HTLA: How Elections Shape Our City

Episode 32

Brian De Los Santos  00:00

[music in] So y'all voted yesterday, right LA? I know it was raining and no tea, no shade, some Angelenos can't handle it. And sometimes even me. I was stuck on the 110 freeway for two damn hours trying to get to the studio today. But here we are, and this election was important enough to power through and get out to vote. [audio clips of voters: "I'm really concerned about issues like displacement of our neighbors in Los Angeles." "The water shortage, climate change. Those global issues are all local as well." "I guess as like a young millennial, this feels like the most animated and consequential like local election that I've seen in my lifetime." "Just clean up the city. And not only the homeless, but it's just a dirty city." "Crime, definitely. We need to do something about the crime." "I am voting today because it is my privilege to do so. And I'm supporting all women of all colors in abortion rights." "I don't want to see violence, and I, I don't want to live in a fascist state."]

Brian De Los Santos  00:59

This is How to LA. I'm Brian De Los Santos. By the time you're hearing this, it's the day after the election, and votes are still coming in for a lot of the major races. So be patient, [music out] it might take a while to sort it out. Maybe even a couple of weeks. You can always catch up on the latest results at LAist.com. [music in] Regardless of who takes the role of LA's mayor, or who the newest city council members are, moderate or progressive, there is a lot of work to do. We love LA, but it's got some issues. So with this next generation of leaders coming in, what can actually get done for our city? Do we have a vision forward? We're chatting about it with some of the squad. [audio clips of squad members: "Hello!" "Hey!" "Hi!" (laughter)] That's How to LA producers, Evan Jacoby and Megan Botel, and our newsletter editor, Aaricka Washington.

Brian De Los Santos  01:47

So you guys have been going out and talking with voters around town this week. What's the energy like out there?

Megan Botel  01:54

Well, I went to a few polling places this week. And I just wanted to get a sense of like what's most motivating for voters in this election season. [audio clips of voters: "Homelessness in our city is a huge issue that needs to be addressed." "My rent's going up and landlord's doing things that- they're not supposed to raise the rent during the COVID, but my landlord did anyway." "I hate to see people on the street suffer and..." "Building a big gate around Echo Park Lake is not the way that I want to live and like see my neighborhood."] Unsurprisingly, homelessness is the number one concern from all sorts of people across the city. According to a poll by UC Berkeley in the LA Times this year, about half of Angelenos said homelessness was the most important issue in this election. And the biggest problem in this city in general.

Brian De Los Santos  02:37

Totally. And I definitely seen this too, with the people I've talked to and interviewed. Homelessness isn't a new issue. It's been getting worse and worse for decades. But it does feel like it's really in the spotlight now.

Evan Jacoby  02:49

Well, at least part of that is [music out] because it really has gotten worse. According to numbers from the LA County homeless count, homelessness increased uh, over the last five years by nearly 50%.

Aaricka Washington  03:01

Yeah, I went downtown to vote. I got in line and right behind me was this young lady. Her name is Rachel. She's 18 years old. This the first time voting. And she said that homelessness was actually on the top of her mind.

Brian De Los Santos  03:07

So we're gonna take a minute to talk about homelessness. There were a few local measures on the ballot indirectly linked to the issue. But it seems like more than anything, it's gonna be up to the city's new leadership to figure this out. As votes are rolling in, we're seeing a play to talk with some experts in the community about this crisis. And what kinds of changes are possible depending on the outcomes of this election?

Melissa Chinchilla  03:37

I think this election's gonna be really pivotal in determining what direction we go in next, whether or not we stay on course, with some of the efforts that have already been underway.

Brian De Los Santos  03:48

This is Melissa Chinchilla. She's a researcher with UCLA who studies housing and homelessness. She published a study this year about housing security among Latino people across the country.

Melissa Chinchilla  03:57

That means building housing and providing folks with critical services. And this election's really gonna determine whether or not we continue on that path.

Brian De Los Santos  04:07

So how can things go in the next four years? Like can you give me like the best and the worst possible scenarios for this issue?

Melissa Chinchilla  04:13

So one of the best scenarios in the next four years is that we continue to implement evidence based practices. So continue to build affordable housing, continue to think about prevention to address uh, the number of people that are falling into homelessness, and I think also expand our understanding of what it means to tackle homelessness. Homelessness is a multi-dimensional issue. We have to address a living wage, making sure that people can afford housing. We have to address the lack of housing stock that we have in Los Angeles County and the lack of affordable housing stock, which not only folks that are currently literally homeless are facing but also those that are living on the edge of homelessness. So those that are living in substandard housing, housing that is increasingly unaffordable. And so I think we really have to expand the way that we think about the issue.

Gary Painter  05:03

In my view, the first and foremost issue is how are you going to get more housing built that serves low and moderate income families.

Brian De Los Santos  05:11

That's Gary Painter. He's a professor at USC and directs LA's Homelessness Policy Research Institute.

Gary Painter  05:17

So if you look at plans to build in the city of Los Angeles in the 1960s, the city was actually zoned for 10 million units. And that was over time, you know, gradually down zoned to 4.4 million units. But what we started to see in the 2010s, and certainly in the 2020s, was that it started to show up in this kind of constant march up of people paying a higher and higher percentage of their income in rent. Such that now in California, there's over 1.2 million households that pay more than half their income in rent. So if it takes 20 years to put us into this, like funk, if you will, where things are just gonna continue to strain and strain and strain, it actually is going to take 20 years to actually undo the damage that we did to ourselves in just simply allowing the housing market to build housing for people who live here.

Brian De Los Santos  06:11

Okay, so more affordable housing units. But are we on track for that?

Gary Painter  06:15

I don't see anything specifically on the ballot that would lead to transformational change as it relates to kind of the housing market, economic conditions which are driving so much of our first time homelessness. But what we can do is vote for candidates that are pushing for that kind of systematic change. If you have the opportunity to vote for candidates, even from you know, your local city councils, your planning commissions, even school boards all the way up to our representatives in Sacramento and then certainly with the federal government, you want people that are setting a vision that can lead to growing health and wellness in our communities in the long term and not just simply focused on the short term.

Brian De Los Santos 

All right, so what else does the city really need from a policy standpoint, to address this issue?

Jody Armour  07:03

I would make sure renter protections were robust, and that our approach to homelessness was not penal in nature.

Brian De Los Santos  07:11

That's Jody Armour. He's a law professor at USC, and I follow him for his hot takes about LA politics on Twitter.

Jody Armour  07:17

We tried the Safer Cities Initiative in 2006. Poured in many more police into Skid Row, tried to arrest our way out of houselessness. And since then, the houseless population has only exploded.

Melissa Chinchilla  07:29

A lot of folks feel frustrated, as they see the number of people experiencing homelessness grow over the years, and we continue to see a significant number of folks that are camping out.

Brian De Los Santos  07:40

That's Melissa, again.

Melissa Chinchilla  07:42

The winner of the mayoral race will have to ensure that we're working in close collaboration with the county to make sure that everyone is working towards the same goals and making sure that the county resources are matching up with the city resources as well.

Brian De Los Santos  07:59

[music in] Obviously, homelessness and housing security are super complicated topics. It's clear that these issues are getting people fired up to vote. And our new leaders do have the ability to move the needle forward. The question is whether they will. And maybe it's just the cynic in me, but will the outcome of this election really impact these issues we care about so much?

Jody Armour  08:23

It matters a lot. The LA [music out] mayor is not as powerful as many other mayors, but they do have the power to hire the heads of commissions and to shuffle uh, city personnel and to really be the bully pulpit for the city in terms of stating its values and how it's going to pursue those values. So the mayoral race is significant, and definitely the City Council race is crucial, because at the end of the day, these politicians are gonna be wielding enormous power.

Gary Painter  08:57

I remain optimistic. What we need is a leader who's absolutely committed to working on a shared vision for the future of Los Angeles, one where all Angelenos are healthy, they're thriving, they're growing, and they're able to achieve the vision for their families and for the community that we collectively have.

Brian De Los Santos  09:17

[music in] Well, there you have it, but before we go, y'all have been hanging out at voting centers across the city. I want to know, what's one thing you took away from that?

Evan Jacoby  09:30

Well, I actually voted in person today um, here in Pasadena, and I met this girl who was a volunteer uh, poll worker. What do you call 'em? Poll workers? She was 17 years old, so she actually wasn't able to vote. Kinda couldn't really get too into the specifics of it because we were literally inside a voting center, and it's like super illegal to [laughing] talk about anything that could sway somebody's vote, so she was like, well, there are a few things that made me really want to, you know, kind of be here, and one of them had to do with like, the abortion rights thing that is on the ballot. You know, she can't vote, but she wanted to be able to do something anyway. And that's what she chose to do.

Megan Botel  10:08

So I also voted in person today in Pasadena. I used one of those voting machines for the first time, which was so efficient. I'm so proud of technology and [laughs] the developments we've all made. So that was really cool. But anyway, when I went out to go talk to voters for this episode, I was really struck by how much people are seeming to view things as a crisis, especially this homelessness issue. People really are super serious about this. So I hope that's indicative of things to change in the city.

Aaricka Washington  10:40

I think the coolest thing that I saw when I was downtown at my polling destination was how many people showed up in the rain. There was actually a long line at the hotel that I was at, and people were like, just willing to wait in it. So that was really good.

Brian De Los Santos  10:57

Go Election Day! Woo! [someone in background: Woo!] [Brian laughs with others] All right. I think ther- that's it! [someone in background: Woo. Woo.] Woo-oo!

Brian De Los Santos  11:06

All right, y'all. We've been covering LA politics and election stuff pretty hard these past few days. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of ready to talk about something we all love. Food. [audio clip: Brian- I love the sopa. The soup? What is it? Broth, the broth, the broth. Gab: Think of it like the size of a baby's fist.] Tune in tomorrow for some cheap, fast eats.

Brian De Los Santos  11:27

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. [music out]