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    • Mayor Karen Bass and business leaders discuss homelessness, politics and the Olympics – Daily Breeze
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    Mayor Karen Bass and business leaders discuss homelessness, politics and the Olympics – Daily Breeze

    Pabio Posted on

    Business leaders met with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass this week at the Valley Industry & Commerce Association (VICA) Executive Forum at the Universal Studios Hilton, where she addressed the issue homelessness, business development and preparations for the upcoming World Cup, Super Bowl and Olympic Games.

    She told VICA on Tuesday November 19 that tackling homelessness remained her top priority. Bass emphasized that “people are dying in our streets…no one should be on the streets.”

    She planned to continue working on reducing street homelessness and improving the availability of transitional housing. She also emphasized the need to address systemic barriers and encourage civic participation in housing solutions, such as housing people with housing vouchers.

    For the first time in many years, Bass added: “Homelessness is down…street homelessness is down. »

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    Mayor Karen Bass speaks with Waymo Local Public Policy Manager Ellie Casson during the Valley Industry & Commerce Association Leadership Forum at the Hilton Universal City on Tuesday, November 19, 2024. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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    She also highlighted the changing demographics of unhoused people, adding that “the fastest growing sector of the unhoused population is the elderly in the early 60s and 70s. … You won’t see these people in the street because they are hiding (and are) the vast majority of them women.”

    “We’ve dispelled the myth that people don’t want to leave your streets,” Bass said. “We have no problem getting people off the streets. Our problem is having enough social housing.

    Bass said his office is working to remove bureaucratic obstacles to building veterans housing. She said: “There is no reason why we cannot eliminate veteran homelessness within a year. »

    She also discussed her approach in selecting Jim McDonnell, the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, emphasizing the importance of choosing leaders who can function effectively on the national and international stages.

    Bass said, “We need a leader who can transform the department internally, strengthen community positions and fight crime. »

    She also spoke about her time in Washington, DC as a member of Congress, how that time shaped her view of her role as mayor, and how those relationships helped her address local challenges.

    “One of the things I’ve found that people in our city don’t think about a lot is national security. So one of my areas of focus while I was in Washington was foreign affairs, and given that we’ll be on the world stage, national security was very important to me.

    She added that people think of physical attacks when they think of security, but one factor people don’t think about is “cyberattacks and foreign actors invading our infrastructure, which they have done a lot.” They’ve focused on smaller towns, but that level of awareness isn’t there, and so I think that’s been helpful.

    Bass stressed the importance of making Los Angeles City Hall more business-friendly, adding that it is often “perceived, at best, as not caring about business.”

    One opportunity businesses can potentially explore, she added, is to prepare business seminars and summits for companies “to prepare for the opportunities they will present with LA28, so that we know about these opportunities when they present themselves.”

    To prepare for upcoming events, she said, the city will host business seminars to prepare for opportunities involving the World Cup, Super Bowl and Olympics.

    VICA President Stuart Waldman said Los Angeles was “built to host world-class events.”

    “There are some concerns about why people come here and why they don’t come here, but those can be addressed,” Waldman said.

    Bass also spoke about the importance of bipartisan collaboration after President Donald Trump secured a second term in the White House.

    “I really think our future is bright. … We have to figure out how we work with those who are there, which doesn’t mean that if they do things we’re going to accept them. But we can’t take an oppositional stance if we don’t even know what we’re proposing yet,” she said.

    Pabio
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