WATCH: LA mayor candidate says homeless will go to Seattle

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(The Center Square) - Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt is claiming that his hardline policies on the homeless will mean that thousands of the unhoused will relocate to Seattle, with its more permissive policies, if he is elected to office.

The former reality television star-turned-political candidate has made the homelessness issue a major part of his campaign. 

He argued in a recent interview with ABC Television that the vast majority of individuals living on the streets of Los Angeles are battling addiction rather than traditional homelessness, and he would require that they get treatment.

Pratt asserted that if the city halts its funding for what he described as a "broken nonprofit system," many of these individuals will choose to leave Los Angeles for cities with more permissive policies, specifically citing Seattle.

"They’re not homeless, they’re drug addicts," Pratt said during the interview. "These people have been bused in by scam rehabs, scam NGOs, scam homeless nonprofits. They’re all going to Seattle, where the mayor will welcome them."

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office did not respond to requests for response to Pratt's comments. 

Andrea Suarez, with We Heart Seattle, an organization that works with Seattle’s addicted homeless, said she was concerned by Pratt’s statement because it reflected Seattle's relaxed policies on drug usage, which have caused crime at some of the city's current temporary homeless housing.

“I’m alarmed by LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s remarks, whether sarcastic or literal," she told The Center Square on Tuesday.

"His warning that addicts will simply relocate to Seattle because ‘the mayor will welcome them’ highlights how our city’s tolerant policies on open drug use," she added.

Suarez said unsanctioned camping in Seattle parks and soft-on-crime prosecutors and judges continue to invite the same antisocial behavior that other cities are trying to eliminate.

Wilson, who took office in January, had made her plan to create 4,000 units of emergency or temporary housing for the unhoused over the next four years a key part of her agenda.

While counselors providing drug addiction and mental health counseling will be based at the new housing, there is no requirement that residents avail themselves of the services, raising public safety fears.

Republican Pratt is running for Los Angeles mayor in the open primary elections scheduled for June 2. He has spent more than $3 million on his campaign to unseat incumbent Karen Bass, with a strong focus on his plan to revamp services and housing for the homeless.

While there are 13 candidates, polls have narrowed the race to Bass, Pratt, and Nithya Raman, who is considered a liberal and was a supporter of Bass. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote on June 2, the top two vote-getters will have a rematch in November.

Throughout his campaign, Pratt has consistently argued that the crisis on Los Angeles' streets is not the result of underfunding, but rather a consequence of excessive waste and executing the wrong strategies. 

Under Pratt's plan, drug-addicted persons would be forced to receive services. He said he would build prefabricated rehabilitation campuses on federal land outside Los Angeles, where individuals would be sent for treatment.