Bass, Caruso on L.A.’s housing crisis

With one month left until election day on Nov. 8, Bass and Caruso’s upcoming debates and campaign pledges will play a more critical role as polls among registered voters suggest a closer race than expected. Both candidates have outlined their plans to address the Los Angeles homelessness crisis as well as their stances on recent measures impacting unhoused Angelenos.

Rep. Karen Bass — a 2015 graduate of the Peck School of Social Work, and whose endorsements include Sen. Bernie Sanders, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and both of California’s Senators — laid out her intended policies on homelessness on her campaign website. Many of her plans focus on long-term, permanent housing solutions paired with services supporting job training, mental health treatments and substance abuse solutions. 

Bass said she would identify available properties and partner with religious and corporate groups to build shelters, and pledged to “cut through red tape, expedite approvals, waive development fees and work with the community to build more permanent housing.” She also pledged to leverage already-available funds through Proposition HHH, Mayor Garcetti’s $1.2 billion bond tripling annual supportive housing production.

Opponent Rick Caruso’s plans on his campaign website have a more immediate focus, emphasizing his pledge to build 30,000 interim housing units in 300 days. He also said he would work to prevent future encampment sites, create financial incentives for the city to greenlight affordable housing construction and turn tiny houses and some city-owned properties into housing options.

Teya Hisel, a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law and global studies, founded advocaSC, a club focused on policy approaches to the L.A. housing crisis. She reminded voters to consider what these policies might actually mean for unhoused people.

“Caruso’s platform says [that] they want to get everyone off the streets, but what [prioritizing immediate shelter] translates into is more often than not [police] sweeps and the further criminalization of unhoused folks,” Hisel said.

Hisel also spoke against “false assumptions” of homelessness, explaining that moving unhoused people directly into shelters is not necessarily better for them than being on the street.

“For a lot of people, going into a shelter means you might lose your personal property, you might lose your pets, you might not feel any kind of safety or security and it can be a re-traumatizing experience for a lot of folks,” Hisel said. 

Bass’s platform emphasizes administrative responsibility, including mayoral accountability and her pledge to appoint a homelessness chief to “personally drive action at City Hall.”

To transition unhoused populations into housing, Bass wants to employ “trained neighborhood service teams” including outreach and social workers and health professionals. She noted that both employing previously unhoused persons and creating social support services to help with this employment can create jobs. 

Caruso has promised to declare a state of emergency on the crisis and hire 500 additional caseworkers to help with job training alongside Caruso’s promised job apprenticeship program, which supports unhoused employment with the support of local providers and unions.

Caseworkers would also help provide medical and mental health services. Caruso’s platform promises to additionally form both a Department of Homelessness, with a citywide homelessness coordinator and a Public Health Department to provide healthcare to unhoused Angelenos.

Peck School of Social Work Professor Benjamin Henwood noted the importance of identifying the homelessness crisis as “a real public health issue.”

“We do see huge health disparities, we see people dying two decades earlier who are on the streets,” Henwood said. 

A 2021 UCLA report found that the average age of death for unhoused people is in the mid-40s, while the L.A. County life expectancy is 82 years.

“So much of the conversation is highly politicized that a lot of this kind of gets lost, but there is plenty of research that’s done and we actually have some pretty effective solutions,” Henwood said.

To prevent homelessness, Bass looks to expand housing vouchers, incentives for landlords and homelessness prevention measures to address root causes of the crisis. Caruso pledged to expand emergency rental assistance and prohibit evictions if tenants make a “good faith rental payment,” though he has not explained what constitutes such payments.

After the L.A. City Council voted to end the moratorium on evictions effective Feb. 1, 2023, Bass expressed concern. 

“If those supports all go away, then the [homeless count numbers] are going to dramatically increase because people will literally be put out of housing and out on the streets,” Bass said on Oct. 5.

Caruso has not yet commented on the vote but said at the Sept. 21 debate he would edit the moratorium to include more rights for landlords.

Neither Caruso nor Bass has expressed support for the popular United to House L.A. measure, which appears on the ballot next month. The measure would implement a “mansion tax,” which would apply an additional 4% tax on properties that sell for between $5 and $10 million, and a 5.5% tax on those above $10 million, with funds going toward affordable housing and other related measures such as acquiring rental properties.

Bass’ spokesperson told the L.A. Times Sept. 30 that she was undecided on the measure and sought analysis on how the city uses the $1 billion currently going towards homelessness. Caruso also told the L.A. Times he prioritizes proving to the public that the city can “utilize these funds effectively and efficiently.”

In addressing homelessness, Hisel encouraged voters to look into other political offices on the ballot.

“The city controller race is going to be really interesting for housing and houselessness, and housing policy in general,” Hisel said. 

Hisel supported Kenneth Mejia’s platform, which she said focuses on “building more affordable housing, on expanding access to services, [and] on making sure that the city has the budget.”

Peter Monti, a second-year dual masters of public planning and urban planning candidate and vice president of Trojans for More Housing, emphasized empathy and education in acting on the homelessness crisis.

“The experience of being homeless can be very traumatizing and we want students to be empathetic, or at least sympathetic,” Monti said. “Everyone deserves survivable places to live. It’s being as aware as you can for whatever policies are being offered on the table, to be cognizant of that when [voters] make their decision.”