When Eric Garcetti ran for mayor in 2013, he spoke about ending chronic homelessness and, shortly after being elected, emphatically stated that crime and violence would not increase under his watch. He spoke with verve of focusing on economic growth and luring the film and television industry back to Hollywood.
During his second inaugural address, Garcetti, who won his bid for reelection by a landslide in 2017, said he wanted to bring the Olympic Games back to Los Angeles while also acknowledging that the city continued to be challenged by crime and homelessness.
As he prepares to leave office after 9½ years leading the nation’s second-most populous city, Garcetti, in an interview Friday, Dec. 9, reflected on the highs and lows of his administration.
“It’s the toughest job you can have in politics, and it’s the best job you can ever have in politics. … You celebrate city championship sports, and then you are visiting the victim of a shooting in the hospital. You celebrate winning (the bid to host) the Olympics , and then have to deal with a pandemic,” the two-term mayor said.
The lifelong Angeleno said he’s most proud of his administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic — from feeding senior citizens to opening some of the largest testing and vaccination sites — and efforts to start building “the city of the future” by taking measures to reduce homelessness, improve rapid transit and address climate change.
He also ticked off other issues he believes have seen great improvements.
In his 2013 inaugural speech, Garcetti said he would be a “back-to-basics mayor.” This week, the veteran politician said the city’s Department of Water and Power once had 40-minute call wait times for the public, roads were “the laughingstock of late night television” and the city was nearing bankruptcy.
Now, he said, the wait time for DWP calls has been slashed to mere seconds, roads are smoother and the city is in much better fiscal shape.
But like any mayor, Garcetti managed to see some of his goals through to fruition but fell short on others, according to political observers and others who pay attention to City Hall ongoings.
Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, dean’s professor of political science at the University of Southern California, gave Garcetti high marks for the city’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and moving homeless individuals into safe spaces through Project Roomkey and Project Homekey.
She also said he demonstrated leadership during the 2019 teachers strike when he helped broker an agreement between the Los Angeles Unified School District and teachers union, and said he championed for gender equity in terms of hirings and salaries in city departments.
That said, Hancock Alfaro said L.A.’s homelessness crisis will overshadow such accomplishments.
“All of those highlights got swallowed up by the homeless problem,” she said. “It’s politics. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not. Voters are going to hold him accountable. … Most voters are going to look to the mayor to say ‘Why has homelessness increased under his watch?’”
When Garcetti became mayor in 2013, the city’s homeless population was 22,993. That number has since ballooned to an estimated 41,980, according to a count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the region’s homeless agency, earlier this year.
While running for office in 2013, Garcetti reportedly said at a candidates forum, “I will end homelessness as mayor,” according to LA Weekly, and in 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that the mayor sought to reduce street homelessness by half by 2023 and to reduce it to “functional zero” by 2028.
Garcetti on Friday said he did not believe that he declared he would eradicate homelessness outright, but that it should be the city’s goal to end chronic homelessness. To that end, he said, the city has increased its homelessness budget from $10 million a year to over $1 billion and is expecting to end the year with more than 2,500 new housing units for the homeless.
“We’ve done more in five years than in 30 years, and we’ve also increased the number of people we house by fourfold a year — 5,000 to 21,000,” Garcetti said.
He also said homelessness won’t end without more support from the state and federal governments and more mental health services in the country.
“Until that day, you’ll be interviewing three mayors later, saying … ‘Why is homelessness still here?’” he said.
Still, some key voices criticize the city’s performance.
Earlier this year, City Controller Ron Galperin issued a report on Proposition HHH, the ballot measure voters approved in 2016, authorizing a $1.2 billion bond program to build supportive housing, interim shelters and facilities for the homeless, as well as affordable housing for those at risk of becoming homeless. Garcetti had led the effort to get the measure passed.
In his report, the controller cited skyrocketing costs and mounting delays with HHH-funded projects.
“Although Los Angeles has made some progress with Proposition HHH, it hasn’t been enough,” Galperin said in February. “The costs are too high and the pace is too slow to address the tragedy on our streets.”
As the homelessness population grew, so too did the cost of HHH-funded housing units. From 2020 to 2021, the average per-unit cost of units under construction grew from $531,000 to $596,846, according to Galperin’s report. Additionally, 14% of units under construction cost more than $700,000, with one project in the pre-development stage estimated to cost nearly $837,000 per unit, the controller found.
He also noted that most projects were taking three to six years to complete.
The Garcetti administration defended the HHH program.
Ann Sewill, general manager of the city’s housing department, wrote in her response to the controller’s audit that Prop. HHH was originally conceived as a way to fund 7,000 housing units over a decade, yet some 8,000 units were in the pipeline as of late 2021 – surpassing initial plans.
She noted that the affordable housing units may cost more than market-rate developments due to requirements to pay prevailing wages to workers and provide higher energy efficiency standards, furniture and developer fees, as well as additional legal fees and other costs that come with cobbling together financing from multiple funding sources.
“The reliance on layered financing adds time and money, but stretches HHH funding to meet production goals. Without leveraging, HHH would have produced only 3,900 permanent units,” Sewill wrote.
Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president and CEO of LA Family Housing, said solving the homelessness crisis requires collaboration between the mayor’s office, members of the city council – who can stand in the way of an affordable or supportive housing project from being approved – and the County of L.A., which provides services to homeless individuals.
At times, Garcetti’s efforts ran up against opposition from certain city councilmembers, Klasky-Gamer said, though she declined to specify names.
“You cannot talk about one individual in government as being solely responsible for the success or the perceived shortfall” of combating homelessness, she said. “Likewise, Mayor Garcetti couldn’t alone address homelessness.”
“One of his greatest strengths is that he led with empathy and recognized what a human crisis this was and was a champion of solutions,” Klasky-Gamer added about the outgoing mayor. “I think our next mayor may be digging in a little deeper on some of the barriers to produce housing faster and will work to remove those barriers.”
Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association, expressed frustration that more affordable housing hasn’t been constructed, but he said he doesn’t blame Garcetti any more than other elected officials for things not progressing more quickly.
Overall, he characterized Garcetti’s tenure as mayor as “a mixed bag.”
“Bringing the Olympics to L.A. is … a big feather in his cap,” said Waldman, who serves on the board of LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Waldman also credited Garcetti for securing film tax credits to keep film industry jobs in L.A. and said the mayor made sure San Fernando Valley residents received their fair share of dollars through Measure M, the half-cent sales tax that L.A. County voters approved in 2016 to fund transportation projects.
On the other hand, Waldman said the Garcetti administration was not always viewed as business-friendly, noting the mayor led the effort to raise the minimum wage in L.A. to $15 an hour, a rate that increased again this year based on the consumer price index.
The minimum wage increase led many businesses to downsize or leave the city, Waldman said.
“Businesses looked at what their costs would be in L.A. and when their lease was up … they sold the land and moved to Arizona or Texas,” he said.
Besides the cost of doing business in L.A., many business owners, like residents, have also grown increasingly concerned about public safety in recent years.
During his first inaugural speech in 2013, Garcetti made a bold promise to cut crime.
“We see stories about other cities struggling with crime and violence,” he said back then. “Well, I can tell you that will not happen on my watch. We’re going to keep reducing crime and violence until every last Angeleno can walk the streets free from fear.”
But during his second inaugural speech after winning reelection in 2017, Garcetti acknowledged that “crime remains a challenge.”
There were nearly 400 killings in 2021, the most in 15 years, according to city officials. They attributed the increase to more guns on the street, short tempers and lack of services for people needing them, particularly during the pandemic. The most violent crimes were up nearly 4% compared to 2019, the city reported.
During the same time period, the city lost about 500 sworn police officers due to hiring freezes, leaving fewer officers to patrol the streets.
Asked what he thought he’d be remembered for, Garcetti said Friday he doesn’t dwell on it.
As he looks to the future, the outgoing mayor said he remains optimistic he’ll be confirmed to serve as the country’s ambassador to India — a decision that has stalled in the U.S. Senate.
Some critics believe Garcetti knew, or should have been aware, that a former senior aide, Rick Jacobs, had sexually harassed people or made racist comments. Garcetti has denied having such knowledge.
In the meantime, Garcetti discussed his more immediate future — Monday, the first day he will wake up in nearly a decade without the title of “mayor.” He plans to drop his 10-year-old daughter off at school, as usual, and might go for a hike with friends, start a novel — he estimates he’s read two over the past 9½ years — play the piano “and just breathe.”
Garcetti said someone asked what he’s looking forward to most about this next chapter of his life.
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“‘I said, ‘reintroducing myself to myself.’ … I’m more interested in who I want to be for the next decade and the kind of friend and husband and parent and son and … Angeleno,” he said.
The public can imagine how difficult and exhausting the job of mayor is, and the sacrifices that come with being a public servant, he said.
“But I wouldn’t give — even on the worst day — a single day back,” Garcetti said. “It’s been a privilege, and I can’t wait to have a more dangerous title than mayor, which is ‘Angeleno’ and ‘constituent.’”