Community Spotlight: Brandon Marlowe, a Native Son with a Heart for Hollywood

Community Spotlight: Brandon Marlowe

A Native Son with a Systems Mindset and a Heart for Hollywood

Brandon Marlowe is a lifelong Angeleno and a son of Hollywood in the truest sense. His parents moved here in the 1950s to chase creative dreams: his mother, a model and head of the Beverly Hills “Parkettes” promotional unit, and his father, an actor-turned-filmmaker with an office on Highland Avenue, where he produced industrial films for decades. “We lived briefly on Waring Avenue,” Brandon recalls. “My dad’s office was always in Hollywood, and those childhood visits have really stayed with me and are a big reason why I’ve loved this city for so long.”

Today, Brandon channels that love for LA into his growing role as a civic participant and advocate. With a background in project management and political science, he brings a systems-thinking lens to homelessness.

“I’m very much into the humanitarian side of the issue,” Brandon says, “but I’m almost equally pissed off about the inefficiencies and the implementation of programs.”

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A Personal Window into Homelessness

Brandon’s empathy stems in part from experience. After college, he faced a short stint of housing instability. With the help of a friend and a chance job offer, he got back on his feet — but the memory stuck. “That gave me an early awareness of what living out of a car could feel like,” he reflects.

His sense of justice, however, was shaped even earlier. “My mom was very much a humanitarian type of person... very insistent about caring about the less fortunate,” Brandon says. “She ingrained that in me.” These values, combined with a sharp analytical mind, led Brandon to study economics and political science at Pepperdine and engage in public policy discourse around housing and inequality.

From Policy Wonk to Purpose-Driven Advocate

Brandon keeps a close eye on Sacramento and local budget decisions, especially those affecting housing and homeless services. “We’re headed for a revenue disaster in California,” he fears, citing the lack of predictable funding streams. “These bonds that we do once in a while are great and we’ll take them, but they don’t allow us to do year-by-year consistent planning.” He also points to what he sees as squandered opportunities to make more of an impact with the Measure H funds. “We wasted a lot of that money,” he says plainly.

So what gives Brandon hope, despite his many frustrations? “YOU do,” he told Hollywood 4WRD. “You’re doing it by setting an example, and by keeping us all connected and focused around homelessness.” 

Brandon first read about Hollywood 4WRD in an LA Times article last year and was inspired to learn more about our efforts and the efforts of the wide range of stakeholders in our community committed to ending homelessness. After attending H4WRD’s holiday party in December – where he met other concerned community members along with local providers, city/county partners and folks with lived experience – Brandon took the plunge and formally joined the H4WRD coalition.

Looking for the Right Fit

Since then, Brandon has been exploring how he can apply his digital marketing skills to help further H4WRD’s mission. “I’m still finding the right niche to contribute,” he says. But he's not sitting on the sidelines — he's attending local advocacy meetings (see below for links to his meeting notes), researching policy, and and is very interested in the recent formation of the Hollywood Providers Association (HPA), a new alliance aiming to better coordinate care and share information among frontline service providers.

A Natural Connector

In his career, Brandon helped companies build new departments from scratch, often stepping into the role of director to streamline operations and systems. Now, he’s applying that skill set to Hollywood’s homelessness ecosystem —

not as a critic on the sidelines, but as a committed member of a coalition working toward a healthier, safer, and more compassionate community.

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Whether in line at Rao’s or taking a deep dive into a state budget analysis, Brandon Marlowe exemplifies the type of coalition member H4WRD is proud to spotlight — someone rooted in the past, engaged in the present, and determined to help shape a more compassionate future for all who call Hollywood home.

Watching him move from first learning about H4WRD to becoming one of our more activated members, Brandon is the one setting the great example for all of us to follow.

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CLICK HERE to read Brandon's notes from his recent advocacy meetings.