HOMELESSNESS

Our approach to housing our unhoused neighbors is broken because City Hall continues to invest in policies that simply move vulnerable people from one street to another.

Council District 9 has the second highest number of unhoused residents in the city, where tents line our streets every day. Our district is mostly renters, and extreme rent burden is widespread in our neighborhoods. Just one missed paycheck could be the difference between whether or not our neighbor has a roof over their head

It is time to overhaul the current system. I have fought for and won policies that prohibit evictions during foreclosures, protect tenants from harassment, and require higher relocation assistance and affordable housing replacement in new housing developments. I have also secured resources to prevent homelessness.

Homelessness is a systems failure, not a personal one. It demands a strategic response rooted in dignity. As your next councilmember, I will make it a priority to lead on this issue with compassion for some of our city’s most vulnerable communities.

ScalE Up Street Engagement and Services

Our unhoused neighbors deserve dignity, no matter where they sleep at night. My outreach teams will meet people where they are by coordinating with the County to provide support such as access to facilities, sanitation services, food and water, protection from the elements, and medical care. Instead of pouring money into criminalizing homelessness, we can reinvest those resources where they actually make a difference by replacing harmful sweeps with real sanitation services that treat unhoused people like human beings and ensuring every strategy is focused on helping people transition into permanent housing.

By increasing services and creating real pathways to housing, we can respond to encampments with a focus on results and bring clarity and care to both housed and unhoused residents in Council District 9.

  • To address the homelessness crisis the City must dramatically increase outreach and services.

    As Councilmember I will support:

    • Increasing the number of outreach teams citywide, with priority deployment to under‑resourced parts of the district like encampments under the 110 freeway, our high-need corridors like Broadway, Central Ave, and Avalon, and in our public parks. 

    • Increasing outreach teams with specialized medical care personnel. 

    • Expanding street outreach teams to include full-time mental-health clinicians and substance-use counselors, and create overdose prevention sites along high-need corridors like Broadway and Avalon so people can safely access care, stabilize, and get connected to housing and treatment

  • To expand services, I will create a dedicated Homeless Services team in the district office that coordinates street outreach, housing placements, case management support, and follow-through with service providers.

  • We have to increase outreach services AND make sure our outreach is effective. To do so I support data-driven interventions such as:

    • Connecting the city’s dispatch system with LAHSA’s vulnerability scores so outreach teams visit people with the highest needs more frequently.

    • Partnering with LAHSA to release quarterly outreach maps and use them to direct more nurses, peer navigators, and services to the streets that are currently overlooked.

  • I will invest in toilets, showers, and handwashing station and ensure outreach teams are equipped with mobile hygiene units and secure‑storage lockers to stabilize unsheltered individuals during the day.

ExpanD Interim, Permanent, and Permanently Affordable Housing 

We need a serious, long-term plan to scale up housing across the board and increase both permanent and temporary housing options to prevent unhoused residents in the district from living on the streets.

The millions invested by the City in affordable and supportive housing must be paired with essential services such as employment support, mental healthcare, and substance use treatment. These services are crucial to helping our neighbors stay housed and stable.

  • I will work with the Housing and Planning departments to fast-rack the permitting and funding processes for affordable and interim housing.

  • Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is a proven model to successfully house formerly homeless people while providing integrated services. We need to continue to fund and expand PSH housing while also investing in integrated services for mental health and addition and economic stability.

    I will advocate for more PSH housing with a focus on housign for Hard to House folks including unhoused senior, formerly incarcerated individuals, people with high acuity, and undocumented households.

  • Interim housing communities should operate with a clear plan to help each and every resident transition into permanent housing. By requiring dedicated housing navigators and case managers at interim sites, clients can receive assistance applying for permeant housing and rental assistance programs and access additional employment and public benefit support.

    I will also require affordable housing units to prioritize leasing to any tenant transitioning from Time Limited Subsidies or other rental assistance. This leasing preference program will allow for a smoother transition for short-term rental assistance to long-term housing affordablity.

  • There are several motels in CD 9 that are underutilized and/or used for unlawful activity and human trafficking. I will prioritize acquiring the most nuisance motels and converting them into interim or permanent housing.

focus on prevention

Homelessness in Council District 9 is getting worse because too many people are being pushed out of their homes with nowhere to go. Working families in the district are on the frontlines of displacement, and with major events like the Olympics coming to the area, we need to be proactive in stopping displacement before it starts and keeping people housed in the first place.

We need stronger rental assistance and emergency support, especially in District 9, where more than 70 percent of residents are renters and two-thirds are rent-burdened. We must also ensure that mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and other social services are readily available so vulnerable residents are not pushed into homelessness. And we have to recognize the role of institutional racism in creating today’s homelessness crisis by addressing its effects on recidivism and the long-term economic harms caused by redlining and discriminatory housing policies.

  • I will expand economic assistance and eviction prevention programs to keep families housed; such as relaunching and sustaining ULA’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP).

    I will also expand income support programs to rent-burdened Angelenos by expanding the Universal Base Income (UBI) Pilot Program and supporting ULA’s Income Support Program.

  • I will allocate dedicated prevention funds for families with children, seniors, and those exiting institutions (jail, hospitals), ensuring “no wrong door” access.

    I will also integrate mental‑health and substance‑use screening into prevention outreach to address root causes before shelter entry.

  • I will expand behavior health, recovery services and clinical care by supporting:

    • Early intervention counseling and outpatient treatment

    • Mobile crisis teams and peer‑led support

    • Integrated case management linking people to both housing and clinical care

    I support service models that proactively offer assistance to individuals struggling with substance abuse disorder before they fall into homelessness and keep them housed (aid in recovery).

    I will also partner with the County and services providers to ensure mental health services are readily available to aid families in caring for individuals with mental health disorders, preventing them from falling into homelessness. 

  • I work to expand housing resources and financial assistance to individuals exiting the criminal justice system and prevent a prison-to-homelessness pipeline by:.

    • Restoring City Jail In-Reach programs designed to engage individuals exiting the criminal justice system prior to release to ensure they have a housing plan upon exit. This will reduce the likelihood that they will exit the streets without any support, which can lead to recidivism.

    • Expanding and tailoring job placement programs through the City’s WorkSource Centers and the Economic & Workforce Development Department to connect justice-involved individuals with meaningful public and private sector employment. I will build partnerships with employers willing to hire formerly incarcerated residents, offer wraparound services like record expungement and job training, and create city-funded transitional jobs that lead to permanent placement.

    • Working alongside the County’s Department of Justice Care and Opportunities to provide targeted housing services to justice-impacted households.

  • I will support targeted strategies to prevent and end youth homelessness by 

    • Creating integrated Referral Pathways to ensure that every school, child‑welfare office, and juvenile‐justice facility has clear protocols and dedicated liaisons to connect at‑risk youth immediately to housing, mental‑health, and substance‑use supports.

    • Investing in Transition Aged Youth Services for children transitioning from foster care by guaranteeing rental and move‑in assistance grants for all youth exiting foster care and creating “TAY hubs” that offer one-stop case management, mentorship, life‑skills training, and housing navigation; 

    • Providing targeted supported to at-risk LGBTQ+ youth by expanding interim housing options specialized in servicing LGBTQ+ youth; funding safe houses and drop‑in centers where LGBTQ+ youth can access crisis counseling, emergency beds, and affirming wrap‑around care; and training school counselors on LGBTQ+ family reunification and safe‑shelter referrals.

  • I will advocate for a dedicated department to proactively enforce rent stabilization, eviction defense, right to counsel, and anti-discrimination laws; coordinate emergency rental assistance, relocation, and legal support for displaced tenants; support tenant unions and permanently affordable housing models like community land trusts; and partner with CD9 community organizations on multilingual Know Your Rights outreach.

Accountability, Transparency, and equity in Homelessness Response 

Voters in Los Angeles have approved a number of measures with the promise that we’d build housing, get people off the streets, and start turning this crisis around. But years later, after countless scandals and large numbers of people still sleeping on sidewalks, have shaken the public trust. 

We need a clear, public-facing system to track where every dollar is going and what it’s doing. If we want people to believe in public solutions, we need to show that their vote, and their tax dollars, actually make a difference.

  • We need to be able to track and monitor the effectiveness of our homelessness interventions. I will advocate for contracting and data collection reforms to allow for ongoing program evaluation. I will also work with City, County, and LAHSA staff to develop a centralized dashboard to publicly report spending and outcomes.

    Lastly, I support mandating independent annual audits of bed inventory, fund flow, and provider outcomes to ensure accountability.

  • People who have experienced homelessness have the best understanding of what works and what doesn’t. I support the current city efforts to create a Commission on Lived Experience with Homelessness to include individuals with lived experience in policy and program formation.

  • Permanent Supportive Housing and interim housing are disproportionately concentrated in lower-income areas of the city, including CD 9. We need to ensure that every community does its part to welcome our unhoused neighbors indoors.

  • Because other communities have failed to invest in interim and permanent housing, CD 9 shelters and homes fill up with placements from outside of the district. Through improved outreach and placement pipelines, we can better prioritize housing resources in the district for residents from the district.