LOS ANGELES, Ca. — Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who vowed to fix homelessness, skipped a Tuesday evening kickoff for the city’s countywide count of unsheltered homeless. Los Angeles, one of the largest…
LOS ANGELES, Ca. — Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who vowed to fix homelessness, skipped a Tuesday evening kickoff for the city’s countywide count of unsheltered homeless.
Los Angeles, one of the largest Continuums of Care (CoC)—a regional planning body that collects homeless data—kicked off its Point-in-Time (PIT) snapshot count, where volunteers go out to calculate unsheltered homelessness. Bass was scheduled to speak during a press conference kickoff. However, just before officials began, it was announced that Bass would no longer be attending.
Bass’ office informed the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation that the mayor was unable to attend due to a community meeting that went over time.
While it is unclear why Bass was not present, the mayor had asked on her social media account that volunteers join the count effort. The mayor was also seen in attendance at the opening of “Casa Mexico,” Mexico’s Hospitality House for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The Democratic official was sworn in as Los Angeles’ 43rd mayor in December 2022, vowing to “solve homelessness” during her time in office.
“We can fix our city again. Forty-thousand people on the street is an emergency. Solving this emergency — solving homelessness — will be my overwhelming top priority as mayor,” Bass said during her campaign kick off in October 2021.
Prior to Bass’ first full year in office, Los Angeles city had a total of 41,980 homeless people living on the streets in 2022, with 28,458 unsheltered and 13,522 sheltered (i.e., staying in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter or facility).
Within her full first year, 2023, the total rose to 46,260 in 2023, with 32,680 unsheltered and 13,580 sheltered. By 2024, the total dropped to 45,252, with unsheltered rising to 29,275 and sheltered jumping also to 15,977.
Recent data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shows that in 2025, the latest count, the number decreased slightly to 43,695 total homeless people, with unsheltered dropping to 26,972 and sheltered jumping to 16,723.
Notably, an independent report from an American nonprofit global policy think tank called RAND, citied in 2025 how the city could be severely undercounting its unsheltered homeless.
The mayor’s recieved over $400 million from the federalgovernment, excluding the potential millions that could be coming from HUD for their 2025 fiscal year. The state has also given the city over $350 million through grants and measuresthroughout Bass’ term, with projections that the city could see millions more for the new year.
During the Tuesday kick off, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) interim CEO Gita O’Neill warned the public there could be an increase in the 2026 homeless count due to budget cuts. The reduction follows LAHSA’s recent audit which flagged errors in spending and services tracking, with hundreds of millions being mismanaged.
In April 2025, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to strip over $300 million from LAHSA and redirect it to a new homelessness department by July 2026. The group failed six out of eight planned audits in the fiscal year between 2023 and 2024. Bass is a member of the LAHSA commission and was absent from a September 2025 Audit Committee meeting.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman pleaded with the state to not restrict funding after warning that the city could also take a hit from the federal government.
“Tonight I want to speak directly to our state legislators. We are facing significant shortfalls as we look into these next two years and potentially even further. We need your support, and yet our state government has actually cut the amount of money that we are getting for homelessness at a time when we’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars of support from the federal system,” Raman said.
“We are doing more here to hold the system accountable, but we can’t do it if you pull your dollars away. So I’m asking you, our state representatives, and to our governor, please, please help 🇺🇸US at this moment,” Raman added. “Please make sure that we can keep this work going. Please make sure that we can make progress, not slide backwards on this, the most issue, the most important issue for so many Angelenos, and the most important issue cited by voters over and again across California.”
With the city’s homeless count beginning Tuesday, thousands of volunteers are expected to log data for the city until Thursday.
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