“It is heartbreaking to me,” Culver City’s Housing and Human Services Director Tevis Barnes offered with sincerity, “but I will be retiring at the end of this year.”
At the last City Council meeting on November 10, 2025, Barnes announced her retirement. Serving the City for 24 years in a capacity that shifted, expanded and demanded more from her constantly, her career has overseen paradigm shifts for the services and the focus of the city.
After the presentation on the new online portal, designed so that people can access data with ease and alacrity, Barnes took a moment with Planning and Development Director Mark Muenzer to “talk about the transition.”
Barnes explained why her decision was so bittersweet. “As some of you know, I lost my home in Altadena to the Eaton fire, and I will be [focusing on] rebuilding my home and rebuilding my community.” Her family residence in Altadena goes back four generations, and multiple homes were lost to the fires.
Barnes, who led the Project Homekey hotel conversions and oversaw the creation of Wellness Village, has also overseen multiple programs focused on keeping people in housing during times of struggle, and reporting to the council on a weekly basis during the ‘declaration of emergency.’ Her efforts and influence in the city’s ongoing shift on housing and homelessness cover decades of policy changes and concrete progress.
