LA mayor announces plan to move 40,000 homeless into hotel rooms 

The new mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, announced on Sunday that her administration will begin moving homeless people from tent encampments into hotels as part of a new program that launches on Tuesday. 

The mayor told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that her plan to move homeless people into hotel rooms will not “address everybody, but it is going to address, hopefully, a significant number.”

The new plan, called “Inside Safe” will launch on Tuesday and has a budget of around $100 million to house the homeless population of Los Angeles. 

“But this is not coercing people. This is not ticketing people or incarcerating people. This is moving people from tents to hotels or motels,” she said, adding that sanitation crews will be on standby to clean up the areas that are left empty. 

There are around 40,000 homeless people residing in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million. Homeless tent encampments and people living in cars have become a common sight throughout the city. 

“Encampments should be significantly down if not eliminated, and there should be housing being built, underway, at a much more rapid pace,” Bass said. “And there should not be 40,000 people who are unhoused, that’s for sure.”

On her first day as mayor, Bass declared a state of emergency for the city over the homeless crisis. 

"It will create the structure necessary for us to have a true, unified, and citywide strategy to set us on the path to solve homelessness," Bass said after being sworn into office last week. 

Bass’s plans to deal with the homelessness crisis include providing housing for more than 15,000 homeless people by the end of the year and ending several of the tent encampments in the city.