Under L.A. mayor's $300-million homeless program, 40% have returned to the street

It was a risky move and Jonathan Torres knew it, but he did it anyway. He let an out-of-town guest stay with him in his room. Torres, 40, had been living at the Highland Park Motel as part of Inside Safe, Mayor Karen Bass' flagship program to combat homelessness.

He and his neighbors, many of them from a downtown encampment, were told that visitors were not allowed. Still, Torres kept having people over. After the third violation, he said, the facility kicked him out. "

It's nobody's fault but my own, but I just feel it's unfair," said Torres, who now lives in a tent in Chinatown. ”

In the real world, you're allowed to have people come over. You have visitors. That's part of keeping your sanity, you know?"

Los Angeles has spent more than $300 million on Inside Safe since Bass launched the program in December 2022, clearing scores of homeless encampments and moving about 5,800 people into interim housing — mostly hotels and motels. The goal was to get each of those people into permanent housing, typically taxpayer-funded apartments. But even as the mayor's initiative brings more people indoors, a growing number are winding up back on the street.

The longer the program exists, the greater the share of participants who have returned to "unsheltered" homelessness, according to monthly dashboards which were posted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, and analyzed by The Times. In 2023, at the program's one-year mark, nearly 20% had returned to the street, according to numbers posted by LAHSA at the time. Halfway into Bass' four-year term, the figure had climbed above 30%.

In December, as the program finished its third year, about 40% of the people who had gone indoors — 2,300 of the 5,800 — were back on the street, according to LAHSA's dashboard. That includes people who were kicked out of their housing or disappeared from the system altogether. The growing exodus reflects the challenges Bass faces while trying to help some of the city's neediest residents, many of whom struggle with mental health conditions, substance use issues or major physical ailments.

Bass, asked about the worrisome trend, said she believes that Inside Safe participants need more services to address those issues. She also said she suspects that the longer people stay, the more likely they are to violate the rules and face expulsion. The goal of Inside Safe is to find permanent homes within 90 days, with a maximum stay of six months, according to the written agreement issued by the city to each participant.

At this point, the average stay is 362 days — just shy of a year, according to recent LAHSA figures. Bass did not offer any definitive conclusions, saying the city now has outside researchers assessing the problem. "

It's critically important that we look at the people who left, why they left [and] what do we need to do strengthen the interim housing that we have," she said.

"I have my opinions about it, but the opinions have to be based in science." Bass has staked much of her reelection campaign on her handling of the homelessness crisis, which she made a top priority as soon as she took office. She credits Inside Safe with producing a 17.5% drop in "unsheltered homelessness" — people living outdoors or in their vehicles — over a two-year span.

That number fell from about 33,000 to nearly 27,000, according to the most recent homeless count. By clearing encampments, Inside Safe also benefits the surrounding community, making sidewalks more accessible and reducing the number of encampment fires, Bass said. UCLA Law School professor emeritus Gary Blasi, an expert on homelessness, said the program has become too expensive to justify the results — and is in need of "a thorough re-engineering.”

Blasi said there were never enough vouchers and low-cost apartments to provide permanent housing to Inside Safe participants in a timely way.

As a result, the city has been paying for them to live in expensive motel rooms for long stretches, he said. "

Once they started having people in interim housing for nine months or a year, that should have rang some alarm bells, because that's just not sustainable," he said. Inside Safe participants also face a wide array of rules. They are barred from leaving the premises for three consecutive days without prior approval.

Alcohol and illegal drugs are prohibited in their rooms, which are inspected multiple times a day. Participants also are frequently barred from bringing in outside food, to keep from attracting roaches, mice and other pests. "

The rules are dumb. They treat houseless people like children. They don't give people agency," said Paisley Mares, who lives in an RV in the San Fernando Valley and has several friends who took part in the program.

Executives with the nonprofit groups that run the Inside Safe facilities said the restrictions are needed to protect residents, keeping them on track to find permanent housing. Violence, threats of violence and property damage are prohibited, and can result in immediate removal from the program. The ban on guests is designed to prevent people from being physically attacked, sexually assaulted or engaging in high-risk behavior, such as drug use, behind closed doors, those nonprofit leaders said. "

We are bringing people indoors, mostly from encampments, where drugs are often the trade of the street. There is also often physical violence. That’s the way people survive on the streets," said John Maceri, chief executive officer of the nonprofit the People Concern, which runs two Inside Safe motels in Hollywood. ”

All of those behaviors don’t stop when people come into an Inside Safe setting." Executives at the People Concern estimate that 50% to 65% of the shelter clients they work with — not just for Inside Safe, but other homeless housing programs — have serious issues with drugs or alcohol. The number with serious mental health issues, particularly trauma, is also “very high,” they said.

Inside Safe providers acknowledged that motel rooms can be a huge adjustment, leaving people feeling lonely and isolated.

They said they work closely with participants to improve their behavior — and turn to expulsion only as a last resort.

“My goal is never to exit anyone to the streets,” said Joseph Bradford III, chief executive officer of BARE Truth, which runs two Inside Safe motels on the Eastside.

“I want to keep people inside until they find permanent housing." By now, Inside Safe operations are a well-oiled machine. Sanitation trucks roll up to encampments.

Traffic officers cordon off the sidewalk with yellow tape. Encampment residents lug their bags onto a bus and head to their destinations. Robert Martinez, 40, moved to a Budget Inn in North Hills last summer from an encampment near the 405 Freeway.

He had been homeless for about five years and jobless even longer, he said. Martinez, who used to work at a water filtration company, said the Inside Safe motel was better than the street. Still, he chafed at the rules.

He wanted his children to visit, which was not permitted.