LOS ANGELES — Nine months ago, Jaquice Manson took the first step in what he hoped would be a journey toward housing. Manson, who goes by Juice, was one of the first participants in Mayor Karen Bass’s Inside Safe program.

Spectrum News first met Manson in February when he just moved into a motel in Venice. He had been living on the streets in the area for years. Manson was excited and relieved to have a safe place to rest.

“It’s nice to have a warm cozy bed, to have a hot shower to take every day,” he said. “On the street, we had a shower come once a week, but that’s just not enough to maintain your hygiene. It’s nice to have a microwave, a TV and a phone.”

Manson was already facing an uphill battle when he entered Inside Safe. He first fell into homelessness after serving a prison sentence. He was battling addiction, and a stroke had left him paralyzed on one side of his body. He spoke candidly about his struggles.

“When you’re on the street, you have nothing else to do,” he said. “You have no regular routine, or things to look forward to. I think most people drink and use [drugs] because that’s all they have to do with the day. Now that I’m here, I have opportunities to sit down and write and journal, to think about what I want to do in the future.”

Inside Safe was signed into action by Mayor Karen Bass in December of 2022. The program aims to “bring thousands of Angelenos living on our streets into housing and on to the path to wellbeing and stability.”

Spectrum News followed Manson throughout this year as he began and continued with the Inside Safe program. We met up with him periodically. In March, he was still feeling optimistic and had remained in the motel.

“I’m feeling confident and hopeful,” he said at the time. “Prior to coming here, I didn’t have an ID or a lot of my documents because of the theft on the beach. People in the program have helped me get my ID and security card, everything I need to survive.”

Manson also said he was planning to attend meetings around addiction treatment. By May of this year, he said he had been able to visit a few apartments, but that none had lined up because they didn’t work with his disability.

“I hope to be housed and in an environment that’s conducive to my needs,” he said when asked what he hoped to see over the next few months. “I hope to be in a space where I can focus on getting back in school, possibly even employment.”

According to the mayor’s office, more than 200 people have moved into permanent housing since the program began. According to the most recent report from the city of LA, more than 308 people have left the program altogether. Some, like Manson, are back on the street.

Spectrum News recently learned that he was living just a few blocks from where he started at the beginning of this year. Manson said he left the program because he found some of the rules and execution of Inside Safe difficult to manage and restrictive. The mayor’s office said Manson was offered a housing appointment but never showed up.

Professor Benjamin Henwood, an expert in homelessness and housing and director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity at USC, studies how and why people fall into homelessness.

“If it’s still difficult for people to get to appointments, just because now they have a door to lock at night, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be better able to get all their paperwork and make those appointments,” Henwood said. “So it’s sort of like, ‘What’s the problem you are solving for?’”

When asked directly about this case, Bass said in a statement shared with Spectrum News, “There is not one single solution that is going to work for all Angelenos — which is why Inside Safe is just one part of our continually evolving comprehensive approach to confront this crisis. It is unfortunate that Juice returned to the streets with permanent housing lined up, but we will continue working to improve our ability to meet the needs of our unhoused neighbors.”

Manson is now back on the streets, living in a makeshift tent. He noted that despite everything, he still believes he will eventually make it out of homelessness for good.

“I still have hope I will be housed,” he said. “It might just take longer than what it should have.”