Homelessness question to drive L.A. voting Tuesday; dozens of cities to host mayoral elections

With control of the House and the Senate hanging in the balance, Americans will take to the polls Tuesday for this year’s highly anticipated midterm elections. Along with closely watched national contests, 34 of the nation’s 100 largest cities by population are holding mayoral elections—which could influence policy decisions impacting some of the most difficult challenges mayors face, like homelessness.

Among those mayoral elections, a race in Los Angeles, Calif., is particularly notable. On the ballot are Democrats Karen Bass—a social worker who was first elected into public office in 2004, has served as U.S. representative for California’s 37th congressional district since 2011—is running against Rick Caruso, a billionaire businessman who founded a real estate company. Caruso also served on Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power Commission, on the USC Board of Trustees and as president of Los Angeles’ Police Commission, according to Ballotpedia.

The two candidates advanced from the June 7 primary election, as neither one received at least 50 percent of the vote. They’re vying to replace Incumbent Mayor Eric Garcetti, who wasn’t eligible for re-election due to term limits. Along with national issues that have trickled down to the local level, voters will be considering which candidate they think can best handle the city’s “public health, public safety and economic crisis of homelessness,” according to Bass’ campaign website, which “has evolved into a full-blown humanitarian emergency.  40,000 people sleep on the streets of LA every night—more than in any other city in the nation.”

To address the situation, Caruso has proposed declaring a local state of emergency, which could give the city leverage to receive more federal funding: “We must come together and demand help from federal and state governments immediately. We must work with urgency to get people off the streets, into housing, and treated with proper services,” his campaign website says.

Bass, on the other hand, has called for “a comprehensive approach that addresses the immediate crisis along with the root causes: lack of affordable housing, health care, access to job opportunities and residential alcohol and drug treatment.” Her plan aims to marshal federal dollars around a “single plan” that includes a goal of ending street encampments by moving 15,000 people per year into temporary or long-term housing.

Whoever wins, they’ll be charged with immediately addressing the homelessness crisis. The most recent data on the number of homeless people in the city released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority last month suggests that the homelessness curve, which spiked in recent years, is flattening. Over three nights in February, there were an estimated 41,980 people without a home, an increase of 1.7 percent over 2020. Comparatively, the city saw a 32 percent increase in homelessness between 2018 and 2020. Officials have attributed that slowdown to federal assistance programs and local economic policies such as eviction moratoriums that were enacted during the pandemic.

“If there’s one thing you take away from these results, I want you to see how policy and investments matter. ​Tenant protections and rental assistance helped people stay in their homes and out of homelessness,” said Molly Rysman, acting co-executive director of Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority in a statement. With most of those programs soon coming to an end, “now our community is in a precarious position. If these policies end, it is entirely possible that future homeless counts could show significant increases. We need those critical policies to continue.”

Other cities with contested mayoral elections and races include Anaheim, Long Beach, Oakland and San Jose, Calif.; Austin and Denton, Tx.; Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C.; Columbia, Mo.; Gainesville, Pensacola and Tallahassee, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; Milwaukee, Wisc.; Norman and Oklahoma City, Ok.; North Las Vegas and Reno, Nv.; Providence, R.I.; Shreveport, La.; and Washington, D.C. 

As voters head into the midterm elections Tuesday, the mayors of American cities lean heavily Democrat. Sixty-two of the nation’s 100 largest cities were run by a Democrat heading into this year, while 26 were registered Republicans, four were Independent and seven were nonpartisan, according to Ballotpedia.

Following the mayoral elections Tuesday, complete results can be viewed on the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ website.