Soto-Martínez believes in housing and services first — addressing the issues that often exacerbate homelessness, such as mental illness, drug addiction and domestic violence, while also keeping people housed. He created a team in his office that focuses solely on homelessness. Districtwide, homelessness dropped 25% in his first two years, he said.
He added that Mayor Karen Bass’ signature Inside Safe program is “a very powerful tool” and that tenant protections can keep families from getting evicted and becoming homeless.
Kendall, who started Hollywood Arts in 2005 to provide art and music-based education for homeless youth, said she has seen firsthand how the city has failed to address homelessness. She said providing housing isn’t enough and would support initiatives like Corazon del Valle in Panorama City, which provides wraparound services along with housing.
“If we have over 60% of the population living outdoors struggling with extreme mental illness or extreme drug addiction, giving them a key is not the solution,” she said.
Kendall opposed Senate Bill 79, a state law that aims to expand high-density housing near major transit hubs, as a one-size-fits-all solution and instead would support a “local alternative plan” that would expand housing along transit-heavy streets.
Sarian said the city is “managing” homelessness, not solving it. He said Inside Safe has proven costly and the city should better track participants to understand the long-term impact.
“We merely give them housing,” he said. “We can bring the other city partners that we have out there in, to help us restructure our program so that it does prove [successful] and we start to actually solve homelessness instead of just managing it.”
He added that the city could boost its housing stock by easing the permitting process to avoid delays. He also was against SB 79 as a blanket solution and said high-density housing should be built based on factors including the neighborhood, parking, transit access and traffic.
Carlisle sharply criticized homelessness spending, saying it has gone unchecked amid a budget deficit. While he supports Inside Safe, he is concerned the city’s approach to homelessness is “built on a fiscal house of cards” designed to get a lot of people inside quickly for a short period of time. The city, he said, needs to “rethink everything about how we’re doing homelessness.”
He would enforce Municipal Code 41.18, the controversial city law that bars homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers, and he supports enforcing Senate Bill 43 — an update to the state law governing involuntary treatment that expanded the definition of “gravely disabled” to include people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.
“If we’re not taking the worst of the worst off the streets, I really don’t see how we’re going to resolve this situation going forward, or improve anything with homelessness,” he said.
