Topline:
Every year, NPR remembers some of the writers, actors, musicians, filmmakers and performers who died over the past year, and whose lifetime of creative work helped shape our world.
Who's on the list: From well known musicians, a groundbreaking poet, acting legends to a humanitarian ballerina — this year's list is just sampling of those we lost in 2024.
Read on... for more about their lives and legacies.
Every year, we remember some of the writers, actors, musicians, filmmakers and performers who died over the past year, and whose lifetime of creative work helped shape our world. Here are just a few of them, listed chronologically below by the dates of their deaths. (You can find a tribute to many more musicians here.)
Beloved for the roles she created in such musicals as West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago and Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Rivera carved out space for herself on stages that did not then easily accept Latina leading ladies. Her prowess as a dancer became apparent in childhood, during ballet classes in Washington D.C. Over a six-decade-ong career, Rivera won multiple Tony awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was the first Latina to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. One of the great performers of her era, Rivera was never interested in making television or movies – until the end of her long life, she was a Broadway baby. Read Jeff Lunden's remembrance.
Born in China to Japanese parents, Ozawa shook up the classical music establishment when he was appointed to lead a top American orchestra in 1973. Young, hip and unorthodox, he represented a radical departure from an artistic tradition that rarely placed men of color (or any women) on prestigious podiums. He was a protege of Leonard Bernstein, with whom he shared an adventurousness and dynamism that captivated fans beyond the world of classical music. Ozawa also championed cross-cultural exchange; notably, he brought the BSO to China in 1979. Read Andrea Shea and Tom Huizenga's remembrance.
Ultimately, Apfel was best known for her look: owlish round glasses, heaps of clanking jewelry, and cropped grey hair. All of it, fashion. Apfel was an early example of what we'd now call an influencer. She insisted on being seen. Her career stretched from the 1950s until the late 2010s. It included stints as a White House designer, Home Shopping Network entrepreneur, writer, socialite and professor. At age 97, she signed with a top-tier modeling firm. She was the subject of a celebrated documentary and a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. And Apfel was the oldest person with a Barbie doll made by Mattel in her image. Read Neda Ulaby's remembrance.
While probably best known for vibrant, pictorial quilts that summoned various aspects of Black American history and representation, Ringgold was a classically trained painter who bridged arts and crafts in deeply feminist multimedia work that, over a decades-long career, included cloth dolls, mosaic murals and picture books for children. A leading American artist who fought for increased diversity, her work is included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem and many others. Read Andrew Limbong's remembrance.
He was dubbed "the patron saint of literary Brooklyn" by The New York Times, where Auster regularly appeared on the bestseller list for works such as The New York Trilogy that included his breakthrough novel, 1985's City of Glass. A prolific postwar writer who deftly swirled the surreal into such familiar genres as the detective novel and memoir, Auster also dabbled in filmmaking, writing scripts for a few art-house hits. Read Tom Vitale's remembrance.
If you were a Hollywood executive who wanted an off-kilter authority figure, you would call Donald Sutherland. The Canadian-born actor appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows. He played doctors, like the wiseacre lead in the 1970 movie M*A*S*H, and paranoid government figures, as in Oliver Stone's film JFK. He was excellent as a fascist, whether it be in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 or as President Snow in the wildly successful The Hunger Games franchise. But in films such as Ordinary People and Don't Look Now, Sutherland brought vulnerability to playing fathers. In real life, he was the father of five, including actor Kiefer Sutherland. Read Mansee Khurana's remembrance.
With his curly mop of hair, winsome attitude and candy-striped shorts, Simmons set out to encourage people to get fit, even those whose body types did not reflect the punishing standards of perfection at the time. He included all kinds of bodies in the bracingly upbeat VHS tapes that became foundational to his empire in the 1980s. Sweatin' to the Oldies sold more than 20 million copies alone. While Simmons received some criticism for fat-shaming, and later mystified fans by withdrawing from the public, he was a transformative figure in the nascent exercise industry, encouraging consumers to see exercise as playful, rather than painful. Read Kyle Norris' remembrance here.
A former accountant, Newhart's dour but deeply loveable persona was first established in a series of hit comedy records in the 1960s. Their success essentially invented a genre. Newhart moved seamlessly to television, hosting his own variety show, then starred in not one, but two eponymous sitcoms throughout the 1970s and '80s, Newhart and The Bob Newhart Show, in which he played a psychologist and a Vermont innkeeper respectively. Read Eric Deggans' remembrance here.
Donahue is credited with inventing the audience participation talk show. His topics were thoughtful – abortion, atheism, racism – and his tone was measured. He never talked down to his predominantly female audience. The Phil Donahue Show ran for nearly 30 years, and after 6,000 episodes, he stepped down from a television landscape that, aside from Oprah Winfrey, was populated by much more sensational and scandal-seeking imitators. Read Eric Deggans' remembrance here.
His stentorian tones enriched classic films ranging from Star Wars to The Lion King. "I am your father" and "You are my son" are two of his most immortal lines, but James Earl Jones grew up without his birth parents. He was abandoned as a child. The traumatized little boy with a stutter became one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood and on Broadway. A boundary-shattering Black actor, whose early career included playing a doctor on daytime TV in the 1960s, his accolades included Tonys, Emmys, a lifetime achievement Oscar and a National Medal of the Arts. Read Allison Keyes' remembrance here.
DePrince was only 29 when she died of undisclosed causes earlier this year, but the celebrated ballerina's life was packed with inspiring accomplishments. The youngest principal dancer at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, DePrince also found fans through TV's Dancing With the Stars and Beyonce's Lemonade music videos. She recounted her journey from an orphanage in Sierra Leone to international acclaim in her 2014 memoir Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina. Read Clare Marie Schneider and Elizabeth Blair's remembrance.
You might know her as the tart-tongued Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey or as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, but Maggie Smith's illustrious stage career began decades earlier, as a teenage star of Shakespeare at the Oxford Playhouse in England. Her work on screen included indelible performances in such films as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Room With A View and Gosford Park. Read Bob Mondello's remembrance.
A once-in-a-generation talent, Kristofferson was a Rhodes scholar from Brownsville, Texas. who wrote his first country song at age 11. A celebrated college athlete, he enlisted in the U.S. Army after studying literature at the University of Oxford. Then he broke into the Nashville music scene, first working as a janitor before being discovered by Johnny Cash, writing songs for the likes of Janis Joplin and recording hits of his own. Musical stardom led to the movies. Kristofferson acted in dozens of them, from the legendary flop Heaven's Gate to the vampire classic Blade. Read Melissa Block's remembrance here.
Back in the days of liner notes, Adam Abeshouse's name would be instantly recognizable to classical music fans. He produced hundreds of records with such stars as violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Lara Downes. Shortly before Abeshouse's death from bile duct cancer at the age of 63, many of the musicians whose talents he'd burnished in the studio flew to his home in upstate New York to play one final concert for their beloved producer. Read Tom Vitale's remembrance.
Jones dominated pop music charts for decades. A charismatic musical savant whose career as a jazz trumpeter began in his teens, the composer, arranger, performer, producer and record-label executive helped orchestrate the careers of numerous stars, including Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and Lesley Gore. None dazzled quite as brightly as Michael Jackson, with whom he created Thriller, the bestselling album of all time. Jones was nominated for 80 Grammy awards and won 28. Read Stephen Thompson's remembrance.
A centenarian and civil rights activist as well as a revered singer and instrumentalist, Jenkins recorded dozens of albums for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings,. She was the label's best-selling artist, outselling even Pete Seeger. Her music for children included original compositions such as "You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song." Other songs celebrated cultural traditions from around the world. Read Andrew Limbong's remembrance.
Jamison's celebrated collaboration with Alvin Ailey began in the 1960s as a star member of his troupe. Her lithe elegance transfixed audiences; her interpretation of his piece "Cry" made Jamison an immediate modern dance icon when it premiered in 1971. Eventually, Jamison moved into a different kind of role, as artistic director of the company, which she led for more than two decades. Read Andrew Limbong's remembrance.
Over a celebrated literary career that started in 1968 with her first published poetry collection, Giovanni wrote prolifically about Black pride and power, and about love and the sensual pleasures of everyday life. The longtime Virginia Tech professor authored more than 30 books, including many for children, racked up dozens of honorary degrees, and was the sort of celebrity poet who drew thousands of fans to her readings. Read Andrew Limbong's remembrance.
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org.
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The mutual aid nonprofit Community Solidarity Project has long operated out of repurposed spaces, including the landmark Johnie’s Coffee Shop, which it will have to leave later this spring.
About the nonprofit: The small team behind the Community Solidarity Project has run a community space near Museum Row called Bernie’s Coffee Shop for years. Its footprint expanded last year to include a mutual aid distribution site next door at the former 99 Cents Only store on Wilshire and Fairfax, which distributed food, hygiene supplies and even books and furniture to people affected by the L.A. fires, immigration raids and more.
What’s changing: The owners of the former 99 Cents Only store and Johnie’s Coffee Shop buildings are now taking on paid leases.
What the nonprofit says: The Community Solidarity Project’s members told LAist they’re grateful they got to use the space for as long as they did and that they were aware the informal agreement allowing them to use the spaces might come to an end at any time. “Part of the fantastical part to me is that we're a group of poor people that has found a way to be extraordinarily generous, and it's not something that we could have done alone,” founder Michelle Manos said.
What’s next? The Community Solidarity Project is looking for donations to help it secure a new location to continue its work as a community hub and mutual aid distribution center.
Read on ... to learn more about the Free 99 store.
This spring marks the end of an era for the Community Solidarity Project, a mutual aid nonprofit with a longstanding footprint in Mid-Wilshire. It will no longer run Bernie’s Coffee Shop, a community space located in the historic landmark Johnie’s Coffee Shop, famous for appearing in The Big Lebowski and Miracle Mile.
This year, the organization also stopped running a free supply center called the “Really Really Free 99 Store.” The Community Solidarity Project has provided mutual aid to Angelenos for years and started the distribution center last year to help those affected by the L.A. fires and immigration raids.
Co-founder Michelle Manos is the first to admit she had no idea any of her organization’s projects would last as long as they did.
“If you would've told me in 2016 that we would have a 10-year run here, I might have looked at you like you're crazy or I might have died of shock right there on the spot,” Manos said.
Manos has been a steward of Johnie’s Coffee Shop ever since she helped throw a one-night takeover during Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign (that’s how it got the name Bernie’s Coffee Shop). From then, she started a partnership with the Gold family to continue to use the space — first as a campaign center, then as a hub for organizers’ meetings, mutual aid distribution, art events and even on-location shoots with student filmmakers.
Manos said she is “ extraordinarily grateful” for their time in the space, as the Community Solidarity Project looks to extend its work running a free, volunteer-run, large-scale mutual aid distribution site. In order to do so, it is raising the funds to be able to continue operating in a new space.
The “Really Really Free 99” project started at the beginning of last year, as Los Angeles was reeling from the impact of the L.A. fires. The team at the Community Solidarity Project immediately pivoted to providing mutual aid for fire victims, since it had built up the experience during events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following those distribution drives, the Community Solidarity Project connected with a multinational mutual aid organization that had an extra tractor trailer’s worth of resources to donate.
At that moment, with the then-vacant location of the 99 Cents Only store right next door, Manos realized there was an opportunity. The coffee shop and the adjacent store are owned by the family of Dave Gold, the founder of the 99 Cents Only chain.
“I reached out to our partners in the Gold family, and I asked for and received permission to be able to start storing those items inside the 99 next door, which is the original 99 Cents store here at Wilshire and Fairfax,” she said.
From there, the organization started to focus on giving out these supplies and finding more about what residents needed. The Community Solidarity Project’s Ralph Green maintains many of the organization’s relationships with suppliers, including building partnerships with brands and big stores that might otherwise throw out materials.
“They know it's going right back out to the community,” Green said.
Green said the Community Solidarity Project also partners with mutual organizations across Southern California in order to share and trade the resources they’ve been given.
“My personal philosophy as an organizer has always been to say yes to resources and opportunities and then figure it out,” Manos said.
That often means the organization’s members and volunteers end up dedicating large amounts of time to ensuring resources get shared — like one day when Rosalind Jones traversed L.A. County for 14 hours to distribute about 10 pallets’ worth of plant-based ice cream.
“When I tell people our core team is like six or seven people, they're like, ‘That sounds impossible. How did you do that?’” said Jones, who ran the Free 99 distribution center. “I don't know. It just happened. We just started moving things and doing stuff, and then it all came together.”
As more and more donations came into the Free 99, it distributed food, hygiene products and other necessities, plus other goods like family-planning supplies and hot meals when available. Eventually, it was able to accept donations of beds, desks and bookcases so people displaced by the Eaton Fire could refurnish their apartments for free with quality furniture.
Karla Estrada, who ran the organization’s furniture distribution program, said they were able to give out more than 150 pieces of furniture to 70 families. She said one woman who came in for furniture even showed her pictures of a new apartment, excited to show off where everything would be going. Estrada said when the woman was saying goodbye, she said, “Thank you for saving the world.”
“That is why we do the things that we do,” Estrada said. “It's because we love our communities. That itself is the gift for me, and I'm very proud of that work.”
Rosalind Jones said many people who came into the distribution center couldn’t believe they weren’t being charged. Some even came up to the checkout counter with bills in hand, ready to pay.
She says she personally assisted people who came in, including an unhoused trans woman who distributed supplies to others in her encampment and a mother whose husband was detained by immigration agents and needed help taking care of her two children.
As of last month, the “Really Really Free 99” project has ended after the landlord began taking on paid leases, starting with a 99 Cents Only-themed art show. The Community Solidarity Project’s leadership was aware of the possibility and had been bracing no longer to have access to the space.
Still, the Free 99 store being asked to leave turned into a flashpoint on social media, as commenters panned the art show for seemingly pushing out the mutual aid group, a situation Manos called “unfortunate.”
”We never had any issue with the gallery itself or the artists themselves, especially the local, smaller artists who had the opportunity to work with some of the larger artists that were participating in organizing that gallery,” Manos said. “We're well aware that when a local artist sells a piece of art, they use it to feed their family, they use it to make a repair on their car.”
Manos said she also saw value in how the pop-up gallery provided a third space for people to gather, which is also part of the Community Solidarity Project’s mission with spaces like Bernie’s Coffee Shop.
“If we can find more ways to use spaces that are empty around our city to build community, to build the arts, those things are important,” Manos said.
Manos said vacating the space was difficult, especially since community members — many of whom they didn’t have contact information for due to privacy concerns — needed to be notified, and the store’s stock needed to be moved out quickly.
The Community Solidarity Project now is being asked to leave that space as Metro prepares to open a nearby D-Line stop — no word yet on what it’ll be replaced by — but its members are optimistic they can build on that work as a proof of concept wherever they land next.
“Part of the fantastical part to me is that we're a group of poor people that has found a way to be extraordinarily generous, and it's not something that we could have done alone,” Manos said.
Manos said now that the organization is starting a new chapter, it is hoping to raise funds — at least $30,000 — to secure a new, more permanent location.
“We would hope to be able to continue a version of the free store, as well as a version of the community gathering space,” Manos said. “That has been the magical part, when the community is here and when we're able to pay it forward.”
In addition to monetary donations, the organization also is looking for volunteers to help coordinate mutual aid and staff events, including its annual Queer Fair.
“We're not exceptional in that we thought of something that's never been done before,” Jones said. “We just did something that seemed like it was really hard and seemed like it might even be impossible with the resources and the amount of people we had. But we did it.”
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A forensic audit released by Orange County on Monday found ex-Supervisor Andrew Do and his top aide had a longstanding pattern of misspending public money far beyond the scandal that led to federal corruption charges and landed Do in prison.
Pattern alleged: The report details how Do and his chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, undermined procedures meant to prevent abuse of county money, while using their influence to steer taxpayer money to friends, family and business that quickly donated to his election campaigns — often with little information about the services being provided.
‘Pay-to-play’ concerns: “The pattern of contracts being awarded to vendors that contributed to former Supervisor Do’s political campaigns raises questions and concerns about potential ‘pay-to-play’ schemes,” the report states.
The audit: The report released Monday was the first phase of a forensic audit the OC Board of Supervisors commissioned last fall into county contracts in the wake of LAist’s investigation of the Do meal money scheme and his corruption conviction.
Reaction: Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected to replace Do in 2024, said in a statement that “Do’s federal bribery conviction was the tip of the iceberg” and called on law enforcement to investigate. She said Do acted as "the Godfather of Little Saigon.”
A forensic audit released by Orange County on Monday found ex-Supervisor Andrew Do and his top aide had a longstanding pattern of misspending public money far beyond the scandal that led to federal corruption charges and landed Do in prison.
The report released Monday was the first phase of a forensic audit the OC Board of Supervisors commissioned last fall into county contracts in the wake of LAist’s investigation of the Do meal money scheme and his corruption conviction. The audit is being conducted by the firm Weaver.
The report details how Do and his chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, undermined procedures meant to prevent abuse of county money, while using their influence to steer taxpayer money to friends, family and businesses that quickly donated to his election campaigns — often with little information about the services being provided.
“The pattern of contracts being awarded to vendors that contributed to former Supervisor Do’s political campaigns raises questions and concerns about potential ‘pay-to-play’ schemes,” the report states.
Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected to replace Do in 2024, said in a statement that “Do’s federal bribery conviction was the tip of the iceberg” and called on law enforcement to investigate.
“For years, I have known that Andrew Do was a criminal, acting as the Godfather of Little Saigon — strongarming political opponents and pressuring his minions to do more,” Nguyen said. “Now the county has evidence of all of it, and I’m hoping the federal DOJ, FBI, state attorney general, the district attorney and the [California Fair Political Practices Commission] investigate.”
[Click here to read the forensic audit report.]
Do’s attorney, Paul Meyer, declined to comment on the audit findings, saying that would be “inappropriate.”
Wangsaporn declined to speak with the auditors, according to the audit report. He has not returned LAist’s multiple requests for comment over the past year and a half, including Monday.
The forensic auditors plan to present their findings at the Board of Supervisors’ public meeting March 24.
Among its many findings, the report found Do routed more money than previously reported to companies affiliated with Peter Pham, a central figure in the meal fraud scandal that sent Do to federal prison.
The report notes Do routed money for county events in his district to businesses linked to Pham. One was Aloha Financial Investment — the same company that received most of the diverted meal money in the corruption scheme and paid the down payment on a house for Do’s daughter. The other was Pham’s construction company, Hua Development, which also did business as HD Construction and HD Entertainment.
The findings echo an LAist review of county contract records, which found over $500,000 in county funds were directed to Hua Development and Aloha Financial Investment — largely for events in Do’s district dating back to 2016 and for public service announcements during COVID.
Pham’s construction company, auditors noted, also “appeared to have performed a kitchen remodel of former Supervisor Do’s personal residence in March 2021.” LAist discovered the renovation work in permit records and reported on it last year.
At the time, Do was routing millions of county meal dollars to Pham’s nonprofit, Viet America Society, in the bribery scheme that later led to Do’s criminal conviction. Do admitted in his plea deal that nearly $8 million in meal funds to the nonprofit were diverted, including $385,000 to purchase the home for Do’s daughter.
The new report notes the forensic audit is limited because auditors were not able to make non-county officials and organizations provide documents or answer questions.
Additionally, the auditors found Do authorized an $814,650 county payment to 360 Clinic — the county’s main provider of COVID-19 tests — despite concerns from county staff that the company was double billing. The findings largely echo LAist’s previous reporting on the issue. In all, auditors wrote, the county paid 360 Clinic $3.4 million for uncollectable claims, despite the fact that state and federal law required private insurance or the federal government to fully pay for all coronavirus testing claims at the time.
An internal county report obtained by LAist last year found that 360 Clinic had double- and triple-billed for some testing services. In the report released Monday, auditors found the company submitted more than 4,000 potential duplicate COVID-19 testing claims, with the same patient name and same date of service.
The auditors wrote that they examined documents indicating insurance providers had already paid for some of the claims submitted to the county for repayment. Other claims were for services that weren’t eligible for reimbursement, the auditors wrote.
“While additional review on a claim-by-claim basis would be required to quantify the extent of such denied claims, it is questionable at best as to whether these denied claims should have been invoiced to the county,” they wrote.
The audit found Do and Wangsaporn had a pattern of steering contracts and grants to businesses that either employed an immediate family member of Do, contributed to his political campaigns shortly after being awarded a contract, provided a media platform for Do or were involved in the annual Tet and Moon festivals in Do’s district.
Do and Wangsaporn “were very involved in procurement decisions and established a culture where decisions related to District 1 contracts were not to be questioned,” the report states. County procurement staff, it adds, were “concerned that they would receive a phone call” from Do or Wangsaporn “if their requests were not approved.”
Among the decisions Do and his chief of staff impacted were “lump sum advanced payments” to vendors, “directives to pay vendors and contractors for invoices with open issues under review and the selection of vendors and grant recipients.”
The county’s spending during the COVID-19 pandemic was obscured by the process the Board of Supervisors set up, auditors found.
Contracts were approved without competitive bidding or public approval by the board, which “limited visibility of purchase amounts and vendors selected,” the report states.
During the pandemic, Do and the other county supervisors set up a process where millions in taxpayer spending was directed without the usual public transparency on meeting agendas to show where money was going.
Do used the board-approved closed-door process to quietly direct millions of dollars to the nonprofit at the center of the meal scheme.
The audit also found that the county lacked policies requiring invoices detail what taxpayers were paying for. Do’s office had a common pattern of issuing contracts where payments were made on invoices that had few details about the services provided or itemizations of costs, the report states.
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“As expected, the most recent audit again exposes criminal Andrew Do for habitually using his position of power to financially reward family, friends and donors through crony capitalist contracts at the expense of Orange County taxpayers,” Supervisor Katrina Foley said in a statement.
Foley said she and other supervisors have implemented reforms to contract policies, “aimed at increasing competitive bidding and [reducing] opportunities for corruption.”
She called on the county to put in place additional safeguards recommended by the auditors to "further protect taxpayers and prevent this type of misconduct from happening again.”
Supervisor Don Wagner said the audit findings show “former Supervisor Do’s corruption goes beyond that for which he is now serving federal prison time,” adding that he’s “deeply disturbed.”
Wagner defended Do at a January 2024 supervisors’ meeting after reports that Do had awarded millions to Viet America Society without disclosing its close ties to his daughter.
“There are no, nor should there be, questions or challenges as to that particular grant of money because there's nothing illegal about what was done,” Wagner said at the time, while blocking a reform proposal to require supervisors to disclose close family connections to groups they award money to.
Do ultimately pleaded guilty to bribery and is serving a five-year prison sentence.
LAist reporter Jill Replogle contributed reporting to this story.
Topline:
The legal aid organization that was denied a tenant aid contract last year by the Los Angeles city attorney now appears set to receive the contract after all. On Tuesday, the L.A. City Council voted 12 -1 to approve a nearly $107 million contract with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, or LAFLA, to help renters in the city fight eviction.
The backstory: The vote had been previously scheduled but delayed twice. Last week, councilmembers said they wanted to put off the vote because of a last-minute confidential memorandum sent to council offices by the L.A. City Attorney’s Office. LAist obtained screenshots of the memo, which show City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto warning the council against awarding the contract to LAFLA. Feldstein Soto argued the city should “reconsider the award of such a large contract to a frequent litigant against the city.”
The response: LAFLA leaders said lawsuits against the city are handled independently from the tenant defense work the city has contracted the organization to do. LAFLA is currently overseeing the Stay Housed L.A. program through a temporary contract extension set to expire March 31. If the council hadn’t approved the new contract this week, leaders said the program would have needed to stop accepting new clients.
Read on … to learn more about the contract dispute between the City Attorney’s Office and LAFLA.
The legal aid organization that was denied a tenant aid contract last year by the Los Angeles city attorney now appears set to receive the contract after all.
On Tuesday, the L.A. City Council voted 12–1 to approve a nearly $107 million eviction defense contract with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, or LAFLA, which oversees the Stay Housed L.A. program.
The vote had been previously scheduled but delayed twice. Last week, council members said they wanted to put off the vote because of a last-minute confidential memorandum sent to council offices by the L.A. City Attorney’s Office.
LAist obtained screenshots of the memo, which show City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto warning the council against awarding the contract to the foundation. The memo argues the city should “reconsider the award of such a large contract to a frequent litigant against the city.”
Sources with knowledge of the contract dispute told LAist that Feldstein Soto opposes LAFLA’s selection in part because the legal aid nonprofit has joined lawsuits in which the city is a defendant. In one case, the city was accused of failing to adequately respond to its homelessness crisis. The city ended up agreeing to a settlement deal requiring nearly 13,000 new shelter and housing beds.
LAFLA leaders said lawsuits against the city are handled independently from the tenant defense work the city has contracted the organization to do.
“There is no conflict of interest here, because Stay Housed L.A. and any affirmative litigation LAFLA brings against the city are entirely separate,” said Barbara Schultz, LAFLA’s director of housing justice. “We do not use Stay Housed L.A. funds for anything except for Stay Housed L.A. services.”
With rents spiking faster than wages for many Angelenos, tenants can quickly find themselves on the brink of homelessness. The city’s elected leaders have tried to stop more renters from becoming unhoused by connecting them with rent relief and free legal defense against eviction.
LAFLA has headed the city-funded program Stay Housed L.A. since 2021. The program brings together legal aid providers to offer attorneys and legal advice to renters facing eviction.
Such legal representation is rare. One study found that 95% of landlords have an attorney in eviction court while the vast majority of tenants do not.
Last summer, the City Council and mayor approved a new five-year contract with LAFLA and its partners. But Feldstein Soto refused to sign it, arguing the contract should have gone through a competitive bidding process.
The city responded by putting out a request for proposals. After reviewing submissions, the city’s Housing Department recommended that eviction defense services continue to be overseen by LAFLA. The council approved that recommendation Tuesday after deliberating in closed session.
In addition to the $107 million award to LAFLA, the council voted in favor of giving $42 million to the Housing Rights Center for emergency rental assistance. The council approved nearly $22 million for the Liberty Hill Foundation to oversee tenant outreach and education.
Another tenant rights organization, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, was approved to receive $6.6 million to strengthen awareness and enforcement of the city’s ordinance against tenant harassment.
Much of the funding comes from Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax” on real estate selling for more than $5.3 million.
In a statement emailed to LAist, City Attorney spokesperson Karen Richardson said the amount of funding being awarded exceeds the budget of some city departments.
“The eviction defense program is a City program and is in zero jeopardy,” Richardson said. “What is in question is a $177 million blank check to LAFLA and its partners without the reports and invoice review that is required by law.”
After rejecting the contract last year, the City Attorney’s Office launched an audit of LAFLA. LAist asked for details about the audit’s findings but did not receive a response.
In a statement after last week’s vote was delayed, Schultz said LAFLA has provided the city with ongoing reports about Stay Housed L.A. operations.
She said Stay Housed L.A. “has consistently provided anonymized detailed data on the individual case level to the city, without compromising client identities, along with detailed invoicing.” The program has “never refused to provide any data or invoicing information requested by the Los Angeles Housing Department,” she said.
Stay Housed L.A. leaders said the program currently retains about 160 tenants each month for legal representation and provides legal advice to another 575 tenants per month. They said about 55% of the tenants they’ve represented have remained in their homes and another 40% have settled cases on favorable terms.
During Tuesday’s meeting, some City Council members expressed frustration over how much information the program has reported on its outcomes.
“The transparency requirements in these contracts, when I look at them, does not meet the level of what we as a body should be requiring of organizations that we are giving money to,” said Councilmember John Lee, who cast the lone vote against awarding the contract.
Tuesday’s meeting included voting on a flurry of amendments. Among the amendments that passed, there were calls for new reporting requirements and annual funding renewals to be withheld pending performance reviews.
LAFLA is currently overseeing the Stay Housed L.A. program through a temporary contract extension set to expire March 31. If the council hadn’t approved the new contract this week, program leaders said they would have needed to quickly stop offering eviction defense services.
The program already has had to be judicious about taking on new clients, Stay Housed L.A. leaders said. They said they didn’t want to commit to defending tenants in months-long eviction cases if the city could abruptly pull funding.
“When [the previous] contract was disrupted, it did impact our ability to serve more and more vulnerable tenants,” said Joanna Esquivel, Stay Housed L.A.’s program manager at the Legal Aid Foundation. “We are really excited to continue doing this critical work.”
The City Council passed a “right to counsel” program last year, aiming to provide low-income tenants with the right to a free attorney in eviction court. The program does not yet guarantee an attorney to all qualified renters but is trying to expand access in phases by building up the Stay Housed L.A. program.
Topline:
A California appeals court this week sided with state utility regulators in a case seen as crucial to the spread of solar panels on the rooftops of California homes. Three appeals court judges ruled that the California Public Utilities Commission was justified in reducing the rate utilities pay customers for excess energy the customers’ solar panels generate.
The backstory: The case centered on the state’s “net energy metering” program, which governs how much solar customers are paid for excess power from their panels. Earlier versions of the program guaranteed customers the retail rate, which is how much utilities charge other customers when they resell the energy.
But a 2022 commission decision reduced this payment by about 75%. The commission’s decision backed utilities’ position, which was that those who have rooftop panels don’t pay their fair share of costs such as maintaining the grid, shifting the expenses disproportionately to non-solar customers. The decision resulted in a significant drop in new customers signing up for rooftop solar.
Why it matters: Environmental advocates who brought the case say the decision will exacerbate California’s energy affordability crisis. Regulators believe it vindicates a decision they took “to ensure that rooftop solar programs remain fair, sustainable, and aligned with California’s clean energy goals,” CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper said Tuesday. The decision comes amid renewed attention on California’s energy affordability crisis. Golden State residents pay the second highest rates in the country for energy after Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
A California appeals court this week sided with state utility regulators in a case seen as crucial to the spread of solar panels on the rooftops of California homes.
Three appeals court judges ruled that the California Public Utilities Commission was justified in reducing the rate utilities pay customers for excess energy the customers’ solar panels generate.
Environmental advocates who brought the case say the decision will exacerbate California’s energy affordability crisis. Regulators believe it vindicates a decision they took “to ensure that rooftop solar programs remain fair, sustainable and aligned with California’s clean energy goals,” CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper said Tuesday.
The case centered on the state’s “net energy metering” program, which governs how much solar customers are paid for excess power from their panels. Earlier versions of the program guaranteed customers the retail rate, which is how much utilities charge other customers when they resell the energy.
But a 2022 commission decision reduced this payment by about 75%. The commission’s decision backed utilities’ position, which was that those who have rooftop panels don’t pay their fair share of costs such as maintaining the grid, shifting the expenses disproportionately to non-solar customers. The decision resulted in a significant drop in new customers signing up for rooftop solar.
Advocacy groups sued over the decision, including the Center for Biological Diversity, The Protect our Communities Foundation, and the Environmental Working Group. They argued that commissioners didn’t properly take into consideration the benefits to disadvantaged communities and customers of having local energy generation.
The case reached an appeals court, which applied, in a decision siding with commissioners, a legal standard granting them significant deference. The Supreme Court of California then unanimously ruled last August that the lower court should not have applied this standard and must delve more deeply into the substance of the arguments.
Roger Lin, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said this week’s decision is “disappointing” and the groups are “evaluating all of our options.” They can appeal again to the state supreme court.
“The whole reason the utilities created the ‘cost shift’ narrative was to preserve their profits,” Lin said. Under state law, utilities can earn a rate of return on everything they build, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars from ratepayers every year. They can’t earn that return on customers’ rooftop solar.
The decision comes amid renewed attention on California’s energy affordability crisis. Golden State residents pay the second highest rates in the country for energy after Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Ratepayers routinely admonish state utility regulators for their high bills at public meetings. And Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced an upcoming replacement of the head of the utilities commission as part of a move to focus on bill affordability.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
