Attorney Grace Yoo (D) is running against current Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark-Ridley Thomas (D) for L.A. City Council District 10’s vacant seat. During the primary election in March, Ridley-Thomas received about 21,000 votes, which was 44.3 percent. Yoo received about 11,200 votes, or 23.6 percent, according to Ballotpedia.
Yoo said she is running to represent this district because she believes the government should work for, listen to, and do what’s necessary to help the people it serves.
“My district has a large portion of first generation immigrants,” she said. “We have people who have been here for decades, but like myself, I am someone who came right before kindergarten and who didn’t speak English, and knows what it means when you need to have government access, and that access is denied.”
Yoo believes there are “institutional barriers against people who need help,” especially the homeless and elderly. Although she commends City Council for putting a halt on evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession, Yoo said homelessness still needs to be treated “like the emergency that it is.”
“Remember 1994? I was here with the Northridge Earthquake. We had 125,000 people who had been displaced. Within two years, these people all had housing back. The city of L.A. is, you know, closer to like 35,000 people who are on the streets. Why can’t we solve this problem? Because there is no political will. When there’s a political will, there is a way. And just look at what happened because of COVID-19. Things that were unheard of, not possible, soon became possible,” Yoo said, referring to the initiative Project Roomkey, which recently ended but worked to place homeless Angelenos in hotels and motels during the pandemic.
To clarify, the city of Los Angeles actually has more than 41,000 homeless people, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority.
Yoo said that having housing that’s immediately available for homeless people would “make a huge difference and impact.” She also wants more safe parking lots so that people living in their cars can have a secure place to sleep at night.
“The city has talked about safe parking for nearly a decade, and they don’t even have a dozen safe parking lots available," Yoo said. "They’ve worked with churches, but there’s a stymie. The reason this hasn’t gone through is because of the insurance. Well then, if we’ve got locations but we need insurance, why wouldn’t the city help pay for this insurance?”
Plans to build homeless housing are often met with opposition from community members who live in the area. Yoo said she would eliminate some of this resistance by increasing transparency as to "where our homeless are, what services are available nearby, and what we can actually offer when we do provide temporary shelter.”
“You know, not two years ago, when they tried to build the first emergency shelter in Koreatown, there was a lot of push back," she said. "If I were the city councilwoman, what I would do is take a look at the entire district, let everybody know where our homeless count comes from LAHSA, what services are nearby, and then let everybody see where the properties are that are owned by the government, and so people know that it wasn’t done willy-nilly, that we actually have a plan. The problem in 2018 is that there was no plan."
In order to repair the relationship between cops and communities, Yoo has a unique solution: Hire more female officers.
“Studies have shown that when you have more women, there is less escalation and less deaths," she said. "This isn’t to say that women are perfect officers and they do no wrong. It’s just that overall, women tend to bring about a better resolution, a less forceful and violent solution. And so, by having more female officers, we would change dramatically how LAPD responds. And you do this by going out and recruiting women. We really need to demilitarize how LAPD treats civilians because we want the guardian police, not the warrior police.”
Yoo has been door-knocking for her campaign, despite the risks that come with interacting with strangers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I see a huge difference between the primary and this post-COVID-19 era where more people are at home," Yoo said. "It’s different. Usually if I get, you know, 10 percent of my walk list with someone at home, that’s huge. I’m now getting like 35, 40 percent. So that’s a big game changer.”
Yoo has received positive feedback from L.A. District 10 community members.
“As soon as I say, ‘My opponent has been in office for 29 years,’ people just go, ‘Oh, got it. We’re with you.’ I don’t even have to go into my qualifications or my vision so much. Some people do [say], 'What’s your top three?' But oftentimes, you will find 29 years, or they say it to me… really well up-to-date voters will say, ‘Yep, had enough. We want you Grace. I’ve voted for him in the past, but I’m voting for you because we need a change.’ And I said, ‘That’s right. Fresh water versus 29 years of stagnated water.’ And people are like, ‘We want the fresh water.’ It’s as simple as that.”
Read about Yoo’s opponent Mark Ridley-Thomas here.
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CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, it was incorrectly stated that candidate Grace Yoo was a Republican. The story has been updated to correctly reflect that she is a Democrat. (October 15, 2020)