Union Station Housing Navigator Erica Muñoz Challenges Incumbent Justin Jones in District 3

Erica Muñoz spends her days helping unhoused Pasadenans into permanent housing, and she says she once needed that kind of help herself. Now the Union Station Homeless Services navigator is challenging appointed-and-elected incumbent Justin L. Jones for the District 3 seat on the Pasadena City Council, a contest voters are deciding in today’s June 2 primary.

The race is unfolding in Pasadena’s first municipal election since the Eaton Fire, and the District 3 winner will help steer decisions on a growing structural budget deficit and the future of roughly 50 acres of former 710 Freeway land that Caltrans returned to the city in 2022. The district runs from the northern neighborhood that was Jackie Robinson’s boyhood home, now Robinson Park, south to City Hall and Pasadena Memorial Park.

Muñoz has built her candidacy on her work and her past. As a housing navigator she connects unhoused residents with permanent supportive housing, and she also works part time as a crisis interventionist and as a paralegal. “I believe leadership should come from people who not only understand policy, but who have lived through and worked directly with the challenges residents face every day,” she said in written responses to Pasadena Now. She said she has spent years “working directly with individuals and families facing housing instability, youth violence, crisis situations, and economic hardship.”

She also points to her own history. “I also understand these issues personally,” she wrote, “because I experienced homelessness myself earlier in life.” Her work at Union Station, she said, has given her “firsthand exposure to the realities of homelessness and housing instability in Pasadena.”

Housing is the center of her platform. Muñoz called Pasadena’s voter-approved Measure H — which established rent stabilization and the Pasadena Rental Housing Board — “an important step in the right direction,” and said the city should build on it. She said she would push to improve “tenant education and outreach so residents better understand their rights and available protections” and to “strengthen partnerships between housing providers, nonprofits, and community organizations to help prevent displacement before families reach a crisis point.” She said she is also applying for the open at-large seat on the Rental Housing Board.

Muñoz, who says her family has roots in Pasadena going back five generations, framed her campaign around keeping the city affordable. “The core belief driving my campaign is that Pasadena should remain a city where working families, seniors, and young people can continue to live, grow, and thrive without being pushed out by rising costs and instability,” she said. She described a grassroots effort built on “neighborhood meetings, community events, small businesses, and direct outreach.”

On the budget, she said the city “must remain fiscally responsible while protecting essential services,” and on the 710 land she said decisions “should be guided by meaningful community input and thoughtful long-term planning.” The next council will also help choose a new city manager; Miguel Márquez is retiring once a replacement is named.

Jones, a licensed civil engineer with Los Angeles County Public Works, was appointed to the District 3 seat in September 2022 after the death of Councilmember John J. Kennedy, then won a March 2024 special election over Brandon Lamar to finish the term. He chairs the council’s municipal services committee and sits on its public safety and housing committees, and has been endorsed by Rep. Judy Chu, Assemblymember John Harabedian, Mayor Victor Gordo and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.

Polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. A candidate who takes more than 50% of the District 3 vote wins outright; if neither does, the top two finishers advance to a November runoff.