Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was booed during a meeting on Thursday about housing the homeless in the city, as shown by videos shared on social media.
Locals appeared furious following the announcement by Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, who represents LA City Council District 5, of her new plan for an interim housing project on LA's Westside.
According to a press release issued by the councilwoman on Wednesday, the housing project will be located at 2377 Midvale Ave, "on an underutilized city-owned parking lot at the intersection of Pico Blvd. and Midvale Ave."
The project, according to Yaroslavsky, "will add desperately needed interim beds to the Fifth Council District's homeless housing supply."
The number of homeless people in LA has more than doubled in the past decade.
According to the latest data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), there was a 9 percent rise in homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles County between 2022 and 2023 to a total of 75,518 people. In the city of Los Angeles, there was an estimated 10 percent rise to a total of 46,260 people.
Yaroslavsky said that over 70 percent of these individuals and families sleep in tents, parks, cars, or on sidewalks because of the city's lack of temporary and permanent housing for the homeless.
"Anyone who has walked or driven on the Westside can tell you that the increase in the number of people living in tents is alarming," said Yaroslavsky, as stated in her press release.
"We cannot keep waiting for the problem to solve itself—we need real solutions that we know work, and we need them quickly. While thousands of units of permanent housing are being constructed across the City, no interim units are in the pipeline in Council District 5. We need interim solutions now that we know will work."
Mayor Bass praised Yaroslavsky for taking "a very brave stance" to tackle homelessness in her district, but she was met with a chorus of boos and hisses from the audience.
The proposal was met with anger from some locals after an existing facility that houses the homeless in North Hollywood had been criticized by residents. One told Fox11 News that "there's always someone fighting, screaming, and yelling" around the facility and that people were even stabbed and shot.
Yaroslavsky has promised that her proposed project will be different. According to her press release, the interim housing project in the Westside will have 24/7 on-site security services "to create a safe environment for participants of the project as well as the surrounding community, while helping bring more Angelenos off the street."
"I understand that safety is the number one concern, and safety is my concern as well," Bass said on Thursday. "But this problem is that people are on the street [...] and so we have to think how to get them off the street today," she added, as the audience clapped and someone yelled "yes," video posted to social media showed.
Works on the project are expected to get started by the end of the year, with the housing facilities expected to open in 2024.
Newsweek contacted Yaroslavsky's and Bass' teams for comment by email on Friday.
Update 04/08/2023 5:53 p.m. ET: This story was updated to change phrasing and make clear Bass did not end the meeting early.
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