Karen Bass will make history as L.A. mayor. Then the hard work begins

When Karen Bass is sworn in Sunday, she will make history as the first woman to serve as mayor of Los Angeles — completing a political journey that took her from South Los Angeles community organizer 30 years ago to elected office in the Legislature and Congress, then to the top job in the nation’s second-largest city. “I don’t want to say to the people on the street, or the people that live near the people on the street, ‘Just hold tight, and in seven or eight months, we’ll get going.’ The people on the street are suffering and need relief immediately and the neighborhoods, and the city, need to see that something is happening.” Bass’ broader homelessness plan will be called “Inside Safe,” which will seek to speed the process by which interim and permanent housing gets built in the city. One hope from some elected officials is that Bass’ team can centralize and support some of the time-consuming work many council offices already do on homelessness, such as outreach to unhoused people, finding locations for housing and helping shepherd projects through the labyrinth of approvals that must occur. “I think also making sure that we’re doing the work to get people housed through an encampment-to-home approach can also inspire trust and confidence from surrounding neighborhoods in the capacity of government and can spur residents to trust government,” Raman said.