Los Angeles, he said, is “a vision of what America is reaching for tomorrow.”

“When others try to pull us apart, we pull together,” he said. “While others are obsessed with the most powerful person in our country, we are empowering the most vulnerable in our own backyard.”

Some highlights from the speech:

Homelessness

“As mayor, there’s no issue I spend more time on — because I believe that homelessness is the moral issue of our time.”

The mayor said that thanks to Measure H, which voters approved in November, the city will have $55 million a year to expand mental health and substance abuse programs and triple the number of supportive housing units in the next two years.

Housing

“Anyone who writes a check at the beginning of the month knows that the rent in this city is just too high. Too many people are getting priced out.”

Hundreds of thousands of people in the city spend more than half their income on rent or live in severely overcrowded housing, the mayor said. Allowing more homeowners to build in their backyards and making it easier to build affordable housing would ease the burden, and he urged council members to approve a new fee for developers.