Spencer Pratt’s Mayoral Bid Highlights Los Angeles Housing, Homelessness, and Wildfire Recovery Challenges

Former reality-TV star Spencer Pratt announced his mayoral bid on the one-year anniversary of the 2025 Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires. The nonpartisan primary is on May 31, 2026. Pratt, backed by donors including the Winklevoss twins, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, Lakers president Jeanie Buss and hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb, focuses on housing costs, fire recovery and homelessness, challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and councilmember-candidate Nithya Raman.

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The 2025 fires destroyed over 16,000 structures, leaving residents awaiting rebuilding and insurance payments. Los Angeles has the lowest homes-per-person ratio among major U.S. cities, with rents rising from $611,000 in 2018 to over $960,000 in 2026. The crises have intensified scrutiny of city response.

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Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority counted 43,000 homeless individuals on a night in 2025—23 % above 2019. Bass says her administration accelerated nearly 40,000 housing units. Thousands have filed rebuilding applications, yet only a fraction of homes have been restored.

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Pratt says homelessness is a drug-addiction issue, urging treatment and stricter enforcement, and blames city inefficiency for slow fire recovery. Bass highlighted her housing-production record; Raman’s plan expands affordable housing and curbs rent spikes.

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Benjamin Henwood, director of USC’s Center for Homelessness Research, argues that addiction and mental illness do not drive homelessness; housing affordability does. Kaye Steinsapir, whose Pacific Palisades home was damaged, described rebuilding as a long and frustrating process, saying every single thing is a struggle, and warned Pratt’s focus on arrests would not solve problem.

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Pratt claims homelessness stems from drug addiction and calls for mandatory treatment, while USC researcher Benjamin Henwood cites housing affordability as the primary driver. Pratt has not released a detailed housing-affordability plan despite repeated requests.

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The race pits a celebrity-backed outsider against established officials in a city facing a housing crunch, homelessness, and post-fire recovery. Election results could reshape policy priorities and determine Los Angeles’s response to these crises.

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Voters will decide the top two candidates on May 31, with a runoff in November.

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• “Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Raman, they think empty beds, they think it’s a housing problem. It’s a drug addiction problem.” — Spencer Pratt, candidate

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• “How much is it driving homelessness? The answer is that it’s not.” — Benjamin Henwood

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• “It’s not that LA has higher rates of mental illness or addiction than, say, Milwaukee or Detroit, but we have higher rates of homelessness. What’s the difference? It’s housing affordability.” — Benjamin Henwood

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• “It’s 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.” — Kaye Steinsapir, community organizer

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