homelessness

Supervisor Kathryn Barger was the only supervisor against it. She pointed to the fact that the tax was a “general” tax, meaning the money won’t be earmarked for healthcare costs. That means politicians have final say over how the money gets spent rather than voters, she said.

Some cities within L.A. County say they’re also rattled over the tax, unleashing a stream of opposition letters against the tax. The California Contract Cities Assn. argues a sales tax hike would “disproportionately burden the very residents the County seeks to protect.” Shoppers near the county line, they warn, likely would start crossing it to shop.

Some of these cities say they have the trust issues when it comes to county ballot measures. When voters approved Measure B in 2002 to fund the county’s trauma center network, an audit years later found the county couldn’t account for whether the money actually had been spent on emergency medical services. And some cities feel they never got their fair share of funds from Measure H, the homelessness services tax measure passed in 2017.

Kenneth Mejia, 35, is a certified public accountant who lives in Westlake. In 2022, he won the most votes of any controller candidate in city history, despite lacking name recognition and running against a sitting city council member, Paul Koretz.

Mejia, who is of Filipino ancestry, became the first Asian American to hold citywide elected office in Los Angeles.

He’s well-known online, and his two corgis, Killa and Kirby, are a constant presence in his campaign as well as on the official controller’s website. He points to his audits of city spending on homelessness, police, housing and animal services.

“We said we were going to provide more financial transparency and accountability and oversight, and we’ve done that,” Mejia said in an interview.

The controller’s waste, fraud and abuse team began investigating a homeless service provider after receiving a phone call alleging fraud. Mejia said it became the catalyst for a federal investigation into Alexander Soofer, who in January was charged with wire fraud amid allegations that he took $23 million in public funds meant for homeless people.

“Because of the work that we do, it also forces agencies to better look at their internal controls, to hold service providers accountable,” Mejia said. “These events can lead to systemic change, and that’s what it did.”

Zach Sokoloff, 37, lives in Westwood with his wife, two kids and two rescue dogs. He was born and raised in the Westwood area. He graduated from Yale University, received a master’s in education policy and administration from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from Harvard University before teaching algebra at a middle school in Boyle Heights and a high school in Watts.

Since joining Hackman in 2018, he has worked on multibillion projects transforming legacy studio lots. The company is considered one of Hollywood’s largest landlords.

Sokoloff points to his experience managing large-scale projects as key to navigating the city’s budget and bureaucracy. He said he would work collaboratively across different departments.

“Angelenos are tired of reports. They want results, and so my approach balances accountability and collaboration,” Sokoloff said.

Every Democrat on this list could be expected to work in general harmony with a Democratic governor and in opposition to key Trump administration policies.

There are differences in their backgrounds, but only minor policy divergences, including on the participation of trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports.

Listed in alphabetical order, with an excerpt from their survey responses:

Richard Barrera, 59, is a longtime school board member in San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest school system, a senior advisor to Thurmond and before that was a local labor union executive.

“The three experiences that best qualify me for this office are the ones that required me to govern a public school system, execute policy inside the state agency, and understand workforce realities in practice,” Barrera said.

Wendy Castañeda-Leal, 42, has pursued a career in more rural areas, currently serving as superintendent for the Semitropic Elementary School District, which has one TK-8 school with about 140 students off Highway 46 in Kern County. She’s also been director of whole child education for Roseland School District and a secondary alternative school principal.

“I lead districtwide efforts aligned with California’s priorities by advancing equity, strengthening academic achievement, and expanding supports for the whole child, including multilingual learners and underserved student populations,” Castañeda-Leal said. “I also bring extensive site leadership experience as a principal at the elementary, middle and high school levels, where I improved student outcomes.”

Nichelle Henderson

(Courtesy of Nichelle Henderson.)

Nichelle Henderson, 57, is an elected trustee of the Los Angeles Community College District. Her education career began as a teaching assistant. She later taught sixth grade math and science in Compton Unified. She’s currently a faculty advisor and clinical field supervisor in a Cal State teacher preparation program.

“What it is clear among Democratic candidates is that there are candidates that are seeking this position because they want a safe place to land after having termed out,” Henderson said. “My goal is to build the capacity of our TK-12 public schools to prepare students for higher education and to participate in the local and global workforce.”

Ainye Long, 41, a San Francisco Unified middle school math department chair, ran four years ago with no significant resources and came within less than 1 percentage point of making the runoff. It helped then that no Democrat ran against Thurmond and that Republican challengers divided the Republican vote. Long also had then — and still has — the ballot designation: “public school teacher.” She also is a past senior administrator at a charter-school group.

“One job of the [state superintendent] is to measure the effectiveness [in practice — what actually happens] of our laws, and help to find better ways to educate our body,” Long said. “The people closest to the work are closest to the problems of practice, so they’re the first to see the solution.”

Al Muratsuchi

(Photo courtesy of Al Muratsuchi)

Al Muratsuchi, 61, represents the 66th Assembly District, encompassing parts of the South Bay, and has been the chair of the state Assembly education committee. He taught briefly at the college level and served as an elected board member of the Torrance Unified School District.

“I am the only candidate running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction with the combined experience of statewide education policy leadership, … local school district governance as a former Torrance Unified School District board trustee, and classroom educator,” Muratsuchi said, adding that he authored 23 education-related bills that were signed into law.

Josh Newman

(Josh Newman)

Josh Newman, 61, has been a state senator, including chairing the education committee, and a technology company executive. He served in the Army and taught briefly both at the college and middle school levels.

“Among the Democrats in this race, the most significant distinction is between candidates whose approach to this office is primarily organized around labor relationships and funding advocacy, and my own, which emphasizes accountability, outcomes, and the full range of students’ needs alongside continued investment,” Newman said.

Anthony Rendon

(Photo courtesy of Rendon campaign)

Anthony Rendon, 58, was state Assembly Speaker from 2016-23, previously directed Plaza de la Raza Child Development Services and served as chief operating officer for Mexican American Opportunity Foundation.

He spoke of “the role that technology is playing in the degradation of youth mental health and happiness. The next superintendent needs to properly implement California’s ban on phones in classrooms, be ahead of the curve in establishing policies on generative AI use, and make sure teachers have the training and support they need to make sure the classroom is about learning.”

No candidate received enough votes to win the Democratic Party endorsement. The tally was as follows: Henderson: 24.75%; Muratsuchi 21.97%; Rendon 17.43%; Newman 16.82%; Barrera 12.77%.

McOsker said Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program has been effective in clearing homeless encampments and moving the residents inside. He supports reducing costs by doubling people up in rooms and cutting underutilized contracts.

“It’s unsustainable as it is to spend this much, and I think everyone recognizes that,” he said.

McOsker said he supports “no encampment” zones, per Municipal Code 41.18, around places like schools, day care centers, libraries and homeless shelters.

It’s especially important to keep encampments away from shelters, he said, so people can get help without distractions nearby.

“We really need to make that break and give folks an opportunity to put their lives together,” he said.

Rivers equated the no-encampment zones to federal immigration operations in the city, arguing that they enable law enforcement to snatch people off the street without giving them a place to go.

“Just moving homelessness doesn’t all of a sudden solve it,” he said.

Instead, Rivers wants to establish “safe shelter” zones where people can get their needs met instead of being chased out.

Rivers believes that Inside Safe contractors should be audited and that there should be “full transparency” in the amount of money spent to house each person.

“We need to actually have a track record of where these funds are going to,” so it’s clear the money actually is helping to resolve homelessness, he said.

Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with close to 400,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at the union’s expense.

UTLA is the most reliable funder of school board campaigns — and the union’s spending is not controlled by candidates.

Also exerting influence in recent elections is the district’s other largest union: Local 99 of Service Employees International Union. It represents some 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, gardeners, cafeteria workers and technical support staff. This union has yet to endorse candidates.

A potential but diminished source of election-funding firepower would be charter school advocates — who once routinely outspent the unions.
Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield — a charter school ally who makes his own calls about whom to support — has been a big spender in recent elections, typically as a counter to teachers-union-endorsed candidates. He has not committed to being involved in this school board election cycle.

The material below was assembled through reporting and surveys provided to candidates. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

A nonprofit advocacy group, Social Equity LA, organized with local cannabis business owners to oppose the measure in letters to Mayor Karen Bass.

Luis Rivera, executive director of the nonprofit, said Measure CB risks legitimizing the illegal cannabis industry while linking city finances to the tax revenue the businesses would generate. The measure also would undermine Proposition 64, the state law that requires cannabis businesses to be licensed, he said. And amid the city’s struggles to track and close illegal cannabis businesses, Rivera said it will be difficult to force them to pay up.

“There’s no guarantee or mechanism to assure that illegal operators will pay the taxes or fulfill their obligations,” Rivera said.

Even if they pay taxes, illegal operators could undercut legal businesses by selling unregulated products and avoiding requirements, such as code inspections and safety tests for merchandise, that legal businesses must fulfill to keep their licenses, he said. For an already struggling industry, the answer isn’t taxing more businesses, he said — it’s lowering taxes.

Lindsey Horvath was a West Hollywood city councilmember in 2022 when she ran for L.A. County supervisor in a six-person primary that featured a pair of state senators, Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) and Henry Stern (D-Malibu).

Hertzberg and Horvath advanced to the general election, where she won by 29,000 votes.

As a supervisor, Horvath helped lead a historic push to remake county government. Measure G, passed by voters in 2024, will nearly double the size of the Board of Supervisors and create an elected chief executive position as well as an independent ethics commission. But the passage of Measure G had the unintended effect of wiping out Measure J, which funds anti-incarceration programs, leaving county officials scrambling for solutions.

Tonia Arey is a real estate agent who said she decided to “enter public service out of concern for the direction of Los Angeles County and a desire to bring stronger accountability to local government.”

She calls herself a “Jewish woman challenging the incumbent” and is centering her campaign on public safety, including law enforcement, fire and probation, emergency preparedness and confronting antisemitism.

Tomás Sidenfaden is a software developer and startup founder who has lived in Los Angeles for nearly three decades.

“Three generations of my family have called this region our home, and I’m tired of waiting around for other people to fix it,” he said.

Carmenlina Minasova is a San Fernando Valley reform advocate who did not respond to requests for comment.

Katy Young Yaroslavsky is running for L.A. City Council District 5.

(Campaign of Katy Young Yaroslavsky for City Council)

Yaroslavsky, 45, was named the council’s budget committee chair at the beginning of last year, a job that carries immense influence over city spending and that requires her to balance lofty political expectations with fiscal reality.

Yaroslavsky began her career as a land use attorney and lobbyist and later worked as a top aide to former Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl for more than six years. She is the daughter-in-law of former Fifth District City Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky, who later served on the county board of supervisors.

“We need people in office who are interested in problem solving, not focused on gotcha politics. Who are not super ideological but are just really there to solve problems. And that’s what I’m there for,” Yaroslavsky said.

Henry Mantel is running for L.A. City Council District 5.

(Handout from Matt Mantel)

Mantel, 33, has worked on a handful of political campaigns, according to his campaign website, including Carolyn Ramsay’s unsuccessful campaign for the 4th District council seat in 2015. Mantel graduated from the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 2020. As a lawyer, he says he has represented tenants in disputes with landlords, including contesting evictions.

“The extent of the crisis really weighed on me, and watching the City Council continue to refuse to do nothing was just unbearable,” Mantel said.

Morgan Oyler is running for L.A. City Council District 5.

( Cory Aycock)

Oyler, 42, is a longtime accountant for Haus of Portraiture, a fine art portrait studio in Santa Monica. He was born and raised in L.A., attending high school in Santa Monica, and returned to live in Westwood about a decade ago. He sought election to the Washington statehouse in 2010 and 2012, running as a Republican and losing both times. He says he became a Democrat a decade ago, after becoming uneasy with President Trump’s influence on the GOP.

Oyler felt compelled to run because he sees Yaroslavsky’s policies as a barrier to sustainable housing growth.

• Jason Gibbs: Republican, Santa Clarita City Council member, mechanical engineer

Gibbs has been a member of the Santa Clarita City Council since 2020 and was chosen by his peers to serve as the city’s mayor in 2023. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Cal Poly and went on to work in the aerospace industry, according to his campaign website. He has lived in Santa Clarita for nearly a decade while raising two young children, his bio says, and has served on the local boards of the Boys and Girls Club, the Valley Industry Assn. and the Salvation Army.

• George Whitesides: Democrat, incumbent

Whitesides defeated Republican incumbent Mike Garcia to represent the 27th Congressional District in 2024. Whitesides worked on President Obama’s transition team in 2008 and served as NASA chief of staff during the Obama administration, according to his campaign bio. He was the first chief executive of Virgin Galactic, co-founded Megafire Action, a nonprofit that advocates for legislation to address the growing problem of massive wildfires, and was a board member for the Antelope Valley Economic Development and Growth Enterprise, his bio says.

Others:

• Roberto Ramos: Democrat, Marine veteran, UCLA master’s student
• Caleb Norwood: Democrat, college student

A representative for David Neidhart, a Republican candidate, said he has withdrawn from the race. His name still will appear on the ballot.

Across the country, debates over voter identification laws have become a flash point in broader fights about election security and voting access.

Supporters of voter ID laws say they are needed to prevent election fraud and ensure only eligible voters cast ballots. Critics argue there is little evidence of noncitizens voting and say the requirements instead would reduce voter participation in elections.

Under California law, voters in the state are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. The state does require ID when registering to vote, and residents must swear under penalty of perjury that they are eligible to vote and they are a U.S. citizen.

Weber has opposed proposals that would require voters to show identification in order to cast a ballot. She and many Democratic leaders argue that voter ID laws can create barriers for eligible voters, particularly those who may not have easy access to government-issued identification.

Weber believes Voter ID efforts are meant to sow doubt in the integrity of the elections system.

“When you really get to it, Voter ID is a smoke screen for trying to create the idea that this is a corrupt system,” she said.

Weber instead supports policies aimed at expanding participation among eligible voters, including vote-by-mail ballots and automatic registration.

Conversely, Wagner wants the state to require voters to show ID at the polls. He argues that requiring identification would strengthen public trust in election results and align California with practices used in many other states. He said it’s patronizing to minorities when critics argue it’s hard for them to get identification.

“You need an ID to drive,” he said. “You need an ID to fly in a plane. You need one to buy alcohol. You need it to buy tobacco.”

Wagner has been working with proponents of the Voter ID ballot measure to raise money and helped gather signatures. That statewide ballot measure would require state or local elections officials to verify that Californians registering to vote are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.

“What I’m pledging the people of California is that if they pass voter ID, I will protect it. I will sue if I have to,” Wagner said. “If I am secretary of state, I will implement it and hold the registrars accountable and hold my office and myself accountable for doing the will of the people.”

Robert Luna seeks a second term as L.A. County Sheriff but faces nine challengers, including predecessor Alex Villanueva, whom he defeated in 2022.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Robert Luna is hoping to be the first L.A. County Sheriff to win a second term in more than 10 years. He points to a reduction in crime for the county during his term and says he brought stability after a series of one-term sheriffs since 2014.

Last year, deputy-patrolled areas of the county experienced a 12.5% drop in serious crimes from the previous year, including a drop of 12% in murders and 20% in auto thefts.

Perhaps the most vocal and well-known of Luna’s opponents is his predecessor, Alex Villanueva, who paints a picture of a department in disarray, with low morale and trouble in recruiting. Villanueva claims his return would keep deputies from leaving and appeal to new hires.

Former sheriff’s Lt. Eric Strong, who also served as chief of campus safety and security operations at the county probation office, has entered the fray once again after finishing third in 2022. Strong has called for increased transparency by the department, advocating for the agency to work with oversight bodies like the Office of Inspector General and the Civilian Oversight Committee.

“Nothing has really changed, and that’s why I’m running,” Strong said.

Mike Bornman, a retired former captain, also is vying for the job. He’s looking to lift morale inside the department, which he said has faced a series of challenges with social movements that have been “anti-cop,” such as the George Floyd protests of 2020 and calls to defund the police.

“There’s been no real pushback from law enforcement; there’s been nothing coming from this office relative to that,” Bornman said.

He said the department is struggling with difficulty in recruitment, significant overtime hours and deputies at risk of burnout.

Sgt. Karla Carranza is running again after an unsuccessful campaign in 2022. At one point assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., Carranza has made jail reform one of her top campaign focuses, promising to reduce violence and lower the risk of lawsuits and what she says are preventable inmate deaths.

Brendan Corbett, also running for the job, served as assistant sheriff during Villanueva’s tenure. He’s looking to restructure the department, focus resources on patrol and line functions and increase the reserve program.

Lt. Oscar Martinez, assigned to the department’s Palmdale station, is running to unseat his boss and criticizes Luna for fostering relationships with the county board of supervisors and oversight bodies, saying his focus should be on law enforcement, not politics .

“The sheriff is more interested in protecting the political establishment,” Martinez said. “Under my leadership, the mission of the sheriff’s department is to fight crime. Our job is not to fix politics.”

Andre White, a detective with about 11 years at the department, also vowed to take a “community-oriented approach” if elected.

Some voters may recognize Sonia Montejano, a former senior deputy in the department’s court services division, as the court bailiff in the television court program “Judge Joe Brown.”

Montejano filed paperwork for the position and listed her personal website on campaign forms. Her website, however, makes no mention of her campaign or position on issues involving the department. She did not respond to requests for comment.

Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with about 390,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at the union’s expense.

UTLA is the most reliable funder of school board campaigns — and the union’s spending is not controlled by candidates.

Also exerting influence in recent elections has been the district’s other largest union: Local 99 of Service Employees International Union. It represents some 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, gardeners, cafeteria workers and technical support staff. This union has yet to endorse candidates.

A potential but diminished source of election-funding firepower would be charter school advocates — who once routinely outspent the unions.
Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield — a charter school ally who makes his own calls about whom to support — has been a big spender inrecent elections, typically as a counter to teachers-union-endorsed candidates. He has not committed to being involved in this school board election cycle.

The material below was assembled through reporting and surveys provided to candidates. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

Three seats are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, but the District 6 race is essentially a foregone conclusion: The only name on the ballot is two-term incumbent Kelly Gonez.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with close to 400,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at that union’s expense.

The material below was assembled through reporting and a survey provided to Gonez. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

The top candidates for California governor clashed over the high costs of gas, housing and homeowner’s insurance in a testy debate Tuesday evening, a fiery exchange that may finally draw voter attention as the June 2 primary election fast approaches.

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose campaign blossomed after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out amid sexual assault and misconduct allegations, came under persistent attack during the 90-minute debate but also went on the offensive.

Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican who leads all candidates in the most recent opinion polls, ripped Becerra for promising to declare a state of emergency to address rising homeowner’s insurance rates, saying the governor lacks that constitutional authority.

“We can’t have a governor who doesn’t understand how the government works,” Hilton said.

Becerra, who served as California attorney general before joining the Biden administration, quickly defended himself, saying he knows the law better than Hilton does.

“We don’t need a talking head from Fox News to tell us how the government works,” he said.

And that was after Becerra got in an early dig at Hilton, who has been endorsed by President Trump, by referring to Trump as “Hilton’s daddy.”

The debate was broadcast and livestreamed by CBS stations around the state. Hundreds of people watched from Pomona College’s historic Bridges Auditorium, a Renaissance Revival-style landmark with Art Deco flourishes that was once among the premier performance venues in Southern California.

With eight major candidates from both parties participating, CBS moderators billed it as “the largest and most inclusive debate of the election.” Becerra and Hilton were joined by Republican candidate Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democratic candidates San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, billionaire Tom Steyer, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Some takeaways from the debate:

Candidates didn’t shy away from the top issues

Moderators set the theme for the first half-hour of the debate as “affordability,” a top concern among California voters, and almost immediately the candidates began sniping and talking over one another.

Almost all of them vowed to accelerate home construction in California, pivotal to reducing the state’s high cost of housing.

There was no shortage of ideas for other ways to ease the financial burdens facing Californians, but few specifics on how they would deliver on those promises given the state’s complex and arduous legislative process.

Hilton promised to cap the price of gas at $3 per gallon, and Mahan vowed to suspend the state gas tax. Bianco said Democrats have long overregulated and overtaxed Californians, and the state’s supermajority Democratic Legislature would have to get in line with him and end those things if he’s elected.

Becerra said he would reduce prescription drug prices. Thurmond said he would provide down-payment assistance grants to those trying to own their first home.

Barbs traded over climate-caused emergencies

Anchors and reporters from local CBS stations moderated the debate, including Los Angeles anchor Pat Harvey, Sacramento anchor Tony Lopez, Bay Area anchor Ryan Yamamoto and national investigative correspondent Julie Watts. They were joined by Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College and a member of California’s independent redistricting commission.

Moderators pointed to the surge in catastrophic wildfires across the state in recent years due to climate change, as well as the threat of earthquakes, and asked the candidates how they would respond to future emergencies.

As he did throughout most of the debate, Bianco responded by bashing California’s Democratic leadership, which he said created most of the ills facing the state.

Bianco said the root causes of fire disasters in the state are “not because of climate change” but due to “failed environmental activist policies” that prevented fire departments from clearing highly flammable brush around communities for years.

Mahan, after touting his actions as a Silicon Valley mayor during emergencies, quickly pivoted to take shots at Becerra and his role as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary during the pandemic.

He said Becerra had “never met a crisis that he couldn’t ignore” and accused Becerra of failing to deal with COVID-19, monkeypox and the surge of unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.

Becerra responded by saying that his agency dealt with the crises by working with all 50 states and the federal government to quickly roll out vaccines and other resources.

“You’re not wearing a mask, are you, Matt? You’re not worried about catching monkeypox, right?” Becerra said.

Steyer also came under attack when he starting discussing his plans to “make polluters pay” for the effects of climate change. Porter criticized the former San Francisco hedge-fund founder for making millions off the oil and gas industry, and using those profits to fund his campaign for governor. Steyer has spent more than $143 million of his own money on his campaign, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the California secretary of state’s office.

“How about profiteers pay? You pay the lowest tax rate on this stage, and yet you made the billions that you’re using to fund your campaign off fossil fuels,” Porter said to Steyer.

Steyer responded that he is a “change agent” candidate opposed by special interests and pointed to campaign committees funded by utility and other industry groups opposing his bid. PG&E, the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. of Realtors have put more than $29 million into a pair of committees to fund attack ads against the billionaire.

Republicans focus on blaming Democrats

Just weeks before the June 2 primary, the race to replace term-limited Newsom remains wide open, with many voters still undecided.

Republicans Hilton and Bianco have led numerous public opinion polls while the large field of Democrats have split the vote, leading to fears among Democrats that the party could get shut out of the general election, despite outnumbering Republicans nearly two-to-one among the state’s registered voters. In California’s open primary, the top two finishers advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

The two Republicans avoided overtly attacking each other at the debate but were regularly the targets of other candidates on the stage.

Becerra, speaking about federal healthcare funding cuts approved by President Trump and congressional Republicans last year, referred to the president’s endorsement of Hilton. “The first thing we have to do is stop Steve Hilton’s daddy,” Becerra said.

Hilton responded jokingly that his father, who was the goalie for the Hungarian national ice hockey team, hadn’t weighed in on the race. And he said Becerra’s comment pointed to what is wrong with California politics — a fixation on Trump despite Democrats controlling the state for more than a decade.

“We’ve had the same people in charge for 16 years now, and it’s such a disaster and such a high cost of living for everyone, and the highest poverty rate in the country and the highest unemployment rate in the country, and the worst business plan,” Hilton said. “All these things going wrong, they can’t do anything except blame Trump. Let’s see how many times you hear that tonight.”

Bianco grew visibly frustrated several times over the debate’s format and his opponents’ answers. At different points, he compared the event to “The Twilight Zone” and called it “the hour and a half that [viewers] are never going to get back.”

Pressed on what he would do differently if elected, the Riverside sheriff also focused on criticizing Democrats and accusing them of lying.

“We have a group of of 20-ish-year-old kids and we’re just sitting here lying to them about broken Democrat policies in California for the last 20 years, and we’re going to sit here and blame a president who’s been president for a year. This is absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

Hilton has seen a bump in his polling numbers since he was endorsed by President Trump earlier this month. A CBS News/YouGov poll of more than 1,400 registered voters released Monday showed Hilton leading with 16%, followed by Steyer with 15%, Becerra with 13%, Bianco with 10%, Porter with 9%, Mahan and Villaraigosa with 4% and Thurmond with 1%. The largest group of voters — 26% — was undecided.

Nixon reported from Sacramento and Mehta reported from Claremont. Times staff writers Kevin Rector, Dakota Smith and Blanca Begert contributed to this report.

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.

JACK Fincham was spotted leaving casting for a new reality TV show just days after opening up about his rebab and homelessness.

The former Love Island star, 34, flashed a big smile as he emerged from a studio in Soho wearing a retro tracksuit.

Jack looked pleased with himself after he met with producers for a big project for a Channel 5 show.

He sported a retro look in an 1980s Sergio Tacchini tracksuit which caught the attention of a few passer by who stopped to take selfies with Jack.

Jack added a pair of aviator sunglasses to his look and black trainers.

He looked in a high spirits after spending the afternoon with bosses for a secret new telly appearance, which is yet to be announced.

READ MORE ON JACK FINCHAM

HOME HELL

Jack Fincham leaves hotel to walk ‘life-saving’ dog after revealing he’s homeless

STAR IN DOCK

Jack Fincham in court for failing to carry out unpaid work after rehab battle

Jack has had a rough time lately and credited his pet dog Elvis for helping him get through his darkest times.

The reality star confessed he’s struggling with life after rehab as he told fans he’s homeless and living in a hotel with his dog.

Earlier this year, Jack relapsed into drinking and drugs and had just £20 to his name.

He then spent two months receiving £32,000 of treatment at Rainford Hall, Merseyside.

Jack opened up on life post rehab as he took to Instagram.

He admitted that he’s currently homeless and is not sure where to go moving forward as there’s nothing “much left” for him in England.

He said: “In case anyone is wondering where I am, I’m staying a hotel with the dog. I’m just gonna reset and work out what to do and where I wanna live.

“Got my beautiful dog Elvis, without him I probably wouldn’t even be here to be honest.”

Jack has owned his black Cane Corso dog, named Elvis, since at least September 2022, when the dog was involved in a biting incident.

Despite legal trouble regarding the dog being “dangerously out of control” in 2022 and June 2024, Jack has expressed his attachment to the pet.

The second incident that occurred in June 2024 led to a suspended sentence for Jack in 2025.

Meanwhile, Jack’s relationship with his family hasn’t been the same since he returned home.

Jack added: “One thing they told me in rehab and it’s true, you’re not gonna walk out of rehab to a red carpet rolled out for you because it’s stuff you should have been doing anyway.”

He also thanked the staff from his rehab, saying “that level of kindness I wasn’t used to for a while, I found it quite alien.”

Jack remains optimistic and hopes to get back into TV, saying: “I’m gonna do my acting and get back into TV work, I’m gonna do all the things I said I was gonna do.”

Jack previously did a stint in rehab back in 2021, but relapsed before Christmas last year.

He spoke of the spiral back in January, he explained: “Since then I have done drugs, I have done laughing gas.

“I have been so drunk that I’ve kissed a woman over Christmas and don’t even remember doing it. I’m embarrassed, mortified. I feel like an idiot.

“I am a 33-year-old man. I should be settled down, married. Instead I need help.”

Jack first shot to fame on Love Island, where he won over the nation with his charm and went on to win the series.

He won the show alongside Dani Dyer in 2018.

They were paired together on day one and chose to split the £50,000 prize.

But their relationship didn’t last long once they left the villa.

Natasha Cochrane De La Rosa, 26, was born in London but has been left stranded in Spain after new UK border rules for dual nationals meant she was denied boarding on a flight back home

A British-born woman has been left stranded in Spain after falling foul of new UK border regulations that resulted in her being refused re-entry to the country.

Natasha Cochrane De La Rosa was barred from boarding a return flight from Amsterdam to Luton after spending a short holiday there with friends.

On her scheduled day of departure on April 6, the-26-year-old successfully passed through check-in, security and passport control, only to be turned away at the gate, she claimed.

The Home Office introduced updated regulations on February 25 stating that dual nationals can no longer enter the UK solely using a foreign passport.

They must now produce either a British or Irish passport or hold a digital certificate of entitlement.

Natasha was born and brought up in Islington, North London, and has a British father and Spanish mother.

As her parents were unmarried at the time of her birth, her father was unable to automatically pass on his citizenship, something Natasha says has placed her in a ‘grey area’, reports the Manchester Evening News.

She says that in order to return home, she must either pay £589 for a digital certificate of entitlement or apply for a British passport.

To do so, she explained she must ‘prove’ her mother held free movement rights across the EU at the time of her birth – documentation she says she never received.

Natasha, a client success manager who now lives in Haringey, North London, said: “I was born in Islington, I have paid taxes, I have voted. I am a dual national I do have British nationality but the government are saying none of that I have lived for 26 years matters anymore.”

Natasha is currently staying in Spain with a family friend, having booked a flight from Amsterdam to Seville after being unable to return to London.

“Luckily I am privileged enough to have a haven essentially but if I didn’t have any ties to my country, didn’t speak the language or have anywhere to stay I would have been left homeless in the Netherlands”, she said.

“I feel the government have failed and they have a responsibility to dual nationals and the population of the UK that such dramatic and important law changes are effectively communicated.

“People are commenting on my social media posts saying they would be in the same position as me if they had not come across my story. While I do take responsibility for not having checked, why would I check something that for 26 years of my life I’ve never had to do.

“The system is poorly designed and offers no support or understanding for citizens like myself who do not hit the check box but are still a British citizen.”

Natasha originally departed from Luton Airport on April 2, spending several days in Amsterdam on a holiday with friends.

On her scheduled return on April 6, she claims she was able to check in, pass through security and passport control and reached the gate of her homeward flight before being refused boarding.

She added: “They [the airline] called immigration on the phone basically were saying these new laws had come in. I was showing my birth certificate, my national insurance, my P45, my dad’s birth certificate and was still denied boarding as I had not got the right documentation.”

As her parents were unmarried at the time of her birth in 1999, Natasha’s father was unable to automatically pass on his citizenship.

She now faces two options: applying for a passport, which she fears could be rejected — as she claims there is no documentation confirming her mother held free movement rights — or paying in excess of £500 for a digital certificate of entitlement.

She added: “There was not documentation, not to my mother or anyone with free movement rights in the EU given to them by the government. How do we prove that now?

“To prove it we’re having to find HMRC documents or find anything that proves she was here legally. It was 26 and a bit years ago so it’s been a nightmare finding the documents.”

Natasha also revealed that following Brexit in 2021, her mother applied for settlement papers, as did her younger sister who was born in Spain, both of which were approved.

However, she claims she was informed she ‘didn’t qualify’ as she was already a British citizen. She added that she is currently unable to apply for the digital certificate of entitlement, as she still lacks the necessary documents from her mother – and has been advised the process could take a minimum of three to six months, or potentially up to a year, to resolve.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Since 25 February 2026, all dual British citizens need to present either a valid British passport or Certificate of Entitlement when travelling to the UK. To prove citizenship and enter the UK legally, individuals can apply for a British passport or Certificate of Entitlement from abroad.

“Public information advising dual nationals to carry the correct documentation has been available since October 2024 and a substantive communications campaign about the introduction of ETA has been running since 2023. This requirement applies to all British citizens regardless of other nationality and is the same approach taken by other countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia.”

Mayor Karen Bass has had a lengthy political career, spending six years in the state Legislature, 12 years in Congress and the last three in the top elected office at Los Angeles City Hall.

Now, facing the toughest reelection battle of her career, Bass is marketing herself in a way that might surprise some Angelenos: She’s running as a champion of change.

And she’s not alone.

City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has represented a Hollywood Hills district since 2020, says her last-minute decision to enter the race was fueled by “a sense of urgency that things needed to change.”

Three other major candidates, all political newcomers, argue that an outsider is needed to shake up the status quo.

“We can no longer keep our city together with duct tape and slurry,” said Rae Huang, a leftist community organizer, at a recent candidate forum on housing and transportation.

The race to embrace the mantle of change in the June 2 primary election comes at a moment of political peril for Bass, a veteran Democrat who has racked up high disapproval numbers in several voter surveys.

In recent months, Bass has revamped her messaging, saying she’s been tackling problems that have “been around for multiple decades,” such as homelessness, sluggish police hiring and trash-strewn streets.

Last week, speaking to the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, Bass said she wants another four years to finish that work. She also implied that, in her zeal to fix the city’s problems, she quietly pushed out a dozen high-level bureaucrats, including those who dealt with trash pickup and police recruitment.

“Let me just tell you that in three years and three months, it is difficult to change what has been a practice for over four decades,” Bass told the group. “I am very clear that there needs to be massive change, and I’ve done a lot of change.”

Raman has portrayed herself as someone who shook up the system while in office, securing a 4% cap on rent increases for more than 600,000 apartments and opposing initiatives she viewed as “disastrous” for the city’s budget. She said the city is falling short on an array of issues, including traffic deaths and housing affordability.

“So much of what’s happening in L.A., our inability to address our biggest crises — our housing crisis, our homelessness crisis, but also essential services like lights and potholes — so much of this has resulted from a lack of clear urgency in decision-making at City Hall,” said Raman, the first L.A. council member to win office with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Those types of arguments have elicited salty responses from Huang, tech entrepreneur Adam Miller and conservative reality TV personality Spencer Pratt.

Miller, who described himself as a lifelong Democrat, pointed out that Raman runs the powerful five-member council committee on housing and homelessness. He argued that both she and Bass have failed on those issues, as well as on public safety and much needed infrastructure repairs.

“These are the people who have been running the government,” said Miller, who made a fortune developing education software. “So I don’t understand how they could describe themselves as change-makers. They’re the ones who have been the problem.”

Pratt offered a similar take on social media, calling Raman and Bass “two peas in a pod,” while portraying himself as a change agent.

“I’m a wrecking ball to the status quo,” he said in one post.

Neither Pratt nor his representative responded to an interview request.

In one recent high-profile poll, about 56% of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of Bass. In another, about 40% of those surveyed said they had not yet made up their minds about who should lead the city.

“It’s clear that there are concerns among voters about the direction of the city — and the state, quite frankly,” said Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani, referring to the race for governor. “In both instances, there are lackluster candidates, and so we see voters being very much undecided in both of these incredibly consequential races.”

The election season got underway a little more than a year after the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.

Bass, who was out of the country when the fire broke out, was unsteady in her early public appearances and, since then, has faced sharp criticism over the pace of the rebuilding. She has defended her record on the recovery, saying she cut red tape and suspended city permit fees, while also pressing the Trump administration to crack down on insurance companies that fail to compensate wildfire survivors.

The back-and-forth over change and the status quo broke to the surface during last month’s housing forum in downtown L.A.

At one point, Raman voiced alarm over the city’s elevated “people mover” being built at Los Angeles International Airport, saying it is so far behind schedule that it won’t be ready before the World Cup, which starts in June.

Raman said that as mayor, she would ensure that such projects are finished on time — and replace airport leadership if it fails to happen.

“Nithya, you’ve been on City Council for six years, though,” Huang shot back. “Why have you not moved this forward?”

(At five years and four months, Raman’s tenure is slightly less than that.)

Raman countered that, as a council member, she only has control over certain issues.

“So much of what’s going wrong in Los Angeles requires the mayor to get involved,” she said.

Bass did not attend the forum, traveling instead to New Orleans for a reelection fundraiser. Pratt also skipped. In their absence, the three remaining candidates pounded on a wide array of municipal ills, including broken sidewalks, high rents and sluggish housing production.

Raman, at that event and elsewhere, has sought to differentiate herself from Bass, and City Hall more broadly, by highlighting her dissenting votes.

In 2023, Raman opposed a package of police pay increases negotiated by Bass, saying they were too expensive and would deprive other city departments of funding. Last year, she voted against a $2.6-billion upgrade of the Convention Center, citing similar long-term cost concerns.

Bass, for her part, said she’s been shifting the direction of the city in critical ways. Previous city leaders were too hesitant to build temporary housing for homeless people, she said, leaving them to languish on sidewalks while waiting for government-funded apartments to be built.

After taking office in 2022, Bass declared a local emergency on homelessness and launched her Inside Safe initiative, which has put thousands of people into hotels and motels. Raman signed off on the emergency and the funding for Inside Safe but now says the program is too expensive.

The mayor said she also pushed for changes in LAPD hiring, not just by making officers’ salaries more competitive, but by hacking away at a slow and bureaucratic recruitment process. Speaking to the Palisades Democrats, Bass said she got that done, in part, by changing the leadership and staff at the city’s personnel department.

Bass told the group she’s preparing to launch an initiative to clean up the city’s streets — and that she made a personnel move in that regard as well.

“In terms of cleanliness, I’ve had to change the leadership of the Department of Sanitation, because I couldn’t get the job done,” she said.

Sadhwani, the Pomona College professor, said she doubts that voters will view Bass as a reform candidate. Raman, she argued, is also part of the establishment.

“They cannot run from the fact that they have been in power,” she said.

It was a risky move and Jonathan Torres knew it, but he did it anyway. He let an out-of-town guest stay with him in his room.

Torres, 40, had been living at the Highland Park Motel as part of Inside Safe, Mayor Karen Bass’ flagship program to combat homelessness. He and his neighbors, many of them from a downtown encampment, were told that visitors were not allowed.

Still, Torres kept having people over. After the third violation, he said, the facility kicked him out.

Jonathan Torres spent about two years in a city-leased motel in Highland Park. He told The Times he was kicked out of the facility in December.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s nobody’s fault but my own, but I just feel it’s unfair,” said Torres, who now lives in a tent in Chinatown. “In the real world, you’re allowed to have people come over. You have visitors. That’s part of keeping your sanity, you know?”

Los Angeles has spent more than $300 million on Inside Safe since Bass launched the program in December 2022, clearing scores of homeless encampments and moving about 5,800 people into interim housing — mostly hotels and motels. The goal was to get each of those people into permanent housing, typically taxpayer-funded apartments.

But even as the mayor’s initiative brings more people indoors, a growing number are winding up back on the street.

The longer the program exists, the greater the share of participants who have returned to “unsheltered” homelessness, according to monthly dashboards which were posted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, and analyzed by The Times.

Jeremiah Flores, center, packs up his belongings during an Inside Safe operation in North Hollywood last month.

In 2023, at the program’s one-year mark, nearly 20% had returned to the street, according to numbers posted by LAHSA at the time.

Halfway into Bass’ four-year term, the figure had climbed above 30%.

In December, as the program finished its third year, about 40% of the people who had gone indoors — 2,300 of the 5,800 — were back on the street, according to LAHSA’s dashboard. That includes people who were kicked out of their housing or disappeared from the system altogether.

The growing exodus reflects the challenges Bass faces while trying to help some of the city’s neediest residents, many of whom struggle with mental health conditions, substance use issues or major physical ailments.

Workers with Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program clean up a homeless encampment along Hollywood Boulevard in 2024.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Bass, asked about the worrisome trend, said she believes that Inside Safe participants need more services to address those issues. She also said she suspects that the longer people stay, the more likely they are to violate the rules and face expulsion.

The goal of Inside Safe is to find permanent homes within 90 days, with a maximum stay of six months, according to the written agreement issued by the city to each participant.

At this point, the average stay is 362 days — just shy of a year, according to recent LAHSA figures.

Bass did not offer any definitive conclusions, saying the city now has outside researchers assessing the problem.

“It’s critically important that we look at the people who left, why they left [and] what do we need to do strengthen the interim housing that we have,” she said. “I have my opinions about it, but the opinions have to be based in science.”

Bass has staked much of her reelection campaign on her handling of the homelessness crisis, which she made a top priority as soon as she took office. She credits Inside Safe with producing a 17.5% drop in “unsheltered homelessness” — people living outdoors or in their vehicles — over a two-year span. That number fell from about 33,000 to nearly 27,000, according to the most recent homeless count.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass prepares to leave a homeless encampment along the San Diego (405) Freeway in Van Nuys targeted by Inside Safe in July. “The homeless should never be living in these conditions,” she said.

By clearing encampments, Inside Safe also benefits the surrounding community, making sidewalks more accessible and reducing the number of encampment fires, Bass said.

UCLA Law School professor emeritus Gary Blasi, an expert on homelessness, said the program has become too expensive to justify the results — and is in need of “a thorough re-engineering.”

Blasi said there were never enough vouchers and low-cost apartments to provide permanent housing to Inside Safe participants in a timely way. As a result, the city has been paying for them to live in expensive motel rooms for long stretches, he said.

“Once they started having people in interim housing for nine months or a year, that should have rang some alarm bells, because that’s just not sustainable,” he said.

Last summer, the Inside Safe program cleared away a large homeless encampment next to the San Diego Freeway in Van Nuys. Some residents went to the Budget Inn in North Hills.

Inside Safe participants also face a wide array of rules. They are barred from leaving the premises for three consecutive days without prior approval. Alcohol and illegal drugs are prohibited in their rooms, which are inspected multiple times a day.

Participants also are frequently barred from bringing in outside food, to keep from attracting roaches, mice and other pests.

“The rules are dumb. They treat houseless people like children. They don’t give people agency,” said Paisley Mares, who lives in an RV in the San Fernando Valley and has several friends who took part in the program.

Executives with the nonprofit groups that run the Inside Safe facilities said the restrictions are needed to protect residents, keeping them on track to find permanent housing.

Violence, threats of violence and property damage are prohibited, and can result in immediate removal from the program. The ban on guests is designed to prevent people from being physically attacked, sexually assaulted or engaging in high-risk behavior, such as drug use, behind closed doors, those nonprofit leaders said.

“We are bringing people indoors, mostly from encampments, where drugs are often the trade of the street. There is also often physical violence. That’s the way people survive on the streets,” said John Maceri, chief executive officer of the nonprofit the People Concern, which runs two Inside Safe motels in Hollywood. “All of those behaviors don’t stop when people come into an Inside Safe setting.”

Executives at the People Concern estimate that 50% to 65% of the shelter clients they work with — not just for Inside Safe, but other homeless housing programs — have serious issues with drugs or alcohol. The number with serious mental health issues, particularly trauma, is also “very high,” they said.

Inside Safe providers acknowledged that motel rooms can be a huge adjustment, leaving people feeling lonely and isolated. They said they work closely with participants to improve their behavior — and turn to expulsion only as a last resort.

“My goal is never to exit anyone to the streets,” said Joseph Bradford III, chief executive officer of BARE Truth, which runs two Inside Safe motels on the Eastside. “I want to keep people inside until they find permanent housing.”

By now, Inside Safe operations are a well-oiled machine. Sanitation trucks roll up to encampments. Traffic officers cordon off the sidewalk with yellow tape. Encampment residents lug their bags onto a bus and head to their destinations.

Robert Martinez, 40, moved to a Budget Inn in North Hills last summer from an encampment near the 405 Freeway. He had been homeless for about five years and jobless even longer, he said.

Martinez, who used to work at a water filtration company, said the Inside Safe motel was better than the street. Still, he chafed at the rules. He wanted his children to visit, which was not permitted.

In November, after learning that a beloved uncle had died, Martinez left the motel for several days — and didn’t “want to be around anybody.”

When he returned, he said, program staffers informed him he’d been away more than 72 hours and would have to leave.

“I had 30 minutes to get my stuff,” said Martinez, who has been living on a sidewalk in Van Nuys.

Erica Y. Pena, left, and Jose Monteon at a homeless encampment in Van Nuys. Monteon told The Times he spent about two months in an Inside Safe motel last year.

(David Butow / For The Times)

Jose Monteon, 29, moved into the same motel as part of the same Inside Safe operation. He said he was kicked out two months later, after program managers accused him of fighting and making threats.

Monteon, who has spent some nights sleeping his car, denied getting physical. But he admitted expressing frustration over the theft of his bicycle and other possessions.

“Yes, I said some s—. But I never said it to a specific person,” he said. “I said ‘Whoever I find out is taking my s—, I’m going to stab their b— ass.’”

Monteon corrected himself. “My bad — poke. I didn’t say stab, I said poke.”

Ken Craft, whose nonprofit supervises the Budget Inn, declined to discuss specific cases. But he said his staff gives Inside Safe participants three chances — unless they have engaged in threats or violence — and tries to find another place for them to go.

“We’re trying to end homelessness, not have people recycle back to homelessness,” he said.

Even with its challenges, Inside Safe has been gradually moving a greater percentage of its residents into permanent housing, where they are no longer governed by such a wide array of rules.

In December, about one out of every four people who participated in Inside Safe since its inception was in permanent housing, according to that month’s LAHSA dashboard. Two years earlier, that figure was about 15%.

Once the program’s hotels, motels and other temporary lodging are factored in, about 55% were in some form of housing.

Bass said those facilities are a vast improvement over the street, providing bathrooms, heating, air conditioning, hot showers, three meals a day and doors that lock. The program is one of several reasons why Los Angeles County officials reported a double-digit reduction in the homeless mortality rate in 2024, she said.

“The value of the interim housing, number one, is to save lives,” Bass said.

Torres, the Inside Safe participant now in a tent in Chinatown, experienced the difference. He entered the program with a history of gastrointestinal issues and abdominal surgeries.

Jonathan Torres walks his dog in November. At the time, he was living in an Inside Safe motel in Highland Park.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“The whole time I had my housing, not once did I get sick or have to be hospitalized,” said Torres, who grew up in Redlands and Baldwin Park.

Torres said he was in the program for nearly two years. The longer he stayed, the more frustrated he grew over the wait for permanent housing.

In November, Torres told The Times he had received a notice stating that he had violated the motel’s prohibition on guests and was in danger of being expelled.

By then, he was worried about his health and his dog Waku, a Belgian Malinois/Akita mix. (The program allows “emotional support” animals.)

First To Serve, the nonprofit that supervises the hotel, did not respond to inquiries from The Times.

Even after the written notice, Torres struggled to comply with the rules. He said he allowed a woman from out of state to stay in his room for more than a week during last year’s rains.

The day after Christmas, he was back on the street.

In February, his dog was struck and killed by a car. Days later, sanitation workers cleared the encampment where he’d been living. Soon afterward, he was in the hospital, receiving treatment for a blockage in his bowels.

He eventually returned to Chinatown, setting up another tent. He’s been using meth, saying it helps with his medical issues.

For now, Torres has found some of the companionship he craved. In recent days, he’s been sharing his tent with his new girlfriend.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is singling out the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority as a cautionary tale about Democratic mismanagement of publicly funded programs, using it to justify proposed cuts to homeless assistance services across the country.

Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, released Friday, asks Congress to eliminate the Continuum of Care — a federal program that funds housing and services for homeless Americans — citing concerns about “fraud and corruption” among local agencies that administer it.

The White House points to LAHSA, which manages many homeless services for the city and county, as the example of why the program needs to go.

The agency has faced criticism locally for years for lack of proper oversight and the county is in the process of transitioning programs to an internal department.

“LAHSA has an abysmal record of reducing what is the highest number of street homeless individuals in the United States, and an independent audit issued in March 2025 found that the authority failed to accurately track billions of Federal and local dollars,” the budget says.

The local agency pushed back in a statement after the budget was released.

“Cutting this funding or destabilizing the Continuum of Care program would directly result in more tents on our streets, not fewer,” said Gita O’Neill, the agency’s interim chief executive, adding that under its leadership unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles has fallen 15% and that 90% of the program’s funding goes “directly to rental assistance.”

Local officials are already grappling with homeless service cuts at the state and county level given budget constraints and LAHSA warned Trump’s proposal would make matters worse.

“If anything, we need additional funding to cover rising costs, not fewer, to maintain our current momentum,” the agency said Friday.

The funding dispute over homelessness services is one front in a broader budget assault on California programs by the Trump administration.

Trump’s proposal also asks Congress to eliminate millions in funding from state initiatives the White House is characterizing as wasteful, ineffective or “woke.”

The cuts, if enacted, would cancel $4 billion in unspent funding for the state’s high-speed rail project, which the White house called a “boondoggle,” and strip grants from the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, which the budget criticized for “actively working to dismantle systems of power and privilege that favor whiteness.”

Smaller items are also targeted on the White House’s chopping block: a Los Angeles gelato festival, a dance building in Santa Cruz — which the White House dubs “one of the richest cities in the nation” — and a $3-million grant for a playground tied to an unspecified performing arts center in California.

Trump’s proposed cuts to California projects are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshape federal spending priorities, largely by trading social programs for a massive military buildup.

The president is asking Congress to approve $1.5 trillion for defense and to slash $73 billion from domestic programs, a massive restructuring that would leave states, including California, to absorb costs Washington no longer wants to carry.

Trump made that vision explicit at a private Easter lunch at the White House on Wednesday, telling guests that the federal government should no longer be responsible for funding social programs that many Americans rely on.

“We can’t take care of daycare. We are a big country,” Trump said. “We are fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare.”

If states want to offer those services, Trump said, they should raise taxes to pay for them.

“Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis,” he said. “We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”

His proposed budget reflects that priority, which lawmakers will need to contend with as they grapple with the mounting costs of the Iran war and an economic fallout from a military operation that has left Americans paying more items, including gas pump.

Under the proposed budget, Trump is also seeking to make some investments in California projects.

The White House, for example, is seeking $152 million from Congress to turn Alcatraz back into a maximum-security prison, an idea the president has talked about for several years.

He also called on Congress to establish a National Center for Warrior Independence at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.

Times staff writer Andrew Khouri, in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.

It has a microwave and a radiator

At garage has been put on Airbnb, complete with bed, bathroom and microwave cooker, and r eviewer Zac Jones said he loved it after booking in for a stay.

A video, which has amassed more than 86k likes on social media, showed the property behind an electric security shutter which rose to reveal the entrance door. Inside it was radiator-heated with a double bed, couch, TV, ensuite toilet and shower.

It even had a fridge. Before his stay, Zac said he really didn’t know what to expect. But once inside, he said he was very pleasantly surprised.

He said: “Someone has put a lot of effort in. It’s got snacks, and tea and coffee-making facilities. Shout out to the owner of this place. This has been one of my most interesting check-ins in a while.”

The garage in Bradford, West Yorkshire is available for £30. Viewers were impressed. One person said: “For the price, it actually looks good.” Another viewer added: “30 quid! I’ve stayed in worse for 100.”

And a third commenter said: “This is totally fantastic idea. If all the planning and building controls have been met. The Government should pay attention to ideas like this. Can you just imagine the very quick fix for many of homeless people.”

When he entered the race for California governor, San José Mayor Matt Mahan pitched himself as a pragmatic Democrat who would prioritize improving residents’ quality of life and government efficiency.

He unveiled a key part of that promise on Tuesday with an expansive plan to reform state government, including tying pay raises for elected officials and other top leaders to improvements on key issues, and pledging not to approve any tax increase until the state proves “that we can deliver better outcomes with the dollars we already have.”

Mahan also delivered a blistering rebuke of ballooning state spending — which, as he often points out on the campaign trail, has increased nearly 75% over the last six years. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying economic uncertainty, California lawmakers approved a no-frills state budget that came in at $202 billion. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest spending proposal is nearly $349 billion.

“We have fallen into this lazy, reflexive mindset of always going back to voters and telling them that the only solution to every problem is a tax increase or a new bond or a new rule coming down from Sacramento,” Mahan said in an interview. “We need to step back and take a really hard look at our existing spending and increase the level of transparency and accountability in government.”

His eight-page plan includes ways to measure and track accountability, some of which are drawn from policies in other states. They include lobbying reforms, following up on audit recommendations and overhauling the state’s digital infrastructure and its procurement process — services Mahan described as “clunky and cumbersome.”

He also proposed a “California Performance Review,” inspired by a similar effort in Texas throughout the 1990s, that would review state agencies and solicit input from employees to eliminate waste and inefficiencies.

But near the top of the list is a proposal to tie pay raises for state officials including the governor, lawmakers and thousands of gubernatorial appointees to “measurable outcomes” in areas such as reducing homelessness and unemployment.

“People in the real world don’t get raises if they don’t do a good job,” Mahan said, “and I think it should be the same for the politicians and senior administrators who are allocating budgets, leading projects, making the big decisions on behalf of the people of California.”

Though the benchmarks would be created with input from the state Legislature, Mahan floated one example: reducing unsheltered homelessness by 5% to 10% within one year, something he said he’s accomplished three years in a row in San José.

It’s a solution one might expect from a former entrepreneur and mayor of a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. Mahan made a similar proposal at the local level last year, but it was rejected by the City Council.

“Tying pay to performance is nothing short of revolutionary in government. It’s a private-sector model that is overdue,” said former state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), a Mahan supporter who sponsored several bills aiming to increase transparency in government.

Dozens of tech company executives are backing Mahan in the race for governor and have collectively donated millions to his campaign, as well as two independent expenditure committees supporting him.

That has raised concerns from some voters, and criticism from some of Mahan’s opponents, that he would be beholden to their interests and veto future regulations on tech or artificial intelligence companies.

Mahan has sought to dispel those concerns, arguing that he believes AI and social media platforms should be regulated. Of his plan to overhaul state information technology systems and infrastructure, he said that “whenever we spend public dollars, we have to run open, transparent and competitive procurement processes that ensure best value for the taxpayers.”

Though Mahan did not specify how he would link government outcomes to pay raises, state lawmakers have largely panned his campaign and are unlikely to get on board. The change probably would also require voter approval.

Currently, annual raises for elected officials are determined by a citizen commission that was added to the California Constitution in 1990. Changing how that panel works or imposing limits on when it can approve raises would require a constitutional amendment, which requires voter sign-off.

But Mahan contended it would be one of the fastest ways to fix a system that he says works for special interests at the expense of working people.

“I’m under no illusion that this will be easy, but I think it’s a necessary realignment of incentives,” he said. “We have to make ourselves as accountable to the people as we possibly can be.”