Karen Bass

Last year, Karen Bass held off prominent retail developer Rick Caruso in a mayoral race dominated in large part by Angelenos’ increasing weariness with the city’s homeless crisis.

Bass began her tenure at City Hall in December 2022 by declaring a state of emergency that lifted regulations preventing both permanent and temporary housing developments, while also giving the city the ability to acquire rooms and property for development. It was a big statement that real estate industry leaders embraced, at least those polled by Commercial Observer, who essentially felt that the state of emergency would help get people off the street and foster development faster.

At the same time, land prices and construction costs weren’t going down, something that likely hasn’t changed in the last year with interest rate hikes making for sluggish development activity. This led the Bass administration to organize a survey of land owned by the city to identify which of the 3,300 parcels would be suitable for development.

“Part of urgently addressing this crisis is identifying land to build housing in ways we haven’t before, which will bring the overall cost of housing Angelenos down, and it also allows us to act quicker,” Bass said in a statement.

Since the state of emergency and another directive made permanent a few months later, about 48 affordable housing projects had been filed in L.A. as of June, with about 4,232 units being proposed in 2023 at that time. About 1,496 affordable units had been approved by the city.

Preventing further homelessness seems to continue to be at the fore for Bass as the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor of her Measure ULA proposal in August, a program that created a $150 million program for rental assistance, eviction protection and construction of affordable housing units.

Bass did not respond to an interview request.