Los Angeles has a homeless crisis. Everyone knows this. What California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s walk through Skid Row just exposed is something considerably darker than simple government incompetence: there is an organized, well-funded operation actively working to make sure the crisis never ends.
Meet LA CAN — the Los Angeles Community Action Network. While Karen Bass holds press conferences about her commitment to solving homelessness and Gavin Newsom crisscrosses the country pretending California is fixable, LA CAN has been in the courts blocking every attempt to actually clear encampments, remove drug users from public sidewalks, and restore basic safety to neighborhoods that have been abandoned by the government supposedly responsible for them.
Their legal theory is breathtaking in its cynicism: homeless individuals camping illegally on public sidewalks have personal property rights that police cannot violate by enforcing the law. The courts, remarkably, have entertained this argument long enough to give LA CAN repeated injunctive wins against cleanup operations. When Hilton walked through Skid Row and asked why police weren’t clearing the encampments he was stepping around, the answer was simple: LA CAN had obtained legal orders preventing it.
I’ve been to Skid Row in Downtown LA many times. This was the most infuriating trip yet.
Newsom, Becerra, Bass: How can you sleep at night knowing this is happening on your watch? pic.twitter.com/9hdKAaaKNK
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) June 28, 2026
Here is the economic reality that explains everything you need to know about LA CAN’s actual incentives. The city of Los Angeles is spending nearly $1 billion annually on homelessness — and the problem keeps growing. LA CAN has positioned itself as the indispensable advocacy organization standing between the homeless population and whatever the city is trying to do about it. Money flows to LA CAN because homelessness exists. The moment homelessness is meaningfully reduced, the money stops. So does the relevance. So does the organizational purpose.
The NGO LA CAN keeps LAPD away. With sub division STOP LAPD SPYING COALITION is under the LA CAN . They don’t want the streets cleaned up. Their money comes from the people on the streets. This is the reported income for 2025. pic.twitter.com/37pmC54gzJ
— D Rom (@micortazonzz1) July 13, 2026
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This is not speculation. It’s the inevitable logic of activist organizations that have confused their existence with their mission. LA CAN was supposedly founded to help homeless people. It now deploys lawyers to prevent the city from removing homeless people from sidewalks where they are actively dying of drug overdoses. It has a choral group — the Freedom Singers, composed of formerly homeless individuals — that has appeared on national television to raise the organization’s profile and drive donations. The formerly homeless members are now raising money for an organization legally fighting to keep people in the condition they escaped.
You genuinely cannot make it make sense. Unless you follow the money. Then it makes perfect sense.
Karen Bass’s office, according to reporting from Hilton’s walkthrough, actively coordinates with LA CAN — the same organization blocking her own city’s cleanup efforts. This is the California Democratic machine in perfect miniature: politicians who campaign on solving a crisis, nonprofits that fundraise off the crisis, lawyers who litigate to preserve the crisis, and residents who live with the consequences of all three.
One billion dollars a year. Skid Row looks exactly like it did a decade ago.
California doesn’t have a homelessness problem. It has a corruption problem. The homelessness is just the most visible symptom.
