Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass signed an updated version of her State of Emergency declaration on homelessness.

The mayor of L.A. will now have additional emergency powers to suspend competitive procurement, which stalls the process of building supportive housing, according to Bass.

The update in the State of Emergency declaration will also allow the Los Angeles City Council to be more involved in the process.

“The Council tailored this portion of the Administrative Code to be more specific to the housing and homelessness emergency and to provide the Mayor with the emergency tools that she needs on an ongoing basis, but also to provide the kind of reporting and ongoing engagement of the City Council and the public, that we all need to have to ensure that we're learning as we go, that we're modifying programs to make them more effective as we go, that we're ensuring that we maintain cost efficiencies so that we're able to help the greatest number of people with the same amount of resources, Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian said. “I'm pleased that we're going to be able to move forward with a new emergency declaration that will be able to provide that kind of ongoing cooperation with the council and in transparency for the public.

The emergency declaration that was immediately signed when Bass took over as mayor, gave her multiple emergency powers to expedite contracts for the purpose of building supportive housing.

The mayor's office said there are 450 projects that can be affected by the emergency declaration, for a total of 8,000 housing units.

The city is currently 60% below its Regional Housing Needs Assessment housing goals, with 16,521 beds available, in a city that recently announced its homeless count surpassed 46,000 in 2023.

“This is an issue of life and death for the thousands of people who are living in tents and cars," Bass said in a statement. "That’s why I signed an updated declaration of emergency and have continued to lock arms with the City Council to maintain our momentum toward confronting homelessness and building more affordable housing."