My 4-Step Plan for Homeless/Mental Health
For decades, we’ve been told that leaving people on the streets is “compassion.”
It’s not.
After 30 years of a one-size-fits-all “Housing First” approach — with little accountability and almost no treatment — we now have the most expensive homeless system in the world and some of the worst outcomes. People are suffering, neighborhoods are overwhelmed, and families are losing loved ones to addiction and untreated mental illness.
We can do better — and we must.
Treatment First. Accountability First.
1. Mandatory Treatment for Severe Addiction and Serious Mental Illness
When someone is so impaired that they cannot care for themselves, leaving them in a tent is not compassion — it’s neglect. I support mandatory treatment for individuals with severe addiction or serious mental illness so they can stabilize, recover, and reclaim their lives.
2. Expand Psychiatric Health Facilities Across Southern California
We closed too many psychiatric facilities and never replaced them. I support a major expansion of inpatient and long-term psychiatric care so people in crisis have a place to go other than jail, emergency rooms, or the streets.
3. A National Audit of Homelessness Spending
Southern California spends billions every year on homelessness — yet the crisis keeps getting worse. I support a full national audit of homelessness spending in our region to expose waste, failed programs, and money that never reached the people it was meant to help.
4. Require Measurable Results — Not Ideology
Taxpayers deserve results, not slogans. I support tying funding to measurable outcomes: treatment completion, stability, and real recovery — not endless spending with no accountability.
Fixing the System, Not Just the Symptoms
Integrate mental health care directly with healthcare funding
Scale proven models like One Safe Place and Crisis Stabilization Units (CSUs) across Southern California
Stop forcing police, hospitals, and families to fill gaps created by failed policies
This issue is personal. Every tent represents a human being — someone’s son, daughter, parent, or friend.
But pretending that addiction and mental illness don’t require treatment is not kindness. It’s abandonment.
Leaving people to die in tents is not compassion. Treatment is.
Thank you for standing with me as we fight for solutions that actually save lives.