Policy

The Problem: Los Angeles is dealing with a housing crisis due to the fact that the city has not built enough housing. From 2010 – 2015, for every four jobs Los Angeles County added, we added one new unit of housing. In every decade, from the 1960’s to 2020, Los Angeles built less housing than the previous decade. 85% of the housing in Los Angeles was built before 1990.

LA’s failure to build has driven up the cost of housing, making the city unaffordable. In the last decade, average rent in LA County has nearly doubled, forcing people out of their homes and onto the street or out of the city entirely. Home prices have also skyrocketed, making it almost impossible for young people to buy homes.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • Single-Family Zoning currently covers about 75% of the city. That means that it is illegal to build more housing in three-quarters of the city, even though the city is dealing with a housing shortage. In order to make up for this shortage, the first thing we need to do is make it legal to build more housing in every part of the city by eliminating Single-Family Zoning.
• Cap The Rent
  • Los Angeles’s rent control law is called the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance (LARSO). The City Council recently amended LARSO so that the rent in LARSO covered units can only be increased by 1 – 4%, which was a good step but did not go far enough. LARSO should have been amended to cap the maximum allowable rent increase at 3%.
• Permitting Reform
  • In order to build housing, developers have to run through a labyrinthian permitting process that can take years and cost millions of dollars. This process makes it nearly impossible to build housing cheaply and efficiently, even in places that are zoned for such development. In order to build the housing we need, the permitting process will need to be reformed to allow for more housing to be built so that we can address the housing crisis quickly.
• Strengthen LAHD
  • The Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) regulates all LARSO covered units in the city. It investigates complaints of habitability violations, illegal rent increases, illegal evictions, and reductions in tenant services. However, it’s authority to effectively punish landlords for breaking the law is severely limited, rendering the agency toothless. In order to protect tenants who are at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords, LAHD should be given more authority to fine landlords for breaking the law.
• Increase Relocation Assistance
  • LARSO also includes just-cause eviction protects for tenants, meaning that a landlord must have a valid cause before evicting a tenant. A landlord can evict a tenant for a no-fault just-cause under specific circumstances, but has to provide relocation assistance to the tenant. However, the amount of relocation depends on who the tenant is, who is evicting them, and what kind of home they’re being evicted from. LARSO should be amended to set a higher minimum amount of relocation, regardless of circumstances, so that any tenant is justly compensated for being forced to move out of their home through no fault of their own.
• Utility Transparency
  • Tenants often find themselves getting hit with higher utility bills, but no clear understanding of how the amount was calculated because landlords are not required to provide that information. In order to avoid tenants getting overcharged, landlords should be required to clearly show how a tenant’s utility bills are related to the cost and use of those utilities.
• Right To Counsel In Evictions
  • While we have a right to an attorney in criminal proceedings, we do not have a right to one in civil proceedings, like evictions. This has created an access to justice gap, where around 90% of landlords are represented in evictions while only 10% of tenants are. This makes it exceedingly difficult for tenants to protect their rights and stay in their homes when facing trained attorneys in court. The city should implement a right to counsel program to ensure that tenants across the city can get access to the legal counsel they need to avoid being unjustly evicted.

The Problem: It’s no secret that Los Angeles has terrible traffic. Making Los Angeles a car-centric city was one of the worst mistakes this city has ever made, doing incalculable damage to our health and our communities. Every year, there are hundreds of traffic fatalities, millions of hours wasted sitting behind the wheel, and substantial air and noise pollution that create or exacerbate serious health concerns. Many Angelenos are forced to commute for more than an hour each way due to there being nowhere affordable to live near their job.

In order to solve this, Los Angeles must make it easier to get around the city without the need for a motor vehicle.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • In order to make Los Angeles more walkable, we must make it legal to build more dense, multi-family housing, especially near transit stations, so that more people can live close to where they work and commute without a car. Allowing for more housing to be built near or on top of businesses and transit stations will allow more workers the freedom to walk to work or utilize public transit, taking cars off the road and out of limited parking spots.
• Expand Bike Lanes
  • Despite having some of the best weather on the planet, Los Angeles is dangerous for people who choose to bike. Our bike infrastructure is nonexistent in most of the city and the infrastructure we have is not protected from dangerous drivers. In order to make biking a viable option, we should be expanding bike lanes and making sure they are adequately protected.
• Safe Streets
  • The fact is that our streets have not been designed with pedestrian safety in mind. Even though voters passed Measure HLA in 2024, the city has been dragging its feet in implementing the necessary upgrades, leading to many preventable injuries and fatalities. We should accelerate HLA’s implementation to make sure that those who choose alternate forms of transportation, like biking and walking, are safe from dangerous drivers.
• Expanded Bus and Subway Service
  • Public transportation is only effective if wait times are low and riders feel safe. Right now, the city’s buses and subway lines do not run frequently enough, forcing riders to wait for far too long or choose less efficient modes of transportation, like cars. We should invest in more frequent bus and subway services so that every member of the public feels confident in using public transit.
• Improved Bus Stops
  • Many bus stops in LA are nothing but a sign on a metal pole without anywhere to sit or any shade to cover waiting riders, which makes waiting for the bus a deeply unpleasant experience, especially during the summer. Waiting for the bus should not be an unpleasant experience when so many working Angelinos rely on the bus for their commute. We should improve our public infrastructure by making sure that all bus stops have enough shade and seating.

The Problem: Though crime in Los Angeles is far below what it was thirty years ago when I was growing up, there is still a ways to go in making sure people feel safe on the streets, in their homes, and taking public transportation.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • Nothing drives crime like desperation and the housing crisis is making people desperate. About half of all households in Los Angeles are rent burdened and one unexpected expense or accident away from getting evicted and ending up on the street. In order to reduce rents and help get people off of the street and out of encampments so that people can feel safe in their homes and walking the streets, we need to eliminate Single-Family Zoning and build more housing.
• Unarmed Response Expansion
  • Police officers are frequently called to situations that do not involve dangerous criminals or violence, but folks in desperate need of aid, like those living on the streets or with mental illnesses. LA recently launched an Unarmed Model for Crisis Response that has been a great success and should be expanded so that our neighbors can get the help they need, giving the police more time to handle situations that actually require their assistance.

The Problem: Due to unsustainable fossil fuel consumption, the planet’s climate is changing, causing serious devastation to our communities. Fires in Los Angeles have increased in size, duration, and damage due to longer dry seasons and increased temperatures. In order to address this, LA needs to do as much as it can to decrease fossil fuel consumption, increase green spaces, and improve our infrastructure to be more resilient to the changing climate.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • Cars are one of the biggest drivers of fossil fuel consumption. Single-Family Zoning has forced people to spread out into the suburbs, destroying natural habitats and requiring longer and longer commutes to get into the city. In order to reduce the use of fossil fuels, LA needs to build more dense, multi-family housing so that people do not need to be spending hours of their lives in their cars every day.
• More Trees
  • Trees are a necessary part of any healthy ecosystem and livable community, yet there are areas of the city with barely any tree canopy at all. The lack of trees means less shade, which makes areas of the city hotter, requiring more fossil fuel consumption to cool down, especially during the summer. LA should loosen restrictions on tree planting and expand parks in order to help keep the city cool and the air clean.
• Climate-Resilient Building
  • Approximately 85% of the housing in Los Angeles was built before 1990, meaning many of the buildings in the city are not equipped to deal with the changing climate and the dangers that come with it. Buildings should be constructed or retrofitted with climate resilient features, like graywater systems, EV charging stations, native flora, solar panels, and energy storage systems.

The Problem: The last decade has seen a disturbing rise in bigotry of all kinds across the country. Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia have all been growing and making life more dangerous for Angelenos of every background, identity, and class. Armed and masked federal agents have been kidnapping immigrants off the street while those from certain minority groups are also more likely to end up getting evicted and end up homeless. In order to combat this trend of rising hate and keep everyone housed, the city must do more to protect our most vulnerable neighbors.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • Black and LGBTQ+ Angelenos are disproportionately more likely to end up homeless while single mothers are the most likely group to face eviction and often end up homeless due to fleeing domestic violence. Single-Family Zoning was also invented as a way to prevent People of Color and Immigrants from moving into white neighborhoods without explicitly saying so. In order to make sure LA is truly a sanctuary for everyone, we need to remove this remnant of segregation and build enough housing so that everyone can be housed, regardless of income, identity, or ability.
• Enforce Sanctuary City Protections
  • This year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been grabbing our immigrant neighbors off the street, even those who have never committed a crime and are legal residents. Despite LA being a sanctuary city for immigrants, the LAPD has been aiding ICE in their raids and putting down protests. Sanctuary city protections must be enforced in order to ensure the immigrant community is protected from federal overreach.
• Close the Access to Justice Gap
  • Despite California’s strong anti-discrimination laws, victims of discrimination often lack the resources necessary to enforce their rights. The City should be improving education and outreach to communities who are most vulnerable to discrimination.

The Problem: Due to a lack of funding and students, public schools across the city are threatened with closure. The amount of students enrolled in LAUSD has been cut almost in half in the last twenty years and teachers are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living keeps going up. At the same time, more than 17,000 LAUSD students are homeless. Public education is one of the cornerstones of our modern society, we cannot afford to let it degrade.

The Solutions:

• Eliminate Single-Family Zoning
  • In order to ensure that every student in Los Angeles is housed while reducing the cost-of-living for the teachers who are tasked with raising a new generation of Angelenos and the workers who make our schools run, we must make it legal to build more housing across the city, particularly near our schools so that kids and teachers can safely walk or bike to school. Reducing the cost of housing will also increase the amount of young people that can afford to start families, thus increasing the amount of students in our schools and increasing the funding our schools receive.
• Expand After School Programs
  • Expanding after school programs is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that kids are safe, engaged, and given opportunities to enrich their days in ways that are productive and healthy. Giving kids these opportunities helps reduce crime and helps parents who work full-time. The city should expand after school programs to make sure kids are getting attention and care they need.
• Utilize Vacant City Property
  • The city owns property that is being under-utilized. This property should be used in ways that support our schools, such as building housing for teachers.
• Protect Schools from ICE
  • ICE raids in our schools are threatening students, parents, teachers, and workers. It is unacceptable that these raids are allowed to go forward at all, putting everyone in danger and disrupting students’ education. The city must do more to keep ICE away from schools.

The Problem: The Los Angeles City Charter is deeply flawed in ways that have made our city’s government less effective, efficient, and transparent.

The Solutions:

• Expand the City Council
  • The Los Angeles City Council has 15 members for 3.8 million residents. That means every city councilmember is supposed to represent the interests of more than 250,000 residents. This has made our government less effective and less responsive to the needs of residents. In order to solve this, the City Council should be expanded so that our elected representatives can better respond to the needs and desires of their constituents.
• Independent Redistricting
  • When I was in law school, I wrote reports for the California Local Redistricting Project on how different cities and counties in California handled redistricting. Los Angeles has one of the worst redistricting processes in the state. The process for redistricting is run by political appointees, creating opportunities for politicians to pick their voters instead of the other way around. Los Angeles should amend its charter so that redistricting is done by an independent committee.
• Adopt Ranked-Choice Voting
  • Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is a way to vote that asks voter to list candidates in order of preference instead of picking just one. If a voter’s first pick does not win enough votes to make it past the necessary threshold, then their vote goes to their second pick, and so on until one candidate has a majority. RCV is far superior to the way we vote now and creates incentives for candidates to work together and build coalitions instead of attacking each other. Los Angeles should amend its charter to adopt Ranked-Choice Voting.