The Brief

When the Riverside County Department of Animal Services took in the highest number of cats out of anywhere in the country, only a little more than half of the animals left the shelter system alive.

Now, shelter operators are trying to flip the script on how people approach cats they think are strays. Because as it turns out, some of those cats weren’t actually strays, which meant the shelters were being clogged with what were essentially “catnapped” pets.

Jaclyn Schart, the deputy director for the Riverside County Department of Animal Services, said people have been told for years that if you see an animal outside alone, you should bring it to a shelter.

“So people did that, and unfortunately what happened is we were kidnapping people's cats,” she said.

But fewer than 1% of the cats that end up in a shelter are reclaimed by their families, according to Schart. She noted that a lot of people were trying to be helpful by bringing them in, but that can quickly cause overcrowding.

Last June, the Riverside County Department of Animal Services had more than 600 cats across its four shelters, with more than 400 at the Western Riverside location alone.

“We need help,” Schart said. “We cannot take in that many cats because we can't help them, because they're going to get sick in our environment when we're that crowded.”

To help the department focus on the sick and injured animals that need care most, Schart said you shouldn’t worry if you see a cat hanging around outside and the top of its left ear is clipped. That’s known as eartipping and is a nearly universal sign that a feral feline has been fixed and vaccinated.

Representatives for L.A. Animal Services and O.C. Animal Care did not respond to requests for comment on their own stray cat populations.

'Crisis of kittens'

Michael Phipps-Russell is the executive director for Loving All Animals, which provides adoption services and educational programs throughout Riverside County.

He told LAist the euthanasia numbers can be breathtakingly difficult to face, and the county’s kitten population has a lot to do with it.

According to data from the Animal Welfare Coalition of Riverside County, more than 11,000 kittens were brought into shelters last year.

May saw the most by far, with 2,282 kittens coming in for care, compared to about 1,800 in June and 1,200 in July.

Phipps-Russell said to reduce the kitten population come springtime, you have to start ramping up spaying and neutering between July through October.

“If we don't become more aggressive at this, we're going to have even worse numbers in 2024,” Phipps-Russell said.

Part of the problem, he said, is how huge Riverside County is. If a spay and neuter clinic opens in downtown Riverside, that’s still about a five-hour round trip for people and pets living in Blythe.

He said it’s important to offer these services in all areas, even the outlying ones, year round to make a difference.

“If we reduce the number of kittens in the community, then we can reduce the amount of shelter euthanasia,” Phipps-Russell said.

How you can help 

The county’s “5,000 Cats Challenge” is modeled after the nationwide “Million Cat Challenge” to help shelters save lives.

If you have a cat and it isn’t fixed, keep them inside.

That will help make sure more kittens aren’t being born, and it’ll also help you avoid a citation. Riverside County requires all cats and dogs to be spayed or neutered.

The Riverside County Department of Animal Services also offers free engraved pet tags and adoptions whenever it's raining, according to Schart.

You can take a look at the adoptable cats and kittens at the Western Riverside, San Jacinto Valley, Coachella Valley, and Blythe shelters here.

If you can’t make it to those locations, more than a dozen Petco and PetSmart stores across the county also have feline friends up for adoption.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Friends & Family Flea is returning to Koreatown. Organizers plan to make the flea market a monthly event in the neighborhood and offer reduced registration fees for local vendors.

The market will take place on Nov. 21 and Dec. 12 from noon to 5 p.m. at Un-Other Space at 524 S. Western Ave.

The first market was held in September and drew more people to the space than organizers expected. Friends & Family Flea co-founder Kioh Park said more than 400 people RSVP’d but roughly 650 to 700 people attended.

Some attendees told Park they lived just a few blocks away and had learned about the market through social media or The LA Local’s coverage.

The response convinced the organizers to continue. 

“It was a trial, but definitely we saw the demand from the vendors and attendees,” Park said. “That’s why we want to keep pushing this.”

Organizers plan to invite back vendors from the first market while bringing in new vendors.

They plan to keep the market at Un-Other Space as vendors and attendees responded well to the indoor venue, Park said. 

Attendees play Go-Stop with the LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club at the first Friends & Family Flea in Koreatown on Sept. 26, 2026.

(

Courtesy of Friends & Family Flea

)

The organizers are also trying to make the market more accessible to neighborhood businesses. Vendors based in Koreatown can qualify for a reduced registration fee by providing proof of their address, such as a driver’s license or mailing address. Vendors from outside the neighborhood pay a different rate.

“Just so we can have more people who live in that neighborhood and then who do small business there join,” Park said.

The resident-rate program is part of their broader goal of building markets around individual neighborhoods, Park added. 

The flea grew out of Park and Byun’s experience building MAUM Market, a traveling market for Asian and Asian American makers. Park, who grew up in South Korea, first visited Los Angeles in 2016 and later moved to Koreatown, where the two met and developed their business.

“L.A. Koreatown was really, it was really kind of a shock. It feels like a late 1980s, early 1990s, Korea vibe. So it reminds me of my childhood. And there’s a lot of mom and pop shops, so it was really an interesting experience for me,” he said.

Park said he had struggled to apply to established flea markets as a vendor because of language barriers and complicated paperwork.

“Back in the day, I didn’t speak English well, I wasn’t able to understand English well, and the process, paperwork was all very complicated,” he said.

Park said organizers plan to continue their partnership with the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, with proceeds from sales of Friends & Family Flea hats going to the nonprofit.

For more information about becoming a vendor, check out the Friends and Family Flea webpage.

An Orange County judge has approved a $125 million settlement with the company that owns a chemical tank in Garden Grove that failed earlier this year, forcing about 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate for days as the tank threatened to explode.

The agreement between the Orange County District Attorney and GKN Aerospace sets aside up to $100 million for a claim program for residents and businesses who were forced to evacuate.

What’s covered in the claim program?

Those affected can be reimbursed for expenses like hotel stays and loss of wages. That includes:

• Up to $300 a night for lodging, up to five nights
• A $500 payment per household for the loss of using their home
• Up to $500 per day in lost wages for hourly employees who missed work due to the evacuation, up to three working days
• Up to $5,000 per day in lost profits for businesses that had to close during the evacuation

An additional $8.5 million will be used to reimburse government agencies that responded to the emergency.

The company has agreed to a safety plan, which includes new equipment and upgrades to existing equipment, and monitoring and oversight for at least the next seven years.

What’s next?

GKN says it will hold a community event on Oct. 27 so residents can learn about the claim program, though details about the event haven’t yet been released.

The company says now that the agreement has been court-approved, the claim program will open “as soon as possible.” To prepare, GKN said residents should keep receipts related to their expenses during their evacuation.

"Additional guidance on acceptable documentation will be provided when the program opens," according to a company FAQ site.