Los Angeles politicians who spent years letting the homeless crisis metastasize now want billions more to clean up the mess — just in time for the world to show up for the 2028 Olympics. Working families who've been stepping over tents and needles will foot the bill while the same progressive playbook gets another spin.
The LA City Council voted Friday to advance a homelessness plan that targets encampments around Olympic venues, transit hubs, and major corridors, according to the New York Post. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson introduced the motion, giving officials 90 days to map out how they'll address the crisis before the international spotlight hits.
Here's what the politicians aren't advertising: the problem is getting worse on their watch. Los Angeles County recorded an estimated 73,040 homeless residents in 2026 — a 1.2% increase — while the city of LA saw its homeless population jump 3.4% to 45,194, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. This happened even as the Trump administration reports a historic nationwide decline. So much for progressive governance.
Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, a Democratic Socialists of America member who chairs the Health and Homelessness Committee, framed the plan as compassion: "Instead of pushing unhoused neighbors to the wayside outside of public view, we can start taking meaningful, proactive measures to confront the crisis with newfound urgency, accountability and coordination."
Notice the word choice — "unhoused neighbors" — and notice what's missing: any acknowledgment that the city only found this "urgency" because foreign visitors are coming. The Post noted that the plan leans on the same progressive prescriptions that failed to solve the problem in the first place: more government programs, more spending, more bureaucratic coordination.
Follow the money. The proposal directs officials to chase funding through state encampment resolution funds, philanthropic donations, Measure ULA — the controversial mansion tax that was supposed to fund affordable housing — and LACAHSA, the county's housing authority. It also calls for studying expanded housing subsidies and bringing uninhabitable units up to code. Studies, not action. More reports, not results.
Meanwhile, the LA28 Organizing Committee projects the Games could generate more than $40 billion in economic output and support 224,000 jobs. The politicians can find urgency for Olympic optics. They just couldn't find it for the Angelenos who've been living next to encampments for years.
The question isn't whether LA will look cleaner in 2028. It's whether anything will actually change for the people who live there — or whether this is just another spending spree that disappears once the cameras leave.
