Discarded syringes, drug paraphernalia and people sleeping along sidewalks formed a grim backdrop as Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton brought his campaign message to Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, a neighborhood long associated with the city’s homelessness and drug crises.
During Tuesday’s visit, Hilton walked through the park and nearby alleys while criticizing taxpayer-funded nonprofits that provide clean needles and other drug-use supplies through harm-reduction programs.
“This is your tax money at work… Free crack pipes and needles being handed out to drug addicts. CEOs of these so-called ‘nonprofits’ making millions a year. The smell, the squalor, the inhumanity. All of it is funded by you,” Hilton said.
Hilton contended that such initiatives fail to address the root of addiction and instead allow drug use to continue.
“They call it ‘harm reduction,’ but all it does is keep people addicted. I’ll end this madness,” he said.
The difficult conditions around MacArthur Park were visible throughout the candidate’s tour.
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Video and photos from the visit showed Hilton passing a woman asleep in an alley and speaking with reporters as another person lay on the sidewalk near the park’s entrance.
Hilton has previously said he witnessed “crack pipes, injection drug use, and people folded over on fentanyl in the middle of a sunny day.”
One video attracted additional attention online after viewers noticed a homeless man moving through the background with his pants around his knees while Hilton described the area’s problems.
Hilton’s campaign comes against a challenging political backdrop for Republicans in Los Angeles. The City Council has 15 seats and no publicly identified Republican members, and the city has not elected a Republican mayor since Richard Riordan’s victory in 1993.
California’s most recent Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, left office in January 2011.
Among the conditions Hilton pointed to were overflowing trash and human feces, which he described as both a “moral failure” and a “taxpayer-funded drug market.”
California voters will decide between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Hilton in the Nov. 3 election.
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