South Central has always been rich in talent, hustle, and heart. From Black-owned barbershops to Latina-led street vending, our working community is the backbone of this city. But too often, our district is left behind by insiders at City Hall, leaving it underfunded and overlooked. It’s time for that investment to come home. 

That means fixing our broken sidewalks and streetlights. That means making it easier for local entrepreneurs to open their doors. That means investing in public transit that actually works for our neighborhoods.

We need to build a district where families in every neighborhood can walk or ride to the everyday essentials: groceries, schools, parks, and good-paying jobs. This is how we build community wealth.

We deserve more than scraps. We deserve the resources we’ve earned and we need a City Councilmember who can deliver. Let’s build a fairer, stronger, more walkable, and more livable South Central.

Working families in South Central are getting squeezed from every direction: rent, groceries, utilities, childcare, education, transportation. Wages haven’t kept up, and the bills keep coming. Parents in our district are doing everything right, but they are making less for their hard work than they did before the pandemic. I’m a father to a young daughter, and I feel it too.

I became an organizer to fight for working people. It’s what I’ve done for two decades and it’s exactly what I’ll do on City Council. We need to invest in the public goods that make families strong: affordable childcare, housing working people can afford, and transit options that connect us to opportunity. 

The Los Angeles we’re building cracks down on corporate landlords who price gouge our communities and protects tenants, making sure no one has to work multiple jobs just to keep the lights on.

Los Angeles is under the grip of a decades-long housing crisis and South Central is bearing the brunt. In our neighborhoods, so many families are struggling paycheck to paycheck to make rent, sometimes just one rent increase from living on our streets.

We must build housing, of all types, that meets our community’s needs. I’ll make sure Angelenos can stay in South Central by building deeply affordable housing, housing for seniors, and social housing built by union labor. And I’ll work hard to preserve our limited stock of existing affordable, rent-stabilized housing.

In office, I’ll create affordable pathways to homeownership, working with our state and federal partners to get first-time homebuyer assistance, facilitate community land trusts with ownership options for renters who have lived in their neighborhood for decades, cooperative forms of housing, and homeownership developments that prioritize longtime residents. 

We believe everyone deserves a shot at putting down roots and building generational wealth in the community they call home.

I’ve never been afraid to show up on the picket line and I never will be. Our vision of the district is one that stands shoulder to shoulder with workers in South Central and across Los Angeles to protect the right to organize, win strong contracts, and take on corporate greed and privatization. 

We’ll do it by defending unionized city workers from budget cuts. We’ll do it by holding city contractors to high labor standards. We’ll do it by expanding project labor agreements and enforcing workplace protections. And we’ll do it by guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining for all workers: union and non-union alike.

We need an economy that works for working people. That starts with raising wages, creating good union jobs, and making sure workers have time to care for their families, through paid family and medical leave, and a fair work week for part-time workers.

Together, we’ll level the playing field for workers of color. We’ll hold big corporations accountable when they break the rules. And we’ll make sure that the people who keep this city running are finally treated like it.

Tree canopy, clean, shade infrastructure and abundant green space create really meaningful health benefits — for those who have access. LA’s long history of racist policy and disinvestment has resulted in a city scarred by deep environmental disparity, leaving our district with some of the worst levels of soil, water, and air pollution in the state. There are multiple public land sites in our district that have known groundwater and soil contamination, now sitting contaminated and vacant instead of being cleaned and developed for affordable housing or parks. It’s wrong, it’s unjust, and enough is enough. 

We deserve a walkable, breathable, South Central full of parks, tree canopy and the quality of life and health benefits they bring. In office, I’ll work with state and local partners to increase greening and advocate for prioritization of toxic site remediation and redevelopment in the highest needs areas, and make sure City resources — for parks, trees, groundwater capture, and more — are prioritized where they’re needed most: right here in South Central.

Environmental racism is a public health crisis, and crises demand urgency. Patience isn’t a virtue when our kids’ health is at risk.