New York mayor calls city of Los Angeles out for homeless crisis
Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York City, appeared to take a jab at Los Angeles on Wednesday during a press conference where he touted his response to the homeless crisis versus other major United States metropolises.
"This is another city in America," Adams said at the press conference, holding up a photo of LA's infamous Skid Row neighborhood. "This is what I saw when I was driving around the city January 1, 2022."
The mayor, who is currently facing slumping job approval ratings, was discussing year-end statistics at the conference, claiming that he's made more progress addressing the crisis facing much of the nation.
"This is what you threw up your hands, fires burning on the street, children out here," Adams said. "There are no toilets. ... Go look at other cities and look at what we inherited when I put in place our homeless encampment task force. You don't see this in New York."
However, data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development suggests that Adams isn't completely on mark with his comments.
In 2023, New York's homeless population appeared to surge by 42%, adding to the more than 88,000 homeless individuals in the city, compared to the 46,260 in LA, which experienced a 10% rise.
Another stark difference in the numbers shows that New York is able to at least provided shelter for many more of their unhoused people, with 32,680 compared to Los Angeles' 4,085.
Local homeless advocates say that this is why the problem seems so much more visible in California.
"Everything he said about LA and the pictures are accurate," said Reverend Andy Bales, who ran the Union Rescue Mission in Skid Row for decades."They deal with them immediately, as best they can, and they only have about 4,000 or less on the streets."
He says a huge region for this difference is that New York has a law that requires the city to provide temporary housing for every homeless person, something he's been advocating for in Los Angeles for a while.
"We need immediate shelter," Bales said. "So, 40 degrees and rain in LA is equivalent of 32 degrees in New York, and more people die of hypothermia in LA than dying in San Francisco and New York combined."
Daisy Sykes is one of the many unhoused living in the Skid Row area. She's been there for more than a year, with her dog Scotty.
She says that when she does sleep, not usually at night because of the rodents, it's wherever she can find to keep her and Scotty warm.
Despite her best attempts to find housing, nothing has yet come to fruition for her.
"I've been to LAHSA and it doesn't seem like they were responsive," Sykes said of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
It's because of this, that she is considering moving back to New York, where she lived at one point before heading west.
"No offense to LA, it's time to pick up the pace," she said.
Mayor Karen Bass has done her best to address the issue since taking office in 2022, announcing in December that since the start of her term she's successfully brought more than 21,000 unhoused individuals inside through her program, which has thus far cost tens of millions of dollars.
KCAL News has reached out to Mayor Bass' office for comment on Adams' comparison but has not yet heard back.
