Bubba Fish can sympathize with those who can’t afford to live in Culver City.

The Los Angeles County transportation deputy and his husband moved to Palms at the edge of Culver City because he wanted to enjoy the latter, but couldn’t afford to move to the city itself. Fish was able to move inside the city’s borders in 2017, but decided to run for Culver City Council to help those living in the shoes he once wore.

“We’re seeing workers who can’t afford to get by here,” Fish told Westside Voice, “They can’t afford to actually benefit from the city that they contribute to every day.”

Housing is among the top priorities Fish will address should he be elected to the City Council in November. He has plenty of experience as a policymaker and a beneficiary of those policies. Fish is a former Vice Chair of the city’s Advisory Committee on Housing and Homelessness and one of two renters who qualified for the ballot in 2024 — the other being Adrian Gross.

As a member of the Housing and Homelessness Subcommittee, Fish recommended several policies that he believes will help accelerate affordable housing production, but they were ignored. With just one unit of housing for every four jobs, Fish noted that diversity in the city is disappearing before our eyes.

“That is a severe imbalance that really affects our workers,” Fish said. “Our Latino population went from 25 percent when we moved here 10 years ago to just less than 18 percent.”  

Fish, who is from Houston, has seen a housing-first approach succeed in his hometown. Houston’s homeless population has decreased by over 60 percent since 2011 and 17 percent since 2023 through solutions similar to the ones he proposed to the city council.

He still believes they will work in Culver City today, one of which is to alleviate restrictions on housing developments. Fish suggests allowing infill housing — redeveloping underutilized properties into housing — which Fish claims the council has actively avoided.

Fish also wants to introduce a policy similar to Executive Directive 1, enacted in 2022 in Los Angeles by Karen Bass. The directive gives an exception to 100 percent affordable housing projects that allows them to avoid the city council approval process.

“Every affordable housing unit gets to be struck down or approved by our council,” Fish said, “and that leads to housing being at the mercy of political winds.”

ADUs as a means to add to the city’s housing stock is another vehicle. One of the other proposals Fish brought to the city council was a law that would allow residents to sell ADUs to people wanting to live in a smaller and more cost-efficient property.

Above all else, the city council needs to pursue affordable housing opportunities. Fish acknowledged that some progress has been made with projects like the Jubilo Village project at the Culver-Palms Methodist Church, but said that he has been discouraged by what he has seen recently.

“I haven’t seen the council majority take our housing crisis seriously,” Fish said, “and that’s why I am running.”

To help with the existing housing stock, Fish believes that rent control is necessary to compensate for the lack of housing that he believes is driving up rents.

“In a competitive market where we had enough housing for everyone, it’s very likely we wouldn’t need as many renters protections,” Fish said.

One barrier to rent control outside of the city council’s hands is the existence of the Costa Hawkins Act, which prohibits municipalities in California from implementing rent control on new buildings. If that is repealed in the upcoming election with the passage of Proposition 33, Fish says he would support expanding rent control to rented single-family homes, townhomes, and condos.

Many of the issues within the city are connected to the housing and affordability issue, one of which is homelessness. He criticized the act of sweeping unhoused residents and their belongings as a poor way to get them off the streets.

Instead, Fish advocates for addressing the root cause of homelessness: a lack of affordable housing. Project Homekey and other programs that put unhoused residents into shelters and provide them assistance help bridge the gap, but Fish believes that no tangible progress will be made without housing reform.

“Homelessness is a housing problem, and if we do not create housing, then rents will continue to skyrocket,” Fish said. “We’re never going to really address homelessness until we get that under control.”

But housing can’t be built overnight, so Fish argues less punitive solutions to issues with unhoused residents like expanding on the city’s outreach and housing services as part of the effort to get people off the streets will help keep both housed and unhoused residents safe. 

Expanding the city’s mobile crisis team to 24/7 operation is another priority on his list, arguing that not operating at that level is a fundamental disservice to the purpose of the program.

“Make sure to schedule your crises during business hours,” Fish jokingly remarks.

Services like the Mobile Crisis Team are underfunded, Fish argues, and the focus on police in the budgeting process is a big reason why. Fish believes in a holistic approach to public safety that shifts some focus away from police, one interwoven with non-violent response and outreach like the Mobile Crisis Team.

“Our police are neither the best nor appropriate response nor should they be,” Fish said of mental health and other non-violent calls for service. “Theoretically, we want our police officers focused on preventing and solving crime.”

He isn’t unique in this philosophy; The People’s Budget was an entire movement during the annual budgeting process that emphasized redirecting money from municipalities’ police budgets to social services, parks, and other community amenities. Several members of the public made comments during the budget meetings suggesting that some of the many chunks of funding for various programs that CCPD has run in recent years be given to different departments.

“It’s about all of the things that we could be funding when we instead just fund the Police Department to every single whim and fancy,” Fish said. 

Fish believes in The People’s Budget in both practice and principle. Funding social services is a key part of his platform, but Fish is also an advocate of a participatory budget where residents can see their input more tangibly reflected.

“I think it’s so important that when people come to their city council and speak, they feel heard; that their council is listening to them and taking their opinions into consideration,” Fish said.

Another way Fish hopes to bring the city together is on its streets. Safe streets are “imperative” in Fish’s eyes, notably being one of the champions of abolishing parking minimums in Culver City. He was supportive of the original form of the MOVE Culver City project, arguing that the motive behind the removal was misguided.

“I’ve never seen a bike lane be in place for three years and get ripped out and replaced with cars,” Fish said, “And I’ve never seen a road widening project actually improve traffic in the long run.” 

However, he also wants to be careful to ensure that traffic is being calmed, not obstructed. Fish has dedicated his career to bringing more safe streets to where he lives but emphasized his goal wasn’t to impede drivers.

“We need to do everything we can to calm traffic,” Fish said, “and make sure streets are safer for all modes.”

This plays into a unique vision for Culver City: one where essential services and amenities are accessible within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride. Creating a network where it is easy to access amenities will help reduce the need for driving in a city where over half of the greenhouse gases it emits come from passenger cars.

“Do you want things available within 15 minutes no matter how you get around?” Fish wondered. “That sounds great to me.”

On top of abolishing parking minimums, Fish also advocates for parking maximums, arguing that corporations like Apple which recently found a home in Culver City could create significant traffic with large parking garages.

“Giant parking garages in our community drive up traffic, make emissions and pollution worse, and make our streets less safe,” Fish argued.

At the center of Fish’s message is the focus on policy. He doesn’t want to just focus on the people who are comfortable in Culver City, but on those who are slowly getting priced out of the city, those who don’t live in the city but want to, and those who feel their voices aren’t being heard.

“We’re so lucky to be a part of this community, and there’s so many people in our community who want to be able to stay here and benefit from it,” Fish said, “and that’s ultimately what I’m fighting for.”

Photo courtesy of Bubba Fish.