homeless people

Spencer Pratt is a showboat, a loudmouth, a troll and a self-proclaimed villain who seems willing to say anything in his quest to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Little wonder that his critics rolled their eyes when the former reality television star told CNN host Elex Michaelson a few weeks ago that his campaign role model is Jesus Christ, because “he was a politician.” How on earth did Pratt — a man who tosses insults with the ease of someone spitting loogies — come off boasting that his political hero was the Prince of Peace?

But anyone who ridicules the exchange as a blasphemous moment by a deluded wannabe isn’t paying attention — which is exactly the error that has allowed Pratt to storm L.A. politics. He isn’t running on an explicitly Christian message — that would be risky in a city with large Jewish, Catholic and secular constituencies. But the proud born-again evangelical is channeling the zeal of an old-fashioned tent revival, even if some of his rhetoric falls far outside the bounds of the Good Book.

In his recent memoir, Pratt recounted his conversion — actor Stephen Baldwin baptized him in a river during the 2009 season of the reality show “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.” Before that, his Christianity had consisted of wearing a black diamond cross necklace he described as “thirty grand of Jesus bling” bought from a Beverly Hills boutique. Pratt credits his faith with providing direction at a low moment in his life, as he embraced Jesus with such fervor that a pastor told him to stop joining altar calls so much during church services — once was enough.

“I needed the receipt stamped weekly,” Pratt wrote, “like a parking validation, just to make sure it stuck.”

Seventeen years later, he’s still seeking that affirmation.

The memoir comes off as a millennial version of “The Confessions of St. Augustine” — perhaps the most famous literary example of someone who saw their wreck of a life not as a series of mistakes to apologize for but as necessary failures on the road to grace. That’s why Pratt and his followers don’t see his sketchy past as a disqualifier, but rather his biggest strength. Only someone who says he was reborn in the inferno of the Palisades fire could possess the clarity and willpower needed to bring salvation to an accursed land, they argue.

In another era, Pratt would have been a welcome edition to the roster of bombastic Southern California preachers a la Aimee Semple McPherson, Chuck Smith and Gene Scott, as well as radio titans such as George Putnam and John Kobylt. His claims that only he can deliver us from damnation and that we need to repent of City Hall’s status quo at the ballot box are nothing less than a modern-day gospel to his followers. Pratt feels the pulse of L.A.’s civic malaise far better than Mayor Karen Bass or another of his opponents, City Councilmember Nithya Raman. Like any good pastor, he knows how to distill that discontent into soundbites and stories.

That’s why the self-designated “Pratt Daddy” has cast this moment in L.A. history as a modern-day Armageddon, urging voters to wage war against apostates and usher in a Second Coming, lest the city continue its supposed descent into hell. He admits in his memoir to holding “epiphanies and apocalyptic visions” in equal measure — no wonder he told a Canadian podcaster in March that life for him is a “spiritual battlefield” where “however I can be to stop evil at this point feels like a purpose.”

Spencer Pratt is shown on a television while journalists work during the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral debate at Skirball Cultural Center on May 6.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Far from me to criticize someone’s faith. But I urge Pratt to reacquaint himself with the words of the messiah in whose path he professes to follow. Humility, frugality, turning the other cheek — it’s what Jesus taught and what Pratt has long rejected.

Nowhere does Pratt need more of refresher on Jesus’ lessons than when it comes to homeless people.

Instead of offering compassion or viable initiatives, Pratt consistently calls the unhoused “zombies,” “vagrants,” “drug addicts” and “bums,” with a particular fixation on the naked ones. He vowed to ABC 7 recently that he would push people off L.A.’s streets and onto federal land — like herding stray wildlife. The mayoral hopeful added that “scam homeless nonprofits” exacerbate homelessness, which must have been news to Scripture-based organizations such as the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, Union Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army, which have been trying to help homeless people since before Pratt was born.

Pratt also told ABC 7 reporter Josh Haskell that most of L.A.’s homeless are not locals.

“These people, when I unplug them … they’re all going to Seattle, where the mayor will welcome them,” Pratt proclaimed.

Jesus would not only roll out the welcome mat for homeless people — he would embrace them.

Spencer, what New Testament book says that your crude campaign against the most destitute among us is holy?

Christ never looked down on itinerants, famously saying, “The Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” In the Book of Mark, when Jesus sent his disciples out into the world, he told them to bring no food or money, because good people would take care of them.

“And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them,” Jesus said.

Christ did do some name calling, but his ire was directed at the powerful, the braggarts, the hypocrites — the Pratts of his time. The Nazarene saved his kindest words for the meek, the poor, the peacemakers — who are sorely lacking in Pratt’s caravan of disaffected liberals, Trumpers and the wealthy. Christ didn’t offer counsel to the comfortable but to outcasts — lepers, prostitutes, people possessed by demons or afflicted with disease — whose modern-day contemporaries live on our streets and whom Pratt World blames for all of L.A.’s ills.

Jesus especially embraced outsiders — the Canaanite woman he initially compared to a dog because she sought help for her daughter, the Samaritan lady at the well, the Roman centurion in the Book of Matthew of whom Jesus proclaimed, “I have not found so great faith” anywhere in Israel. Pratt would have rounded up all of them in donkey carts and dumped them in Babylon, if he had been around back then.

I understand how frustrating it is to see homeless encampments in neighborhoods and to deal with unhoused people who disrupt one’s day, as my wife does at her restaurant in Santa Ana. But whenever annoyance gets the better of me, I remember what Jesus told his followers: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,” warning that he would keep this in mind on Judgment Day.

Those who didn’t take his advice? “Depart from me, ye cursed,” Christ thundered, “into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Christianity — and good society — calls for us to look to our better angels, not to demonize others, as Pratt regularly does. He knows this too.

“When the whole world hates you,” Pratt wrote, “it’s comforting to think at least the big guy upstairs has your back, so long as you repent.”

But repentance means admitting you’ve done wrong. Instead, Pratt is doubling down on his anti-homelessness nastiness as more and more people join his crusade.

Let’s see how many Angelenos embrace this false prophet on election day.

Two of our esteemed gubernatorial candidates, the cowboy and the dilettante, apparently could not find ties for the first debate Wednesday night, showing up with dress shirts casually unbuttoned.

Mr. Middleground sported a scruffy sorta-beard, apparently unable to pay for a razor in the midst of California’s affordability crisis. It’s a trademark look that always makes me think if this doesn’t work out, he’ll opt to live on a boat in some not-too-expensive slip by the Bay.

The billionaire wore Nikes instead of dress shoes, a sartorial nod perhaps to his bid to be the outsider-fighter. Or maybe his feet just hurt.

The last two contenders were remarkably unremarkable.

Why start with fashion? Honestly, it might be the most interesting, and telling, bit of insight that came from this first (of three) chances for our next governor to let us know who they are and what they’re made of. If the debate showed us anything, it’s that none of these candidates are hiding follow-me charisma or an excitement-inducing political vision for our collective future.

Yes, there were a few decent jabs here and there about Tom Steyer’s money, Katie Porter’s temper, Matt Mahan’s tech ties and Chad Bianco’s far-right world view. But even those were predictable.

Still, in between the yawns, there were a couple of answers worth noting, ones that might actually give us insight into how the Democratic candidates differ (Despite all the hype, it seems increasingly unlikely that two Republicans will come out of the primary, and even more unlikely that in a Democratic vs. Republican race, the Democrat would lose in blue California.)

I’ll start with a surprising place where I agreed with Steve Hilton, the Republican endorsed by President Trump.

The candidates were asked if they would support a ban on social media for kids under age 16. This is a quickly accelerating idea not beloved by tech companies. Australia and Indonesia already have bans in place. Other countries, including France and Portugal, have them in the works. Florida banned children under 14 from opening social media accounts on their own last year.

And a Los Angeles jury last month dealt a blow to Meta and YouTube when it found the platforms had damaged the mental health of a young woman with their addictive features.

Hilton took the ban question a step further, saying it “misses the point.” He has long argued that it isn’t just social media that is the problem, but having kids staring at a digital device for hours a day instead of interacting in the real world. It was one of the most genuine answers of the night.

“We’ve got to get to the heart of the problem, and that’s the devices and the screens,” he said. “I think that every parent in their heart knows that it’s wrong.”

While Steyer and Xavier Becerra, the former California attorney general, both said they would support such a ban, the remaining three candidates hedged or said they would not. Porter said no to a ban under age 16, but said she “might consider a different ban,” without being specific.

Mahan, who is backed by significant tech money, and Bianco both said they believed requiring parental consent was the way to go (though Mahan said he would ban devices in schools).

As Becerra pointed out, “kids have died as a result of their use of social media,” so it’s a place where policy matters. And if a candidate doesn’t see government’s role in controlling the dangers of social media, what will happen with artificial intelligence?

The candidates also had differences in how they would handle homelessness and the related crisis of housing affordability, though the devil was often buried in the details.

At least for Democrats. For Bianco, the difference was stark.

“We are not dealing with homeless. So stop calling it homeless,” he snapped at the moderators. “It has nothing to do with homes. This is drug- and alcohol-induced psychosis, mental illness.”

Of course, this is wrong. Last year, the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative released the results of the state’s most comprehensive survey of homeless people. It found that for most people living on our streets, “the cost of housing had simply become unsustainable.” It also found an increasing percentage of those folks were older — almost half were over the age of 50 — and had become homeless after a hardship such as an illness or a job loss.

“It’s also families who are fleeing intimate partner and domestic violence,” Porter said. “It’s people who are double and tripled up. It’s people who are living in their cars on our college campuses. Homelessness comes in a lot of different forms.”

Most of the Democratic candidates seemed to understand this and embraced the increasingly popular idea of putting more money into helping people stay housed after a hardship, instead of trying to get them housed after they lose their place.

“How can I help you keep your home?” Becerra said. “Because it costs me so much more money to pick you off the streets, provide you with the assistance in the shelter, than it does to keep you in the home.”

But the issue of homelessness is also where daylight emerged between the candidates. Steyer said he and his wife had helped finance low-barrier homes, not just shelter spaces, where people do not need to be addiction-free and where they can bring pets — two issues that are common hindrances for moving folks off sidewalks voluntarily.

Mahan, the mayor of San José, who often touts his city’s success at moving people indoors, agreed that emergency and interim housing was critical, but also voiced support for forcing folks to accept help. Last year, San José passed an ordinance he backed that some say criminalizes homelessness — a person can be cited twice for refusing shelter, and a third refusal within 18 months can lead to an arrest.

“When shelter was available, we required that people come indoors,” Mahan said, adding, “We have to be able to mandate treatment.”

It’s a controversial position, but also one that is increasingly popular. Gov. Gavin Newsom has backed mandated treatment, in a lighter form, with his CARE Court (which is technically voluntarily). And the movement to require people to accept a shelter space or face arrest is growing on the right and even the Democratic-middle.

But there is a fine and dangerous line with mandated treatment and shelter requirements that is often pushed further and further to the side in favor of the clean, safe streets argument. Whenever we start locking folks up — whether it’s in mental wards or immigration detention centers or jails — we should be careful that expediency isn’t trumping ethics.

Of course, the debate would not be complete without the Democratic candidates’ position on our president, speaking of ethics.

Steyer was gleeful that Trump has come after him on social media, a point of pride that he is a relevant figure in the fight against MAGA. He also said he would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement if he could, which he can’t.

Becerra highlighted his many lawsuits as California’s attorney general during Trump’s first term, and pledged to keep fighting. Porter leaned into her time in Congress and her efforts to help Democrats in other races win.

Mahan took a different route, pledging to fight when necessary, but adding, “We need a partnership, and we need to find common ground with this administration on certain issues.”

Newsom learned the hard way that common ground is what Trump says it is, and shifts without warning or reason.

So what’s the takeaway from all this?

Boring dad; feisty mom; rich do-gooder; striving newcomer; MAGA one; MAGA two.

None of them hit it out of the park, but no one struck out. Maybe next time.