(Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the Westside Current November 3, 2025 and is reprinted with permission.)
Rick Caruso (left) and Adam Corolla chat on stage in Glendale.
Photo: JAMIE PAIGE
By JAMIE PAIGE
Inside the AMC theater at The Americana at Brand in Glendale, one of his own developments, Rick Caruso took a deep breath and paused. His voice caught as he spoke about what had happened just hours earlier, when his startup, Steadfast LA, delivered five homes to families who had lost everything in the wildfires.
“It was just one of the greatest days of my life,” Caruso told host Adam Carolla during a live taping of The Adam Carolla Show. “I left there thinking, ‘Why isn’t the government doing more for these people? They have no options.’”
He recalled one survivor telling him, “My life was perfect. I had no wants in my life. I had my vegetable garden. It just broke my heart.”
Carolla opened the program with a grin and some praise. “I’m just a big fan of this guy,” he said, calling the audience “a partisan crowd.” What followed was a sweeping conversation that moved from Caruso’s family roots and philosophy on leadership to wildfire recovery, city services and homelessness.
From Boyle Heights roots
The two traded jokes about parking rates before tracing Caruso’s story back to his family’s immigration from Italy and his grandfather’s work as a coal miner and later a gardener in Boyle Heights.
“Raised in West L.A.,” Caruso said. “My grandparents on both sides were immigrants, came through Ellis Island. My paternal grandfather ended up in Uniontown as a coal miner … and my dad was actually born in the coal mining camp.”
Boyle Heights, he said, “was like the old Italian-Jewish neighborhood of L.A.”
Carolla, himself Italian-American, quipped that Los Angeles never got its own Little Italy. Caruso replied simply, “I’m on it.”
Wildfires, waste and the “epitome of incompetence”
Caruso’s tone shifted when the conversation turned to January’s Palisades fire. “We have the epitome of incompetence,” he said. “And it starts with the mayor.”
He said the disaster was “100% preventable” and reflected what he sees as a lack of leadership and readiness at City Hall. “If you’re the mayor … and you had a fire on January 1st … the first question [is], are we prepared and how are we prepared?” he said. “What’s predictable is preventable.”
To illustrate what he meant, Caruso pointed to an earlier experience in Montecito, when flames approached his Miramar project during another major wildfire. He said his team asked how to protect the site and learned that local firefighters would prioritize homes over commercial buildings. “Banyan put together a plan,” Caruso recounted, referring to a colleague. “He brought in private firefighters from Arizona, water trucks, and retardant trucks.”
Although those precautions weren’t needed in Montecito, the planning became a model. When winds picked up in the Palisades and a smaller fire had burned a week earlier, Caruso said his team pulled the binder off the shelf and acted. “Two days before, firefighters, fire trucks, water tanks and retardant — we were there, stationed, ready to go,” he said.
That readiness, he added, made all the difference. “I’m really proud of our team,” Caruso said. “We saved the whole block of buildings on our side and the whole block of buildings on the other side. Businesses are reopening now … it’s going to give the Palisades a part of a downtown to come back to.”
Homelessness programs and accountability
Caruso also highlighted the short falls of Los Angeles’ Inside Safe hotel programs, calling them ineffective because “you’re putting a homeless person in a hotel without any services.” Instead, he said the city should direct money to organizations such as Downtown Women’s Center, Union Rescue Mission, The People’s Concern and Hope the Mission.
“They have a 90 percent effector rate,” he said. “They give people the services they need — mental health care, drug addiction, housing — and they’re staying there.”
Trash, taxes and “cover-up mode”
The discussion shifted to what Carolla called “how trashy this town is.” Caruso blamed mismanagement and rising costs. “The city of L.A. this year was a billion dollars over budget,” he said. “And for the first time in 20 years, had declining revenues.”
He added, “City services are cut. … I can’t tell you the last time I saw a street cleaner driving down the city of Los Angeles.”
Caruso said neighboring cities such as Glendale, where The Americana sits, show what’s possible. “They’ve been a great partner to invest with,” he said. “It’s all fixable.”
The cost of living
During audience questions, a woman named Shelly from Lakewood said she wanted to retire soon but couldn’t afford to stay. “My friends who have retired have left Southern California,” she said. “How do you stay and retire?”
“It’s a really good question,” Caruso said “When I started my business almost 40 years ago in L.A., I always had the feeling there was abundant opportunity. … But the cost of living in California has gotten so out of control because we just haven’t managed it right.”
He cited gas prices and taxes: “Why does gas in California cost two to three times gas anywhere else? … Twenty cents out of every dollar you pay for gas goes to that stupid rail line.”
Caruso said his focus [if he ran for office] would be “lowering the cost of living by reducing bureaucracy [and] building more housing.” He claimed California is “at least a million homes short” and that Los Angeles has “the lowest housing start in 10 years.”
He said regulation drives 40 percent of housing costs and said his company is developing workforce housing for employees without public subsidies. “I don’t think people should have to work two hours to get to work and two hours to get home,” he said. “Every company should be investing in their employees.”
The question that won’t go away
Throughout the evening, the question surfaced more than once: Would Caruso run again?
“Well, there’s no announcement tonight,” he said with a smile. “The only announcement I might make tonight is where I’m going to dinner afterwards.”
For those expecting a campaign kickoff, it never came. But the night offered something else, a clearer view of Caruso’s outlook and the convictions behind it. Whether or not he runs again, his message was unmistakable: Los Angeles, he said, is worth fighting for.