News, Column: Karen Bass vow on homelessness: Set achievable, ambitious goal and ‘hold myself to it’ : detailed suggestions and opinions about Column: Karen Bass vow on homelessness: Set achievable, ambitious goal and ‘hold myself to it’ .
On a tour of the Los Angeles LGBT Center in Hollywood on Tuesday, mayoral candidate Karen Bass seemed alternately impressed and flabbergasted.
She was impressed by the programs, the devoted staff and the center’s mission of providing a full slate of healing social services — and housing — to LGBTQ clients who have suffered trauma, discrimination and homelessness.
But she was flabbergasted by the tangled, inept bureaucracies that dragged out the construction and opening of the center and drove up costs.
Joe Hollendoner, the agency’s chief executive, said it often got conflicting advice from multiple government agencies. At one point, a requirement that the center pay for a bike lane on its portion of Santa Monica Boulevard devolved into a months-long nightmare involving the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the relocation of power lines, leading to more delays and higher costs.
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