Housing, LA's homeless population has unsurprisingly proven to be a Herculane task.

With tens of thousands of people on the streets, it's become a top issue for this year's mayoral election in November.

But until now, neither candidate, Congresswoman Karen Bass, and real estate developer Rick Russo

had offered specifics on the type of housing they would create,

where it would be, or how much it would cost.

So two of my colleagues at the Times, they got out the spreadsheets, and they went deep.

I'm Gustavariano. You're listening to The Times, Essential News, from the LA Times.

It's Monday, September 19, 2022.

Today, as part of our coverage of the 2022 midterm elections, we look at the mayoral race here in Los Angeles to understand how liberal cities are tackling homelessness and housing affordability.

The new number for L.A. County's 22 homeless count released earlier this month showed that growth slowed down during the two years of the pandemic, but nevertheless, homelessness continues to grow.

Thank you. Nevertheless, homelessness continues to grow. My colleagues Dun Smith and Ben Oreskes covered the mayoral race, housing, and more for the L.A. Times.

And when they team up together, man, they're like Mooki Betts and Freddie Freeman.

And I'm sorry, Ben, I know you're a Yankees fan, but hey, they're good together.

So Doug Ben, welcome to the Times.

Thanks for having me.

I'm unapologetically still a Yankees fan after years of living here.

I'm still a Pirates fan for life.

Did I use the wrong metaphor?

Fine.

Bill Mazurowski and Mickey Mantle. There you go. We'll take that. During the L.A. mayoral primaries earlier this year, the plans that Karen Bass and Rick Caruso had to solve for homelessness were kind of vague. So how were the two of you able to get more solid details out of them? Gustavo, I think it's good to step back for a second and go to the beginning of the

primary when we had a dozen candidates, all of whom put plans about addressing homelessness

out.

...