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<\/p>\nSummary<\/p>\n
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt is running a surprisingly competitive campaign for Los Angeles mayor ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
\n Pratt has built his campaign around frustrations with housing costs, wildfire recovery and homelessness in the nation’s second-largest city.
\n His message is resonating with voters angered by slow rebuilding after fires that destroyed more than 16,000 structures last year.<\/p>\n
\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n
\n A surprisingly competitive mayoral campaign from former reality television star Spencer Pratt has thrust some of Los Angeles\u2019 economic anxieties into the national spotlight ahead of Tuesday\u2019s nonpartisan primary election.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pratt has built his campaign around frustration with the city\u2019s leadership and direction after the Pacific Palisades home he shared with his wife, fellow \u201cThe Hills\u201d co-star Heidi Montag, and their two children was destroyed by the devastating fires that ravaged Los Angeles last year. In viral campaign videos, he has portrayed Los Angeles as poorly managed and struggling to recover from overlapping crises.\n <\/p>\n
\n The message appears to be resonating: Recent polls show Pratt competitive with Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman and within striking distance of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pratt\u2019s rise comes when many living in the country\u2019s second-largest city grapple with a deep uncertainty about its future.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n For more than a century, Los Angeles built a reputation of selling glamour and reinvention. But in recent years, economic pressures have mounted. Housing costs have soared, deepening affordability worries and homelessness. The entertainment industry, one of the city\u2019s defining economic engines, has slowed due to production cutbacks and broader changes in Hollywood<\/a>. International tourism has fallen sharply<\/a>, as fear about wildfire destruction and ICE raids across parts of the city has kept more travelers away.\n <\/p>\n \n At the same time, recovery<\/a> from the Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, has further intensified frustrations around rebuilding, insurance costs and the city government\u2019s response to crises.\n <\/p>\n \n Much of Pratt\u2019s campaign has centered on dissatisfaction with the city\u2019s direction and calls to disrupt the political status quo, though he has released fewer detailed policy plans than some rival candidates.\n <\/p>\n \n Pratt announced his campaign on the one-year anniversary of the fires and has said he decided to run after growing frustrated with what he describes as government failures that contributed to the scale of the destruction.\n <\/p>\n \n The city\u2019s visible homelessness has become a potent symbol of government dysfunction among many LA residents. The issue has been a core tenet of Pratt\u2019s campaign.\n <\/p>\n \n There were more than 43,000 people who experienced homelessness on any given night in the city in 2025, according<\/a> to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. While homelessness in the city has declined since peaking in 2023, the population of unhoused residents remains roughly 23% higher than it was in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.\n <\/p>\n \n Pratt argues that the city \u201cdoesn\u2019t have a homelessness problem,\u201d but rather, a drug problem. Many of the city\u2019s homelessness issues would be solved simply by \u201cenforcing the laws\u201d and arresting drug users or bringing them to treatment centers, he has said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMayor Bass and Councilwoman Raman, they think empty beds, they think it\u2019s a housing problem. It\u2019s a drug addiction problem,\u201d Pratt said on CNN\u2019s \u201cThe Lead\u201d on Thursday. \u201cOf course, we need to house and find shelter and rehabs for these people, but we need to have mandatory treatment for people that are on drugs.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The data does not support Pratt\u2019s claims, said Benjamin Henwood, the director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the University of Southern California.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cClearly, issues of addiction and mental illness are significant and important because we know there are higher rates among the homeless population,\u201d he said. \u201cHow much is it driving homelessness? The answer is that it\u2019s not.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s not that LA has higher rates of mental illness or addiction than, say, Milwaukee or Detroit, but we have higher rates of homelessness. What\u2019s the difference? It\u2019s housing affordability,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n \n A Pew analysis<\/a> from 2023 found that rising rents are closely tied to increases in homelessness in metro areas.\n <\/p>\n \n Like many major US cities, Los Angeles has long struggled with a severe housing shortage, pushing home prices and rents sharply higher in recent years. The average home price in the city was $611,000 at the start of 2018, according to Zillow data. Today, it\u2019s over $960,000.\n <\/p>\n \n Los Angeles has the fewest homes per person of any major US city, according to Raman\u2019s campaign website.\n <\/p>\n \n The shortage of affordable homes has emerged as a central issue in the mayoral race. Raman\u2019s campaign website dedicates roughly 1,400 words to plans aimed at improving housing affordability, while Bass\u2019s campaign touts policies it says have \u201caccelerated nearly 40,000 units of housing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Pratt has said relatively little about increasing housing supply and did not respond to CNN\u2019s request for details on a housing affordability plan. He has, however, argued that clearing homeless encampments would help improve housing conditions across the city.\n <\/p>\n \n Pratt has tied the city\u2019s slow recovery after the Palisades and Eaton fires last year to a broader ineptitude in government.\n <\/p>\n \n So far, only a tiny fraction of the homes destroyed have been rebuilt, despite thousands of submitted rebuild applications, according to LA County\u2019s tracker<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n For many fire victims, the process has been a struggle.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s been a very long and frustrating process trying to get back home, trying to get insurance companies to pay what they owe. Every single thing is a struggle,\u201d said Kaye Steinsapir, a community organizer in the Pacific Palisades whose home was partially destroyed by last year\u2019s fires. \u201cEverything is like pulling teeth, and people are justifiably angry about the circumstances.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Pratt\u2019s campaign, built largely on grievance, is attracting support from high-profile donors in Hollywood and the business world, including cryptocurrency billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss and billionaire hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, according<\/a> to publicly available campaign donations.\n <\/p>\n \n Steinsapir said she appreciated how Pratt\u2019s active social media presence kept the fires in the spotlight months after TV cameras moved on.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere has been a misperception that everyone is wealthy and people don\u2019t need help. That\u2019s not true,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n However, Steinsapir said she has made it known to members of her Palisades community that she isn\u2019t planning to vote for Pratt as mayor.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSome of what he\u2019s saying is cruel. My own mother has been homeless on and off for the last 10 years. This is something that affects me very personally,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as going out and saying \u2018we\u2019re going to go and arrest everybody.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt is running a surprisingly competitive campaign for Los Angeles mayor ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-706139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tents](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gettyimages-2261848805.jpg\")
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