Of course it is–if you live in LA you know that Karen Bass has been lying about the homeless count being down. The report from the LA Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) has been released, per the usual schedule for reporting embarrassing news, Friday afternoon.
Key Findings–according to the city.
- L.A. City: Total homelessness increased by 3.4% to about 45,194 people, while people living unsheltered on the streets or in vehicles jumped by 7.9%.
- L.A. County: Total homelessness rose by 1.2% to an estimated 73,040 people. Unsheltered homelessness increased by 3.3%.
- Blame: Officials and Mayor Karen Bass attributed the rise to steep declines in state and federal funding rather than local strategy failure.
Of course garbage in, garbage out–these increases are based on the questionable numbers the mayor has been pushing as she campaigns for reelection.
Fox 11 broke the story on Thursday that the official word would be released Friday and, shocker, your eyes were right: homelessness is UP. Billions spent, and things got worse. Would you venture to suppose that’s the reason for Bass’ delay in releasing the bad news?
A Rand report was scathing in demonstrating the undercount that Bass has continued to sell to the press and her supporters, meaning at best she didn’t understand how to read it and at worst, she has been flat out lying. The RAND LA Leads study found that the official Point-in-Time count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) missed up to 32% of the unsheltered population in these neighborhoods. This variance has sparked concerns that official counts could misdirect millions in federal and local funding. Read the report and judge for yourself here.
And also as you might expect, Bass is blaming, wait for it, Trump–and the state, and the county and doing what she always does, not looking in the mirror.
And if you’d like to read the propaganda the city is claiming, here it is.
