Spencer Pratt brings Los Angeles’ economic anxieties into primetime

(CNN) — A surprisingly competitive mayoral campaign from former reality television star Spencer Pratt has thrust some of Los Angeles’ economic anxieties into the national spotlight ahead of Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary election.

Pratt has built his campaign around frustration with the city’s leadership and direction after the Pacific Palisades home he shared with his wife, fellow “The Hills” co-star Heidi Montag, and their two children was destroyed by the devastating fires that ravaged Los Angeles last year. In viral campaign videos, he has portrayed Los Angeles as poorly managed and struggling to recover from overlapping crises.

The message appears to be resonating: Recent polls show Pratt competitive with Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman and within striking distance of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.

Pratt’s rise comes when many living in the country’s second-largest city grapple with a deep uncertainty about its future.

For more than a century, Los Angeles built a reputation of selling glamour and reinvention. But in recent years, economic pressures have mounted. Housing costs have soared, deepening affordability worries and homelessness. The entertainment industry, one of the city’s defining economic engines, has slowed due to production cutbacks and broader changes in Hollywood. International tourism has fallen sharply, as fear about wildfire destruction and ICE raids across parts of the city has kept more travelers away.

At the same time, recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, has further intensified frustrations around rebuilding, insurance costs and the city government’s response to crises.

Much of Pratt’s campaign has centered on dissatisfaction with the city’s direction and calls to disrupt the political status quo, though he has released fewer detailed policy plans than some rival candidates.

Pratt announced his campaign on the one-year anniversary of the fires and has said he decided to run after growing frustrated with what he describes as government failures that contributed to the scale of the destruction.

A focus on solving the city’s homelessness crisis

The city’s visible homelessness has become a potent symbol of government dysfunction among many LA residents. The issue has been a core tenet of Pratt’s campaign.

There were more than 43,000 people who experienced homelessness on any given night in the city in 2025, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. While homelessness in the city has declined since peaking in 2023, the population of unhoused residents remains roughly 23% higher than it was in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pratt argues that the city “doesn’t have a homelessness problem,” but rather, a drug problem. Many of the city’s homelessness issues would be solved simply by “enforcing the laws” and arresting drug users or bringing them to treatment centers, he has said.

“Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Raman, they think empty beds, they think it’s a housing problem. It’s a drug addiction problem,” Pratt said on CNN’s “The Lead” on Thursday. “Of course, we need to house and find shelter and rehabs for these people, but we need to have mandatory treatment for people that are on drugs.”

The data does not support Pratt’s claims, said Benjamin Henwood, the director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the University of Southern California.

“Clearly, issues of addiction and mental illness are significant and important because we know there are higher rates among the homeless population,” he said. “How much is it driving homelessness? The answer is that it’s not.”

“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,” he added.

A Pew analysis from 2023 found that rising rents are closely tied to increases in homelessness in metro areas.

Housing affordability in focus

Like many major US cities, Los Angeles has long struggled with a severe housing shortage, pushing home prices and rents sharply higher in recent years. The average home price in the city was $611,000 at the start of 2018, according to Zillow data. Today, it’s over $960,000.

Los Angeles has the fewest homes per person of any major US city, according to Raman’s campaign website.

The shortage of affordable homes has emerged as a central issue in the mayoral race. Raman’s campaign website dedicates roughly 1,400 words to plans aimed at improving housing affordability, while Bass’s campaign touts policies it says have “accelerated nearly 40,000 units of housing.”

Pratt has said relatively little about increasing housing supply and did not respond to CNN’s request for details on a housing affordability plan. He has, however, argued that clearing homeless encampments would help improve housing conditions across the city.

Rebuilding after the fires

Pratt has tied the city’s slow recovery after the Palisades and Eaton fires last year to a broader ineptitude in government.

So far, only a tiny fraction of the homes destroyed have been rebuilt, despite thousands of submitted rebuild applications, according to LA County’s tracker.

For many fire victims, the process has been a struggle.

“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,” said Kaye Steinsapir, a community organizer in the Pacific Palisades whose home was partially destroyed by last year’s fires. “Everything is like pulling teeth, and people are justifiably angry about the circumstances.”

Pratt’s campaign, built largely on grievance, is attracting support from high-profile donors in Hollywood and the business world, including cryptocurrency billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss and billionaire hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, according to publicly available campaign donations.

Steinsapir said she appreciated how Pratt’s active social media presence kept the fires in the spotlight months after TV cameras moved on.

“There has been a misperception that everyone is wealthy and people don’t need help. That’s not true,” she said.

However, Steinsapir said she has made it known to members of her Palisades community that she isn’t planning to vote for Pratt as mayor.

“Some of what he’s saying is cruel. My own mother has been homeless on and off for the last 10 years. This is something that affects me very personally,” she said. “It’s not as simple as going out and saying ‘we’re going to go and arrest everybody.”

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