change. … To the people of Los Angeles, my message is that we are going to solve the homeless problem. We will prevent and respond urgently to crime, and Los Angeles will no longer be unaffordable for working families.”
Bass begins these mammoth tasks after defeating real estate mogul Rick Caruso, CNN projects, in a race in which he spent more than $104 million — outscoring his opponent by more than 11 to 1.
She built a winning coalition of voters by drawing on the two constituencies that helped her previous congressional victories in her Los Angeles district — black voters and white progressives from the city’s west side — and expanding on that base as she promised to bring with the diverse communities of Los Angeles, while rejecting Caruso’s sides against longtime politicians who he said have failed to solve the city’s most pressing problems.
Caruso, a former Republican who turned independent and became a Democrat before announcing his candidacy in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, hoped to increase the turnout of independents, moderates and Latinos — putting more than $10 million into Spanish-language media to get the message out. that an outsider would be best suited to address constituents’ concerns about crime, homelessness and corruption at City Hall. Tens of thousands of ballots are still being counted in Los Angeles County, but Bass has managed to build an insurmountable lead — in part by deploying an army of volunteers to knock on doors across the city.
Bass, who will succeed term-limited Mayor Eric Garcetti, will take over city government at a time of turmoil at City Hall. A recently leaked recording revealed several city council members made openly racist comments behind closed doors at a 2021 meeting where they discussed their frustration with maps proposed by the city’s redistricting commission.
The leaked audio, which was posted anonymously on Reddit and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, became public in early October after the newspaper exposed the racist comments in an Oct. 9 story — sparking widespread calls for council members to involved to resign. The audio was from an old conversation between then-City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmen Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and then-President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Ron Herrera.
In an Oct. 10 tweet, Bass said Los Angeles “needs to move in a new direction, and that’s not possible unless the four people captured in this film resign their offices immediately.” (Bass, who had been endorsed by Martinez, was criticized for not calling for their resignations immediately after the details emerged in the Oct. 9 LA Times story.) Martinez initially resigned as chairman of the Council. Eventually, she and Herrera both resigned. Cedillo and de León apologized for their roles in the conversation but resisted calls to resign.
“I will not accept corruption or cronyism,” Bass said Thursday.
Bass will take up the new office on December 12 – a particularly quick transition. When she takes office, the four largest cities in the US will all have black mayors – including Eric Adams of New York, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and Sylvester Turner of Houston.
Bass noted Thursday that one of her first acts as mayor will be to declare a state of emergency for the homeless and identify “very specific areas where people will be housed.”
Both Bass and Caruso had said they would declare a state of emergency for the homeless — though critics said it would be largely a symbolic move.
Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” later Thursday, Bass said it’s “absolutely not a symbolic gesture.”
“We have a lot of bureaucratic red tape that needs to be eliminated, and that’s the basis of declaring a state of emergency so that I can have the power, not to eliminate all the red tape, but specifically to deal with certain burdens — certain hurdles that the people to build,” he said.
Bass said in her speech Thursday that she would outline her plans in more detail when she takes office in December.
The six-term lawmaker had emphasized the depth of her political experience in her campaign, after winning praise from colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her work in areas including criminal justice and prison reform, foster care and child welfare. children. She began her career as an emergency room physician assistant in Los Angeles County and later worked to rally Black and Latino community organizers in South Los Angeles in the early 1990s to address the root causes of crime and the crack epidemic. through the non-profit co-founder, Community Coalition.
In 2004, she was elected to the California State Assembly, where she made history about four years later as the first black woman to serve as a state speaker. After the 2008 financial crisis, her work with other state legislative leaders to make tough fiscal decisions earned her the 2010 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden tapped Bass, then the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, to be his running mate in 2020 while leading negotiations on legislation to create greater police accountability after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
On Thursday, she said she welcomed Caruso’s constituents “in every aspect of my administration” and said she hoped to be able to work with her former opponent as she begins her new role.
When asked if he would still consider Caruso a friend after their fierce contest — given that he spent more than $100 million, much of his own money, to defeat her — he said he viewed the campaigns “like a sports match. You fight with everything you have. But when the game is over, it’s over.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
