Staff Reports
Los Angeles today looks less like the City of Angels and more like a crisis zone where human lives are being lost on the streets every day. Official public health data show a brutal toll among the unhoused, with county reports documenting thousands of deaths linked to overdoses, exposure, and chronic illness as the drug epidemic rips through encampments and parks.
Neighborhoods that were once safe for families and small businesses have been hollowed out by open-air drug markets and permanent tent cities, leaving residents and shop owners feeling abandoned while millions in taxpayer dollars are poured into programs that produce little visible relief. MacArthur Park and Skid Row have become emblematic of this failure—places where spending and promises have not translated into security or a functioning public space.
City officials will point to statistics showing certain violent crimes dipped in 2024, but those numbers mask the day-to-day lawlessness that chases customers away, drives up insurance and security costs, and ruins the lives of ordinary Angelenos. Local law enforcement groups and neighborhood reports still warn of upticks in robberies and quality-of-life crimes, underscoring that headline stats don’t capture the fear felt by families and small-business owners.
The collapse isn’t limited to streets and storefronts; Hollywood’s production engine is sputtering as studios and crews move where they’re treated like a priority instead of a cash cow to be taxed and regulated out of existence. Once-mighty industries don’t vanish overnight — they migrate to friendlier states and countries that actually compete for jobs rather than lecturing employers from City Hall.
Despite the spin from Sacramento and City Hall about progress and declining homelessness numbers, the lived reality is different: people are leaving, businesses are closing, and neighborhoods are being ceded to open drug activity and chronic disorder. When taxpayers see their dollars recycled into slogans and studies instead of decisive action to restore order, it’s no wonder faith in local leaders is collapsing.
The answer is not more performative funding streams and harm-reduction orthodoxy that enables addiction on public property; it’s a return to common-sense policing, enforced encampment cleanups paired with rapid-placement housing and treatment, and honest budgeting that puts results over headlines. Conservative leadership would demand accountability, prosecute repeat offenders, and stop rewarding policies that create perverse incentives for criminality and chronic homelessness.
America built Los Angeles through grit, law, and order — not through excuses. Hardworking families and small-business owners deserve a city that protects them, not one that tolerates decay in the name of ideology. It’s time voters hold the people in power responsible and elect leaders who will fight to bring Los Angeles back from this death spiral.
