It was closer than many expected, but Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass has been elected mayor of Los Angeles. She will be the first woman and only the second African American to be elected mayor of America’s second largest city.

Bass made solving the city’s growing crisis of homelessness the centerpiece of her campaign—and for good reason. There are more than 60,000 homeless Californians living in Los Angeles County. This represents not only a humanitarian tragedy for those living on the street, but a growing quality of life problem for the city’s residents and visitors.

During her mayoral campaign, Bass outlined her plan to address homelessness. Her first step will be to declare a state of emergency. Ambitiously, Bass has promised to shelter 17,000 homeless individuals within the first year of her term as mayor. Some of Bass’s proposals would be good, if modest, first steps. For instance, she would build more tiny homes and convert existing and unused commercial properties into housing units to quickly increase the city’s housing supply at a lower cost.

And her life‐​long commitment to fighting addiction and mental illness through her founding of Community Coalition will surely help her to develop mental health and substance abuse policies that will alleviate some of the symptoms and causes of homelessness without needlessly placing individuals in California’s prison system.

But Bass’s hesitancy to revise zoning codes within Los Angeles will surely prove these respectable efforts to be worthless. While her campaign website states her desire to update the city’s comprehensive Zoning Code and General Plan, it also notes that she will take “targeted reforms [towards zoning]…while ensuring that new construction is consistent with the neighborhood character…”

And while Bass notes that she hopes to streamline approval for affordable housing projects, it would be more beneficial for her city to move to a fully by‐​right approval process for all housing developments—not just those that are 100 percent affordable housing. Los Angeles will never be able to bring down the high cost of housing unless it fully eliminates all forms of exclusionary zoning.

Bass’s initial plans suggest that she has an understanding of the problems driving the city’s homelessness crisis. But they also suggest that she will be unnecessarily timid in following through. Given the magnitude of the problem, a much bolder stance will be required.