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

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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.About This StoryThe Times’ reporting on Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program was undertaken as part of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Data Fellowship.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 indoo...