Dear Editor,
For over fifty years, Culver City has clung to a cruel strategy: offering short-term aid to a few while blocking any real investment in permanent, deeply affordable housing.
Today, the two conservative councilmembers—Albert Vera and Dan O’Brien—are continuing that legacy. They vote a homelessness “emergency” but their solution is to push unhoused residents into tents on a parking lot under surveillance. It’s not real housing. It just hides the problem, as if “out of sight, out of mind” is a solution.
They gladly showed up for the ribbon-cuttings on the state-funded Homekey hotel projects. But now that Culver City has a chance to build actual homes at Jubilo Village, they’re stalling—repeating debunked myths that the project is a private giveaway, that it will drain city reserves, that it threatens property values, increases crime, and burdens traffic.
None of it is true. All of it has been disproven.
Worse still, these talking points are being amplified by a well-funded misinformation campaign led by Culver City Neighbors United—an organization that calls itself grassroots but is bankrolled by a single out-of-town billionaire. These are not community voices. These are astro-Democrats—conservatives in Democratic clothing—using fear and distortion to block housing, all while claiming the moral high ground.
Meanwhile, our progressive majority— Vice Mayor Freddy Puza, Councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, and Councilmember Bryan “Bubba” Fish—are showing courage and clarity. They understand that compassion is a policy choice. That real housing is not only the moral path—it’s the smart, cost-saving strategy we’ve needed for decades.
Let’s be honest: our property values have tripled in the last 20 years. In a city of 40,000, half of us are millionaires or multimillionaires. To say we “can’t afford” to house those most in need is false—and shameful.
We have the resources, and now we have the leadership. Culver City can finally choose action over optics—compassion over performance. Housing people isn’t radical. It’s humane. It’s time.
Karim Sahli
