big challenge

Homeless encampments line the streets. Buying a home — or even finding an affordable place to rent — is increasingly out of reach. Roads are riddled with potholes, tens of thousands of streetlights are out, and water and power bills are surging.

For many Angelenos, morale is poor and quality of life in the city is slipping.

This is the challenge for whoever becomes Los Angeles mayor — and it is one that has left some longtime political experts wondering how much one person can control in this vast city of 3.8 million.

“The expectations, given the powers that the mayor actually has, are probably too high,” said Tom Hogen-Esch, a professor of political science at Cal State Northridge. “You have all of these wicked problems that are difficult to solve in a perfect scenario, and [even more] in a governmental system as tangled and confused as L.A.”

The next mayor will have to deal with enduring problems of deteriorating infrastructure, police reform and budget woes. But there is also the unprecedented task of rebuilding Pacific Palisades after catastrophic firestorms and trying to help the city’s ailing film industry — all while preparing the city for the global spotlight of hosting the 2028 Olympics.

A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll of likely L.A. voters, co-sponsored by The Times. found that the top priority for the next mayor to address was reducing the number of homeless encampments, followed by ensuring public safety and building more affordable housing. Protecting immigrant communities was the next most cited concern, followed by balancing the city budget.

After studying L.A. politics for more than three decades, Hogen-Esch said the city feels stuck.

“We’re talking about the same issues over and over and over … and a general underlying frustration with city government,” he said. “It’s almost like you could wake up 30 years later in a Rip Van Winkle dream, and you’re in the same spot.“

Homelessness

When Karen Bass launched her 2021 mayoral campaign, she proclaimed homelessness was her “overwhelming top priority.”

After nearly four years of her leadership, homelessness has gone up. This year, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced that more than 45,194 people in the city were homeless — up from 41,980 homeless people in 2022 — an increase the agency attributed to external funding cuts and rising economic pressures.

After spending more than $391 million on Inside Safe, Bass’ flagship program to clean up homeless encampments and house homeless people, the city moved about 6,500 people into interim housing. But about 42% of the program’s participants have returned to homelessness.

Bass insists Inside Safe has made progress, clearing 140 encampments across the city. But the difference is not visible to many residents as more encampments continue to block city sidewalks.

Over the last four years, L.A. budgeted about $4 billion to address the homeless crisis — about $100,000 for every homeless person in the city, according to Lee Ohanian, a professor of economics at UCLA.

But the city has not spent all that money. L.A. underspent its homelessness budget by at least $473 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia said, because of its decentralized approach to homelessness, budget structure, staffing shortages and long approval delays for affordable housing.

Part of the challenge in addressing homelessness is that L.A. adopts a fragmented approach, sharing responsibility with the county and spreading programs among different nonprofits, said Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. Unlike in New York, the L.A. mayor does not oversee the health department, mental health and drug recovery programs, and jails.

“The challenge for the mayor has always been that she or he is only given basically half of the arsenal to fight homelessness,” Guerra said.

Poor oversight is also a problem. Federal prosecutors have charged multiple nonprofit leaders with defrauding taxpayer funds meant to support the homeless. Last month, a nonprofit chief executive pleaded guilty to wire fraud and embezzling $23 million in homeless funds to pay for a $7-million Westwood home and vacation property in Greece.

But perhaps the biggest challenge is the staggering cost of building housing for homeless people in L.A.. Because of complex government financing, prevailing wage requirements, environmental rules, and the integration of medical and social services, a single unit in L.A. can cost as much as $600,000.

Housing affordability

Nearly 6 out of 10 renters in L.A. are cost-burdened, and polls show a majority of L.A. voters have considered leaving the city because housing is so expensive.

Bass has taken steps to accelerate the building of affordable housing. Her signature program, Executive Directive One, succeeded in cutting the time it takes to review 100% affordable projects and led to a flurry of development proposals. But after tenant advocates warned that rent-controlled apartments would be demolished and homeowners complained that density threatened historic neighborhoods, Bass restricted the locations eligible for the program.

Nearly four years after Bass took office, developers are not exactly seeing a building boom. Last month, the mayor’s office said more than 47,000 units of affordable housing are in the pipeline, but only 7,728 are under construction.

As with homelessness, the mayor has limited power to improve affordability.

A big test for the new mayor will be the state’s push to pass laws that spur more housing, such as state Senate Bill 79, designed to accelerate development around transportation hubs. With new buildings likely to face opposition in many parts of the city, Bass has opposed SB 79, arguing that it will erode local control.

Whoever the next mayor is, they will have to balance the need to build significantly more housing with homeowner opposition to new development, said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at USC.

“Voters probably are somewhere in the middle,” Grose said, “and there doesn’t seem to be a policy agenda that reaches those voters.”

Ailing infrastructure

When Chief Deputy City Controller Rick Cole retired from City Hall last year, he complained that “mind-numbing bureaucracy” had made the city ungovernable. Los Angeles was paying for city leaders’ decision long ago to organize the city to disperse authority, he said, citing deteriorating city infrastructure as a key example.

“Beneath the broken sidewalks,” Cole said, “is a broken system.”

More than 5,000 requests for sidewalk repairs are pending. Tens of thousands of streetlights are out. Last year, the city stopped repaving streets for eight months as officials struggled with staffing shortages to meet federal requirements to construct curb ramps for wheelchairs and new city rules that mandate bike, bus and pedestrian enhancements.

“The city can’t seem to manage the basics,” Bass’ challenger, City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, said when she announced her campaign in February.

Guerra said it was astounding that such a large city government — with a $14.8-billion budget and more than 5,500 public works employees — was so behind on fixing streetlights and resurfacing roads.

“How could that be?” Guerra said. “You cannot tell us that you need more people and more money to do this. What is happening?”

To speed up infrastructure repairs, some public officials are urging voters to pass Measure LA, which would require the city to develop a long-term capital infrastructure plan and distribute more power to the director of public works. Supporters say the measure would cut systemic bureaucracy and fragmentation. Critics, however, say it would lead to one person holding too much authority.

Balancing an unstable city budget

Last year, the City Council and mayor declared a fiscal state of emergency as they faced a $1-billion deficit due to revenue shortfalls as well as increased liabilities from the Palisades fire. Rating agencies, including S&P and Kroll, downgraded the city to a “negative” outlook.

Mejia cited ongoing revenue shortfalls, liability payouts and departmental overspending as the key reasons for the ballooning budget, which has grown by about 25% over the last four years.

The Bass administration has increased pay and benefits to thousands of city employees and police officers. It has also had to hand out record liability settlement payments due to LAPD excessive force claims and dangerous street and transport conditions.

Raman, a democratic socialist, has frequently voted against high city spending, opposing pay raises negotiated by Bass for Los Angeles Police Department officers and the $2.6-billion expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“She’s the one that says, ‘We cannot afford that. How are you going to pay for that?’ ” Guerra said of Raman. “It’s very, very strange that the socialist is the fiscal hawk.”

Police reform

Violent crime in L.A. has plummeted. Last month, Bass announced a 47% drop in homicides since she took office, and she has also touted a decline in property crime such as burglaries.

But police reform and police pay remain issues. While Raman has reversed her past stance on defunding the police, she has stated she would replace LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, who she says has “lost the confidence” of Angelenos on the issue of immigration. The city, she says, needs a police chief who ensures officers do not cooperate with federal immigration officers. She has vowed to conduct an audit of the department to determine whehter there are gaps between Los Angeles’ “sanctuary city” policies and police practices.

Bass has publicly backed McDonnell, supporting his efforts to stem officer attrition and rebuild the department’s ranks. The department would be significantly disrupted, she has argued, if the chief is removed before the 2028 Olympic Games.

City Hall credibility

The new mayor will also face a challenge that is harder to qualify: making residents believe City Hall can fix Los Angeles’ many problems.

“I think we’re beyond pessimism in some places,” Hogen-Esch said, noting that for the first time in a quarter of a century he has spotted no mayoral campaign signs in his El Sereno neighborhood.

When it comes to homelessness, Angelenos would be happy to spend money if it actually solved the problem, said Jim Newton, a veteran journalist and editor of UCLA Blueprint magazine. Most want encampments gone for good, and not by locking people up or punishing them for being poor, but by genuinely helping them to be better.

“Is that possible?” he said. “I don’t know.”

Others say it will take new ideas and big swings that can be challenging in a city where the mayor has only limited powers.

“When they first took power, they were incredibly innovative and incredibly creative,” Guerra said. “Now they not only lack creativity and innovation in Los Angeles, but compared to other city governments, they’re laggard in implementing new ideas.”