Amid Skid Row visit, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco talks solutions

• Chad Bianco, who is running for governor of California, spent the morning seeing Skid Row in Los Angeles and speaking to some of its inhabitants.
• Several thousand individuals are homeless in Skid Row, based on data from February 2025.
• His solution to an enduring issue is to involve law enforcement.

Riverside County Sheriff and governor-hopeful Chad Bianco said law enforcement is part of the solution to California’s enduring challenge in addressing homelessness while he spent the morning in Los Angeles’ Skid Row on Tuesday, Jan. 6.

He was joined by Kate Monroe, CEO of VetComm, a business that assists veterans in VA disability claims, and a self-described veteran advocate.

The two walked around a stretch of Skid Row near the Los Angeles Police Department’s station on Sixth Street, speaking with several individuals nearby about their experiences with an area that’s long been home to people without shelter. But discussions with two individuals on Tuesday highlighted the complex nature of addressing homelessness in the state: People don’t always choose shelter.

One woman said she preferred staying in a tent as opposed to a shelter, where there is too much “drama” and “fighting.”

Bianco, a Republican, is running for governor of California among a crowded field of candidates. He has been a vocal critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom — which didn’t cease during his walk with Monroe along Skid Row — and endorsed President Donald Trump in 2024, the Desert Sun reported, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.

But at least two polls conducted last October and December showed the Riverside County Sheriff leading among identified candidates for the primary election in June, although the share of undecided voters was larger in both instances.

“We keep calling it homelessness,” Bianco said. “It has nothing to do with homeless here. We walked around building after building after building of homes — the people are still living in tents. This is not about homes. This is about drug addiction, alcohol addiction, mental health care and the complete failure of us to address human beings in a compassionate manner to get them the help that they need.”

In an interview with KTLA last September, Bianco said law enforcement knows how to solve the homelessness issue. He’d also then taken aim at the California governor and lawmakers, saying Newsom and the state Legislature do not want to fix the issue of homelessness because it’s a “money grab” and a “money laundering scheme to NGOs and nonprofits.”

Today, it seems his stance hasn't changed.

Fixing Skid Row? That, he said, could be fixed in “four years” while explaining one approach he and Monroe share in addressing homelessness with the USA TODAY Network. That’s if you take what he knows in law enforcement, paired with Monroe’s background in military and desire to help the community, the Riverside County Sheriff said.

Bianco talks law enforcement, ‘base camp’ proposal during Skid Row walk

When asked to explain more about the role law enforcement plays in addressing homelessness, Bianco said we must stop calling it a homeless crisis and that there are plenty of places for individuals dealing with homelessness to live.

Substance use, living on the street and a person’s inability to care for himself or herself is what needs to be enforced by law enforcement, Bianco said. While being homeless isn’t a crime, it is a crime to steal, be under the influence of drugs or engage in prostitution, he said.

The Riverside County Sheriff also blamed politics in hampering law enforcements’ efforts.

However, California did pass Proposition 36 in 2024, which shapes charges and sentences for theft and drug offenses. The California District Attorneys Association has described its purpose as reforming laws “that have dramatically increased homelessness.” But the nonprofit National Alliance to End Homelessness opposed Prop 36 in 2024, saying nothing in it alleviates homelessness, and instead could make it worse.

A proposal Bianco and Monroe share is something the CEO called “base camp”: You present people with the option to go to base camp, a kind of temporary site that gets people services they need, from rehabilitation to learning a trade and, if they get a job, live in something akin to a group home, she said.

According to the governor’s office, the Newsom administration has “provided local communities with more than $27 billion to address homelessness.”

However, a report released in 2024 from the California State Auditor concluded that California “must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs,” noting that three of the five state-funded programs related to homelessness that were reviewed were unable to be assessed for their cost-effectiveness because of the lack of sufficient data.

Last May, Newsom released a model ordinance for communities statewide to use as a starting point to create their own policies in clearing encampments, outlining what is prohibited when it comes to encampments and how to approach enforcement.

Insights from Skid Row

Skid Row spans four square miles of Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles County, bordering the Arts District to its east and Little Tokyo going more north. It’s an area that’s long been challenged by homelessness, and long been the subject of efforts to address it. Also intertwined with Skid Row’s history are the advocacy efforts of the late General Jeff —  the “mayor of Skid Row,” said the NAACP Los Angeles — to programs like the Skid Row Arts Alliance.

It's a place where nearly 3,400 people were homeless on a single night last February, according to the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. Just over half were unsheltered.

Monroe frequently took the lead in going up to individuals on the sidewalks or walking around in the area to ask about their experiences. In one instance, she provided a man with cigarettes and cash after he spoke about his experience.

Melvin Farmer, 68, said he is a community advocate. He offered to speak with Monroe and Bianco and was joined by three other men to discuss Skid Row and homelessness, one of whom chose not to identify himself with the USA TODAY Network. They brought up the violence the community faces, a general need for recovery centers and questioned why Skid Row hadn’t already been “cleaned up.”

“I’m not used to this area but I learned since I’ve been down here what it’s like and it’s heartbreaking,” Antonio Fuller, 43, said.

Paris Barraza is a reporter covering Los Angeles and Southern California for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].