With new leadership in City Hall and exciting attractions and developments continuing to come online in Downtown, we have cause for hope and renewed energy to continue tackling our regions’ ongoing challenges head-on. This year, we will build on our track record of solutions-oriented advocacy as we make progress on our priorities of comprehensively addressing homelessness, housing acceleration, improving public safety and governance reform that we recently shared with our City leaders.

Comprehensively Addressing Homelessness
Homelessness is the most acute in Downtown, and Skid Row continues to be the epicenter year after year. Currently, the proposed DTLA 2040 Community Plan (DTLA 2040) doubles down on Skid Row’s socioeconomic isolation by prohibiting mixed-income housing, which CCA opposes. We are pleased to see the LA Times Editorial Board share our concerns and recommend that Skid Row allow mixed-income housing as part of the solution. There is also a promising shift where the City and County are coordinating closely on homelessness. We hope that their respective local emergency declarations will marshal resources and create a truly centralized response to deliver more interim and permanent housing. CCA will continue to support policies that address homelessness as a citywide issue, include solutions for Skid Row and provide the necessary resources to deliver housing, mental health, substance use treatments and other services to people in need.

Accelerating Housing Production
Downtown plays an outsized role in addressing the city’s housing deficit having brought on 30% of the city’s new apartment units in the last decade. Last year, we successfully advocated for increased housing capacity through the passage of several state bills. This year, we were pleased to see Mayor Bass eliminate Site Plan Review for 100% affordable housing projects in her Executive Directive 2—a policy change that CCA has long advocated for. Importantly, we will continue to push for the adoption of DTLA 2040, which will be the blueprint for development in Downtown over the next two decades. We will also champion adaptive reuse development to support economic recovery, housing supply and sustainability.

Increasing Public Safety & Wellness
Downtown is home to some of the highest crime rates in the city, necessitating holistic approaches to foster safer, healthier communities. Through our organizing efforts last year, LA City Council allocated additional funding for foot beat patrols in DTLA, which we believe should continue to be deployed, and all authorized officer positions should be filled. We believe the business and civic community should also partner with Los Angeles Police Department and the City to pilot the Community Safety Partnership program in Downtown, as it is an innovative model for relationship-based policing that can build trust and reduce crime. Additionally, CIRCLE, the unarmed service response pilot program to help people experiencing homelessness, should be expanded to include all of DTLA.

Governance Reform
Downtown communities have been especially impacted by leadership failures at City Hall. In the wake of these difficulties, CCA has become a bold voice for governance reform. We recommend that the City Charter include a clear remedy for elected officials who are unable to do their jobs, and there must also be follow-through on reforms to establish an independent redistricting commission and develop a more balanced power structure for land use and transportation matters.

While Downtown often bears the brunt of the city’s challenges, this struggle presents an opportunity for the DTLA community to rise to the occasion and model our resiliency to the rest of the world. We know there is much work to be done to realize DTLA and the city’s full potential. CCA members are the ideators, innovators and experts who are ready to partner and seize this moment of opportunity.