You Don’t Have to Move. You Just Have to Show Up.
Rents are out of control. Homelessness is everywhere. The city can’t pave a road or issue a permit on time. And the people making decisions about all of it are chosen in elections where most of your neighbors don’t vote. LA council races are decided by a few thousand ballots while tens of thousands of registered voters stay home. The common sense majority already exists, but it isn’t organized yet. That’s what Thrive LA is here to fix.
What’s at Stake
This is what happens when the wrong people are in charge and the right people aren’t paying attention.
Los Angeles is one of the greatest cities on earth, and right now, it’s being run into the ground.
Quality of Life
Record Low
Life satisfaction in LA has hit its lowest point ever recorded
The UCLA Luskin Quality of Life Index has fallen below its midpoint for the third time in four years. Three-quarters of residents say cost of living is the single biggest factor dragging their quality of life down.
Source: UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, 2025 Quality of Life Index
Housing
59%
of LA renters are cost-burdened
Nearly six in ten renters in LA County spend more than 30% of their income on housing. The median home price in the city has crossed $1.1 million. Building a new unit requires navigating a permitting process that can stretch 6 to 12 months. The people who should be solving this are the same people you elect to City Council.
Source: LA County Board of Supervisors / California Housing Partnership (2024); Zillow (2025)
Homelessness
$2.3 Billion
spent on homelessness in four years with no accountability
Between 2020 and 2024, the city funneled roughly $2.3 billion through LAHSA for homeless services. A major audit found the agency couldn’t account for how the money was spent: incomplete records, missing documentation, no clear way to measure outcomes. Measure HHH promised 10,000 housing units. It will deliver fewer than 8,000, and some are costing over $800,000 per unit to build. Over 72,000 people are still living on LA’s streets. Voters approved the funding. They trusted their elected leaders to spend it wisely. That trust was misplaced.
Source: Alvarez & Marsal audit of LAHSA (2024); LA Controller audit of Prop HHH; LAHSA 2025 Homeless Count
City Council Is Making the Housing Crisis Worse
57%
collapse in housing permits in the first quarter of 2025
The people elected to solve the housing crisis have passed policies that are actively discouraging the private investment needed to build our way out of it.
Measure ULA, championed by City Council, slapped a 4 to 5.5% transfer tax on property sales over $5 million. The result? A joint UCLA/RAND study found it has killed roughly 1,910 apartment units per year, an 18% drop in housing production, including 168 affordable units annually that will now never get built. High-value property sales inside city limits fell by 50%. The tax was supposed to raise $600M to $1.1B a year. It’s averaging $288M, less than half the floor estimate.
Housing permits have cratered. The city issued 23% fewer permits in 2024, and the first quarter of 2025 saw a 57% collapse: just 1,325 new homes approved citywide. Developers aren’t just slowing down. They’re building elsewhere.
Layer on the thickest web of rent control and eviction rules in the country, and you’ve created an environment where small housing providers, the people who own the duplexes and fourplexes that are the backbone of LA’s affordable housing, face enormous risk every time they rent to a new tenant. None of these policies are designed to hurt renters. But the cumulative effect is that fewer people want to build here, fewer people want to invest here, and fewer units are available for the renters who need them most. Ellis Act filings (housing providers permanently pulling units off the rental market) more than doubled in early 2023.
We need more housing to bring costs down and get people off the streets. Instead, City Council has created an environment where it’s harder, riskier, and less profitable to build, so people don’t. That’s not bad luck. That’s bad policy, passed by people who were elected in low-turnout races where most of your neighbors didn’t vote.
Sources: UCLA Lewis Center / RAND (2025); JDJ Consulting; Urbanize LA; Housing Is A Human Right
Streets & Sidewalks
50,000+
sidewalk repair requests sitting in a backlog, with a 10-year wait
The city committed $1.4 billion over 30 years to fix its sidewalks after losing a class-action lawsuit brought by disabled residents. Years later, an audit found less than 1% of sidewalk parcels had been repaired. As of 2025, the city has completed just 150 sidewalk repairs this year. Meanwhile, 60% of streets were rated "good condition" last year, and that number is expected to drop to 53% by mid-2026 because the city has slashed resurfacing by half.
Source: LA City Controller sidewalk audit (2021); LA Public Press / StreetsLA (Jan 2026); Planetizen (2025)
Public Safety
70%
of Angelenos say they don't feel safe walking alone at night
Seven in ten residents don't feel safe in their own city. That perception didn't appear overnight. It's the product of years of mismanagement, broken promises, and a City Council that treated public safety as a political football instead of a basic responsibility. Open-air drug markets, unchecked property crime, and visible disorder in every neighborhood have eroded the trust between Angelenos and the people who are supposed to be running this city. Rebuilding that trust will take years of competent, accountable leadership, the kind you only get when everyday Angelenos actually choose who's in charge.
Source: Valley Alarm / community safety surveys (2024 to 2025)
None of this is inevitable. These are the results of decisions made by people who were elected in races where most voters didn't show up. Different leaders make different decisions. But you only get different leaders if you vote for them.
The Problem
Extremists and well-organized special interests don't win because they represent the majority. They win because the majority doesn't show up.
Here's How It Works
Most Angelenos care about their city. But they're working, raising kids, sitting in traffic, and nobody has given them a clear reason to pay attention to a city council race. So they skip it.
Meanwhile, extremists and well-organized special interests, groups with a narrow agenda and the resources to mobilize around it, do the opposite. They make sure every one of their supporters shows up. In an election where most people stay home, a few thousand organized votes is all it takes to choose who governs your neighborhood, your streets, and your quality of life.
It Already Happened Here: LA Council District 1
In 2022, the CD1 council seat was decided by just 2,389 votes. Total ballots cast: about 30,000 in a district with 110,000 registered voters. That means roughly 80,000 people who could have voted simply didn't.
The race wasn't lost because voters disagreed. It was lost because they weren't in the game.
110K
registered voters in the district
~30K
actually voted
2,389
decided the winner
What Happens When People Finally Wake Up Too Late
In New York City, winning the Democratic nomination has historically meant winning the mayor's race in a landslide. For years, voters barely showed up to general elections, and it didn't matter:
2013: de Blasio
~24% turnout
73.2%
2017: de Blasio
~24% turnout
66.2%
2021: Adams
~21% turnout
66.0%
2025: Mamdani
42% turnout · 2M+ votes · Most since 1969
50.8%
Then in 2025, it mattered. Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary, and suddenly New Yorkers paid attention. Turnout surged to over 2 million votes, an 84% increase over 2021 and the most ballots cast in a mayoral race since 1969. Andrew Cuomo ran as an independent and pulled 42% of the vote. The new voters who showed up were overwhelmingly voting against Mamdani, not for him.
But it still wasn't enough. Mamdani squeaked by with 50.8%. By the time voters woke up and mobilized, it was too late to close the gap.
This is the pattern:
Extremists and special interests thrive when everyday Angelenos aren't paying attention. Once the spotlight finally finds them, they moderate their message just enough to squeak by. The problem isn't that people don't care. It's that by the time they start caring, the race is already over. The answer isn't to react to the crisis. It's to be organized before it starts.
Now Flip It
The Same Math That Works Against Us Can Work For Us
If a race can be lost by 2,389 votes, it can be won by 2,389 votes. The common sense majority doesn't need to be created. It already exists. It just needs to be activated.
80K
registered voters sat out CD1
That's 80,000 people who are registered, eligible, and could have changed the outcome. They're not the opposition. They're the opportunity.
84%
turnout increase when NYC woke up
New York's 2025 mayoral race nearly doubled turnout from 2021. When people understand what's at stake, they show up. The problem was they showed up too late.
3%
of registered voters could have flipped CD1
We don't need to convince everyone. We need to reach a small fraction of the people who already agree with us but didn't show up. That's an organizational problem, and it has an organizational solution.
Thrive LA exists so that everyday common sense Angelenos have as much say in who runs this city as the special interests that show up to every election.
We're not waiting for a crisis to galvanize voters. We're building the civic infrastructure now, before the next election, so that everyday common sense Angelenos are informed, connected, and ready to show up on day one.
Every election cycle, we do the same thing: find voters who've checked out, give them a reason to check back in, and make sure they follow through on election day.
Voter Guides
Clear, accessible breakdowns of every race: who's running, what they've done, and what they actually stand for
Council Watch
Weekly breakdowns of what your council members are actually doing, so voters stay informed between elections, not just during them
Community Organizing
House parties, neighborhood ambassadors, and grassroots networks that make civic participation something you do with your neighbors, not alone
Direct Mobilization
Text-first outreach that meets people where they are: the nudge, the reminder, and the follow-through that closes the gap between caring and actually voting
New York proved that people will show up when they finally see what's at stake. Thrive LA is making sure Angelenos see it before it's too late, and that common sense has a seat at the table in every election.
This Is Your City. Fight For It.
The people who want a pragmatic, functional city government already outnumber the people who don't. The only question is whether we organize before the next election or scramble after it.
Thrive LA is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Contributions are not tax-deductible.