Jacob Margolis
covers science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters, as well as investigations and accountability.
Published December 18, 2023 2:39 PM
Cacao fruits are seen growing on cacao trees on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 2, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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Topline:
Who would ever decide to keep highly temperamental trees comfortable at a specific temperature and humidity for multiple years, pollinate thousands of small flowers by hand, ferment, roast, winnow and grind beans into a perfectly smooth paste, all for a few wonderful bars of chocolate? A couple of people down the street from the LAist studios, it turns out.
The hardest part: Because cacao trees are usually pollinated by gnats that don't exist in SoCal, each flower has to be pollinated by hand.
You can do it: Why not give it a go? We've got more information on what can be your most ambitious DIY project.
Anytime you snap a bar of chocolate, sink your teeth into a Reese's or sip Swiss Miss from a mug, the cacao that makes up the best part of each of those sweet treats likely came from within 20 degrees of the equator. As far north as Vietnam and Hawaii, and as far south as Madagascar and Bolivia.
View of the oldest cocoa tree planted in Ghana in 1879 at Tetteh Quarshie cocoa farm in Mampon on June 14, 2019 in Eastern Region of Ghana.
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Cristina Aldehuela
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Theobroma cacao, the trees from which chocolate comes, are picky about their environment. They prefer warm and humid conditions with a lot of rain, thriving in partial shade where they’re afforded a whole lot of protection from strong wind and sun.
All of which makes the environment here in Southern California — dry, windy, at times both brutally hot and cold — less than ideal for them if you’re going to try and grow them outside. Which is why I was surprised and thrilled when I found out that there are multiple people who've figured out how to both grow cacao and make chocolate from the beans nearby.
After talking through the process with three different people, it’s not easy by any means, but maybe if you’re up to it you too can give it a go. I know I’ll be trying in my backyard (with the proper greenhouse setup) sometime soon.
Think of this less as a how-to guide and more so a post meant to get you excited to go on an experimental cacao journey of your own.
The intrepid DIY-ers
One of the things I love about the rare fruit-growing community here in Southern California is that it attracts all kinds of different people interested in ridiculous experimentation in less-than-ideal environments.
When it comes to cacao trees, I found two groups taking on the challenge of going from dirt to bar.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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The first group is down the street from the LAist studios in Pasadena, in a nondescript warehouse. Seamus Blackley, physicist and creator of the Xbox, is growing several trees with his creative partner Asher Sefami, a trained microbiologist. They took on the process as distraction to get their minds off of the other super-secret engineering work they're doing at the same location.
Meanwhile, up in Santa Barbara, Mike Orlando, the owner of Twenty-Four Blackbirds, has been making boutique chocolate since 2009. He recently began importing cacao pods, sprouting the beans and growing his own trees in a nearby greenhouse.
So, what can we learn from them?
Step 1: Growing the trees
First, you need to get your hands on some trees.
You can pick them up from rare fruit nurseries in L.A., like Mimosa, or you can sprout your own.
An Afro-Colombian farmer separates pulpy cacao seeds from a cacao pod during a harvest on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 1, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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If you get your hands on some fresh pods, pull out the seeds, wash off the pulp, peel off the outside skin and stick them along with a moist paper towel in a plastic bag. Keep them in a warm environment, somewhere between 80 to 90 degrees, and wait.
Cacao seeds sprouting.
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Each pod has 30 to 50 seeds, so you'll have a lot of opportunities.
Cacao plants that've been sprouted from seed.
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Once you have your cacao tree, you need to plant it.
Sefami stuck theirs in oil drums with standard potting soil.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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Orlando planted his in a greenhouse.
One of the most critical components of this process is controlling the environment the trees live in, as they prefer moist and warm conditions with dappled light.
Orlando shoots to keep his greenhouse from 60 to 80 degrees at about 70% humidity, though he's seen the trees survive in 40-degree weather.
Cacao trees kept warm and moist in a greenhouse.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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In Blackley's climate-controlled lab, a nearby water jet keeps the humidity up and grow lights above the trees give them at least 12 hours of sunlight. They had a problem with aphids, so they tried to remedy the issue with thousands of ladybugs before eventually just using pesticides.
For fertilizer, Orlando sprays the leaves with a kelp mixture and sprinkles Miracle Grow Osmocote every three months or so, depending on how they look.
As you'll find if you start growing plants, a lot of it's a feel thing.
Step 2: Pollinating tiny flowers (the hardest part)
In the wild, cacao trees are often pollinated by biting midges, which don't exist here. So, you'll need to pollinate each tiny flower by hand, using pollen from different plants.
Orlando hasn't quite gotten to this point in the process, but Sefami and Blackley have, after about two years of trying to figure it out.
"The first pod we got, we were through the moon," said Sefami. "And it got to about the size of a Tic Tac and then it just falls off. And it was like ... it was one of the most painful moments."
Cacao flowers grow on trees at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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"The hard part is when you have tweezers and you're trying to decide if this plant and this plant are different enough genetically, they might work. And you spend half an hour pollinating, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, and you don't know what's going on, and the tree is dying, and you're not sure why," said Blackley.
Asher Zelig Sefami pulls pollen from a cacao flower.
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"Basically you need to take the flower apart into its constituent parts. We remove the pollen and then we have to rub it on the other flowers in a way that just touches where it needs to go,“ said Sefami.
"The flower needs to be at just the right stage of development. Within about a day, they fall off. It’s really hard to get it right."
Cacao pods grow on a tree at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Turns out the biting midges are quite effective, said Blackley.
Step 3: Harvest and ferment the beans
If you get to the point where you're harvesting the pods, next you've got to ferment them.
Blackley and Sefami pulled the beans out of the pods smushed them into a bowl and stuck them in a proofing box.
Cacao beans fermenting.
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Seamus Blackley
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They kept the beans at about 83 degrees Fahrenheit, around 80% humidity and mixed them once a day. There was so much microbial activity that the temperature of the beans climbed to 115 degrees before dropping down over the course of about a week.
"At first it smells ... doughy and bready. And then the fermentation process gets taken over by bacteria that produce essentially vinegar, so it starts to smell kind of sharp," said Blackley.
"And then one day you open up the fermentation chamber and it starts to smell like chocolate. It's completely strange."
After they were done fermenting, they dried them to 3% moisture to get them ready for roasting.
Step 4: Roast, grind and temper the cacao
While you can purchase all sorts of different specialty roasting equipment, Orlando recommends you just throw them into your oven at about 250 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they start to smell like brownies.
Then, separate the nibs from the shells, blend them in a spice grinder and then grind them into as fine a liquid as you can get them to in a mortar and pestle. This is when you'll add your sugar — 30% by weight will give you 70% dark chocolate.
Alternatively, you can purchase a wet grinder, which uses stone wheels to pulverize the cacao into a smooth chocolate liquor.
"If that was your first time making chocolate, you'd be pretty impressed. It tastes pretty good," said Orlando.
Step 5: Make the bars
Finally, you can temper your chocolate, which gives a bar its characteristic snap when you bite into it.
A bar of finished chocolate.
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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You then pour it into molds, wait for it to harden and enjoy.
Step 6: Taste the chocolate
If you get this far, you've probably since spent years of effort and thousands of dollars for something you could've purchased at the store for about $12. And we should be friends because it's the kind of absolutely insane experimentation I love.
"I'll tell you, growing chocolate from seed is quite an adventure, but it's the kind of thing you should do in your life. Don't you want to know how to do that? Make chocolate from dirt? Come on," said Blackley.
The final product from Blackley and Sefami.
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So how did their chocolate taste?
Absolutely delicious! It was fruity with notes of cinnamon and I could've kept eating it. Though, considering the investment each square was probably worth its weight in gold, they only gave me a tiny piece.
If you want to just buy already-made chocolate, you can also check out Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
The machine on the left keeps the chocolate in temper so employees can fill molds for chocolate truffles at Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Resources for DIY-ers
This is far from a comprehensive guide, but if you do go on a dirt-to-bar chocolate journey, there are some great resources out there to guide you through the chocolate making part in particular.
Chocolate Alchemy is a reliable resource with links to equipment suitable for a DIY-er.
As polls close on Election Day and results start rolling in, these are some of the House races that will help explain how the midterms are unfolding.
Why it matters: Democrats appear poised to retake control of the House. If they do, will their majority be built upon a blue wave or a tiny trickle? A previous NPR analysis found both parties spending deep and wide in a competitive landscape that spans 70 districts, ranging from longtime tossups to newly-competitive seats in deeply conservative areas.
The backstory: Republicans came into Election Day with a narrow 218-214 seat advantage in the House and facing severe headwinds as the party in power. This midterm cycle has also seen a record number of departures from Congress, and polls show voters aren't happy about things like the economy and the ongoing war in Iran.
Read on... for more on the four types of house races to watch.
Democrats appear poised to retake control of the House on Tuesday. If they do, will their majority be built upon a blue wave or a tiny trickle? A previous NPR analysis found both parties spending deep and wide in a competitive landscape that spans 70 districts, ranging from longtime tossups to newly-competitive seats in deeply conservative areas.
Republicans came into Election Day with a narrow 218-214 seat advantage in the House and facing severe headwinds as the party in power. This midterm cycle has also seen a record number of departures from Congress, and polls show voters aren't happy about things like the economy and the ongoing war in Iran.
So what separates a good night for Democrats from a blue wave that sees dozens of House seats change hands? Here's NPR's cheat sheet to four types of House races to watch as results come in:
Early polls closing
The first results of the night with national implications will likely be from Kentucky's 6th Congressional District (KY-06) and Indiana's 5th (IN-05), two districts where polls close first (in the 6 p.m. ET hour) and whose 2024 margins for President Trump (15 and 17 points, respectively) could act as a preview for how much voters have soured on Republicans.
Democrats and Republicans alike have spent heavily in the Kentucky race, where Democrat Zach Dembo faces Republican Ralph Alvarado, so the increased investment is worth noting as a factor on the outcome. If Democrats flip one or both of these races, then it will likely be a long night for the GOP.
Florida also counts and reports its votes quickly, and is home to more than a half dozen races that are viewed as toss-ups or slightly favor one party or the other, so as these districts have projected winners there will be more insight into other races across the country.
Like the Kentucky contest, both parties have spent significant sums in races like the open seat in FL-22 with Democrat Pia Dandiya facing off against Republican Casey Askar and incumbent Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz versus Republican Scott Singer in the newly-redrawn FL-25 race.
In the final seven days of the midterms, a handful of House races have seen more than $10 million in ad spending, according to data from AdImpact. It's a sign of where both parties think the saying "It all comes down to turnout!" is more than a cliche. That includes districts in Michigan, such as MI-07, where progressive Democrat William Lawrence is challenging incumbent Republican Tom Barrett in a seat that Trump carried by just over one percent in 2024 and the open MI-10, where Democrat Christina Hines faces Republican Mike Bouchard.
New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in NY-17could be one of the rare Republicans who holds on to his seat thanks in part to his party's ad spending advantage in the closing stretch against Democrat Cait Conley.
Three of Iowa's four House races, IA-01, IA-02and IA-03are on the list of most expensive, in part because of the competitive governor and U.S. Senate races that are also on the ballot and driving up turnout.
This year's Supreme Court decision rolling back part of the Voting Rights Act led to many Republican-led states redrawing their House maps to eliminate districts that favor Democrats in a typical election year – but this year is not typical.
Now, the political environment has deteriorated so much that seats like AL-02, held by Democrat Shomari Figures, OH-09held by Democrat Marcy Kaptur and NC-01held by Democrat Don Davis are all considered toss-ups at best and favoring the Democrats at worst for Republicans.
In Texas, Latino voters seem poised to swing back to Democratic candidates and could prevent Republican Eric Flores from flipping the seat held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in TX-34or Tano Tijerina from unseating Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar in TX-28.
As results continue to be reported, one thing to watch is how far into conservative communities the increased support for Democrats can go.
One race that has received a surprising amount of ad attention is in Arkansas's 2nd district (AR-02), where incumbent Republican Rep. French Hill faces a well-known challenger in Democrat Chris Jones. By the time polls close, closer to $10 million will have been spent in the final months on the Little Rock-based seat that Trump carried by 15 points in 2024.
There are also many districts in states that redrew their maps where the Republican gerrymander could backfire, likeOhio. In both OH-10held by Republican Mike Turner and OH-15 held by Republican Mike Carey, Trump won by closer to 10 points in 2024. They're also in a state with competitive governor and Senate races and stretch between the suburbs and exurbs of Dayton and Columbus with an electorate that could swing away from the GOP.
The margin in North Carolina's Senate race, where former Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to win against former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, could determine if races like NC-03are in play as well too. Rep. Greg Murphy's district absorbed more Democratic-leaning voters after the latest map redraw.
Vote centers are open until 8 p.m. People who are in line by 8 p.m. are legally allowed to cast their ballots.
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Topline:
All vote centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday to vote in person or drop off your vote-by-mail ballot. If you're in line by 8 p.m., you are legally allowed to cast your ballot.
What's next: Keep in mind that in tight races, particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day. The first batch of results (typically ballots received before Election Day) will be posted shortly after the polls close.
Election Day is here, and with it comes your last chance to vote in the 2026 general election.
So far, a lot of people have cast ballots. Early voting turnout in L.A. and Orange counties has been higher than the previous midterm cycle in 2022.
All vote centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday for in-person voting or to drop off your vote-by-mail ballot — in L.A. County, there are more than 600 to choose from. Remember: If you’re in line to vote by 8 p.m., stay in line. You’re legally allowed to cast your ballot if you get in line by the 8 p.m. deadline.
Tip: You aren’t required to bring your vote-by-mail ballot with you — those get voided during the check-in process.
If you haven’t registered yet or you’re worried you’ll have an issue, election workers can help you. California allows same-day registration. (Check your registration status here.) If you register at the same time that you vote, you’ll cast a provisional ballot. Officials will verify your registration information and count all ballots of voters who are eligible.
You can also drop your ballot in an official ballot drop box anywhere in the state before 8 p.m.
If you prefer to mail your ballot in, just make sure it’s postmarked by Tuesday. No postage is required. (Pro tip: If you’re mailing your ballot, take it into the post office to ensure it’s postmarked on time. It'll be counted as long as it arrives within 7 days of Election Day.)
You can also designate another person to return your completed ballot, as long as they aren’t paid. Make sure they fill out the envelope as directed for another person returning your ballot.
Here’s a map of ballot drop boxes near Metro stations.
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Metro
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Lyft is offering discounted rides with the code “VOTE26.” You’ll get 50% off up to $10.
What to do if you can't get to your local vote center
Not to worry — if you’re out of town, you can drop off your ballot at an official ballot drop box or polling location anywhere in California. It will be routed to the correct county. There’s no need to drive back to the vote center closest to where you live.
The same goes for voting by mail. Remember: If you have a vote-by-mail ballot, you can get it postmarked at any post office. As long as it’s postmarked by Tuesday and arrives within 7 days of Election Day, it will be counted.
What to do if you make a mistake on your ballot
If you make an error on your vote-by-mail ballot, you can draw a line through it and make your correction.
You can also go to any vote center, request a new ballot and vote in person.
How to sign your ballot
Make sure to sign your ballot envelope with the signature that matches what your county registrar has on file, which is probably the signature on your driver’s license or state ID. Otherwise, your ballot might get flagged. If that happens, you’ll be notified by mail and will have a chance to fix it.
What to do if you come across an unfamiliar ballot item
It’s not required to vote on every item. If you haven’t had time to research, it’s OK to skip a race or ballot measure you’re unsure about — or several of them if you like. Whatever votes you do cast will still be counted, even if parts of your ballot are left blank.
Follow LAist’s Voter Game Plan. We’ll keep you updated as results come in after 8 p.m.
When will my ballot be counted?
Keep in mind that in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day.
Election results will start posting shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m.
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Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk
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In L.A. County, the first batch of results released includes vote-by-mail ballots received before Election Day (8:30 to 8:45 p.m.), followed by early votes cast at vote centers before Election Day (8:45 to 9:00 p.m.), then votes cast in-person on Election Day. This process is expected to wrap up in the early hours of Nov. 4. Then, additional results will be released following a schedule you can see on the county's site. In California, ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3 are counted toward the results as long as they arrive within seven days of the election.
County election officials must certify election results by Dec. 3.
If your mail-in ballot is rejected for any reason (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it.
If you come across any other challenges, be sure to let us know. We have reporters out across L.A. County, along with staff standing by to answer your questions.
What questions do you have about this election?
You ask, and we'll answer: Whether it's about who's funding the campaigns or how to track your ballot, we're here to help you understand the 2026 election.
Editor's note: A version of this story was first published in 2022, and we continue to update it for subsequent elections.
Keep up with LAist.
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Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published November 3, 2026 5:00 AM
Gayle Nicholls-Ali thanks the crowd at the end of the show. At left, Zaire Calvin looks on.
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Mykle Parker
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Mykle Parker
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Topline:
Eaton Fire survivors recently took their experiences to the stage. It's part of a national tour of disaster survivors putting on similar events in their own communities.
Why it matters: In a play by and for fire survivors, longtime Altadena residents Gayle Nicholls-Ali and Rasheed Ali turn interviews with displaced neighbors into a script for a play.
Read on ... for more about what the performance meant to the people who made it happen.
Altadena artist and muralist Austin Scott is painting a portrait in a courtyard outside the Union Center for the Arts in Little Tokyo. As a steady stream of people walk in, he sketches some details of the face of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers. She wears a wide-brimmed purple hat, her eyes are closed, her face tilts upward toward sunbeams.
Her name is Evelyn McClendon. The retired Pasadena school bus driver was the first victim whose body was found in the rubble of the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
“It’s going to be a portrait of her face made up of little portraits of all the other faces of the people we lost in the fire,” Scott says.
Something like a memorial, he says, for the 19 people who perished.
Altadena muralist and artist Austin Scott paints a portrait of Evelyn McClendon, the first identified victim of the Eaton Fire.
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In front of the building entrance, as people eat tacos and chat, Emeka Chukwurah starts the music.
“Can you see it? We rising up,” he raps as his father, Onochie, and members of their band play drums, guitar and traditional African instruments. They specialize in Nigerian highlife fusion music.
Chukwurah lost his Altadena business, Rhythms of the Village, in the fire. The store sold goods sourced from countries across Africa and hosted drum, dance and Nigerian language classes.
They’re finally about to reopen in a temporary space.
“What we went through is life-changing. It was very traumatic,” Chukwurah says. “But to turn something so traumatic into triumphant moments like these and create new memories, I'm truly grateful for how far we have come.”
Emeka Chukwurah lost his business, Rhythms of the Village, in the Eaton Fire. He's close to reopening in a temporary space.
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Putting real experiences on stage
The idea for tonight’s play was born after the Eaton Fire, when photographer Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, returned to Altadena after a trip to the Bahamas. Their home and community of 30 years were gone.
So they sought out their displaced neighbors. Gayle photographed them. The two collected more than 20 hours of interviews. After the fire, during mutual aid efforts, they happened to meet Sunder Ganglani, the artistic director for Cornerstone Theater Company. With Ganglani’s help, they turned the interview transcripts into the play’s script.
Union Center for the Arts is the theater home of East West Players, considered the nation's first Asian Pacific American theater company.
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“And so the four speakers on stage, all of whom are fire survivors, end up speaking around 20 different people, you know, from every walk of life,” Ganglani says.
Eventually, the nonprofit Extreme Weather Survivors, which connects disaster survivors with each other, got in touch as well. The play became a part of a national tour of similar events hosted by disaster survivors across the country ahead of the midterms.
On this October evening, the crowd settles into the seats of the David Henry Hwang Theater. Gayle Nicholls-Ali takes the stage to applause.
“Tonight is a chance to see one another more fully, to feel something together, to remember that we still belong to Altadena even if we're not living there right at the moment,” she says.
The show begins
The lights go down. Four actors walk onto the stage, one by one.
“My name is Rasheed. My name is Francesca. Shakira. My name is Sam. Darina. My name is Sunny.”
As they speak the stories, Nicholls-Ali rotates pictures of the people she interviewed, projected onto sheets hung behind the actors.
The performers onstage during "From Ashes We Gather."
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The building that houses this theater — the Union Center for the Arts — has been privy to some of the biggest events in Los Angeles history. It was a church for Japanese Americans before their mass incarceration during World War II, then a community center for Black Americans during the Great Migration. It was witness to racial attacks known as the Zoot Suit Riots, and was damaged by the Northridge earthquake.
Today, the art space and theater continues to be a place to process pain, to find refuge.
Like the actors in the play. All of them are fire survivors.
Their voices become a chorus with phrases repeated by survivors.
“Driving back to Altadena for the first time was really chimney after chimney after chimney…”
“They killed 19 of our neighbors.”
“This is our generational wealth. We don't want to lose that.”
The questions they were constantly asked: “How are you? Where are you? What's going on? Were you affected?”
Rasheed Ali performs the piece he composed for the play.
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Mykle Parker
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At the close, the actors exit one by one. Rasheed Ali is alone on stage. The musician and composer sits at the keyboard and plays a piano piece telling the story of Altadena before, during and after the fire.
At the end of the night, some special guests take the stage, including Zaire Calvin, the brother of Evelyn McClendon, whose portrait was being painted earlier. He performs a rap he wrote with his cousin. The show ends with Medusa, who grew up in Altadena and is a hip-hop legend who has collaborated with icons like Tupac Shakur, Erykah Badu and Common.
A healing moment
Gayle Nicholls-Ali thanks the crowd at the end of the show. At left, Zaire Calvin looks on.
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After the show, as everyone packs up, Rasheed Ali is reflective.
“For me, it was a breakthrough,” he says. “The fire has a paralyzing effect on your creativity.”
Gayle Nicholls-Ali feels the same.
“I have not been able to feel creative because this fire is like a big knot in your stomach that you can't get rid of,” she says. “And so this helps to unknot the knot.”
Not just for her and Rasheed, she hopes, but for their community too.
Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published November 2, 2026 7:00 PM
The Skid Row Care Campus is L.A. County's main homeless services hub.
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Topline:
L.A. County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at its Skid Row Care Campus in August and has ended its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, the nonprofit that ran harm reduction there, effective Tuesday.
Why it matters: The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment. The pause comes amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row.
Why now: The county says the temporary pause stems “in part” from concerns raised by community stakeholders and local businesses.
What’s next: Homeless Health Care Los Angeles is laying off 134 workers. New providers have rehired many of them, the county says.
Los Angeles County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at the county’s flagship services hub in Skid Row in August, and has now terminated the contract of the nonprofit that ran harm reduction programs there, the Department of Health Services told LAist.
The pause — which county officials said is temporary — began in August, “in part due to concerns that community stakeholders and local businesses raised to County leadership,” according to a statement provided to LAist by Thomas Lynch, a spokesperson for the county’s Department of Health Services.
The changes come amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row and mounting pressure from the Trump administration and neighboring businesses on L.A. programs that distribute drug paraphernalia. Critics argue the programs enable drug addiction and contribute to crime in the area.
The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment.
In late August, the county Department of Public Health identified a cluster of HIV cases among people who live in and around Skid Row. As of Sunday, 15 people had been linked to it, 11 of them women, according to Becky Schlikerman, a spokesperson for that department.
In a statement, Schlikerman said both substance use and sexual transmission are being investigated as possible factors, and that the department is working with street medicine teams and harm reduction groups to expand HIV testing and prevention in the area.
“There is an active HIV outbreak in Skid Row, so reducing safe injection supplies to people who use drugs in this moment seems particularly dangerous,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, distinguished professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
The Skid Row Care Campus still distributes naloxone — the opioid overdose reversal drug — wound care supplies and safe sex supplies, Lynch said, but “distribution of syringes and pipes is currently on pause.”
He also said they have not set a date for syringe services to resume, that the pause applies only at the campus, and that staff are referring people to syringe programs elsewhere.
The state lists 24 authorized syringe services programs in L.A. County, according to the California Department of Public Health. Two are based in or next to Skid Row.
Harm reduction services are provided across much of L.A. County, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction in Skid Row, in September of 2021.
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Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
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Provider layoffs
The county has also terminated its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles effective Tuesday, county officials said. The county announced the change in an Aug. 28 statement, the same month the syringe and pipe pause began.
Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, one of L.A.’s best-known harm reduction providers, notified the state in September that it would permanently lay off 134 workers — including 117 employees at the Skid Row Care Campus — effective Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to state Employment Development Department records.
“Right now, HHCLA is being forced to say goodbye to some deeply valued staff and reduce services that some of LA’s most marginalized rely on every day,” the nonprofit wrote in an Instagram post in late September.
In the same post, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles said its jobs program for people in Skid Row “no longer exists.” The nonprofit said the program offered “real income, real pathways forward for people too often shut out of opportunity.”
The county is bringing in nonprofits St. Joseph Center and LA Community Health Project instead, officials said. Meanwhile, Social Model Recovery Systems will expand its existing services and Wesley Health Centers will continue providing healthcare on site.
In statements provided to LAist, L.A. County's health services and homelessness departments described the shake-up as “contractor changes” made as part of an effort to “strengthen operations.” Officials are updating campus protocols, “strengthening on-site safety” and expanding substance use treatment and healthcare, according to those statements.
County officials said they are committed to a transition that avoids disruption for people using the campus.
“Providers are hiring from within the Skid Row community and have worked hard to retain staff who were working for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles,” Lynch told LAist.
Those providers have hired more than 80 people so far, and nearly 90% previously worked for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, according to the department.
Representatives for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles did not respond to repeated requests for interview or comment.
The nonprofit has worked in Skid Row since the 1980s and ran the campus’s harm reduction and overdose response programs. It celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
A group of Skid Row community members and laid-off campus workers calling itself the Skid Row Coalition for Community Safety has launched a campaign saying L.A. County is “playing politics with people’s lives.”
“Supervisor Hilda Solis and LA County chose to cowardly abandon the recommendations of public health experts and the Skid Row community,” the group said in a statement on its website.
County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who represents the area and authored the 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan, told LAist in a statement that the decision to end Homeless Health Care Los Angeles’ contract was made jointly by the county’s health services and homelessness departments.
“Some services have been paused to allow the incoming provider to onboard staff and establish operations,” Solis said. “This is a necessary part of coordinating the transition.”
“I am proud of the Skid Row Action Plan and its commitment to expanding low-barrier services, health care, and pathways to housing,” Solis’ statement continued. “That commitment remains unchanged.”
Solis completes her final term next month and is on Tuesday’s ballot running for California’s 38th Congressional District, which covers parts of eastern Los Angeles and Orange counties but not Skid Row.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Solis represents Skid Row and authored a 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan.
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Criticism of the campus
The Skid Row Care Campus opened in spring 2025. County officials call it the first community-designed homeless services hub in the nation.
The campus logs more than 2,700 visits a day, a count that includes repeat visitors, according to the county. It costs about $26 million a year to operate. Funding is secured through June 2027. The budget for the following fiscal year has not been finalized.
The campus in the heart of Skid Row drew scrutiny this year. In May, Fox 11 aired a segment featuring Estela Lopez, executive director of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District, who called the campus a “meth mansion.” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told the TV station she was concerned about problems at the campus.
LAPD responded 693 times to the two blocks around it between January and late May, and recorded four homicides there in the first four months of 2026, according to LAPD figures first reported by Fox 11.
On Oct. 8, federal agents and LAPD officers carried out a drug sweep dubbed “Operation Save Skid Row,” centered about a block from the campus. Federal prosecutors charged 28 people and arrested 23, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to stop funding “so-called ‘harm reduction’” efforts. In April, federal health officials barred grantees from using federal money for pipes and drug test strips, on top of a longstanding ban on federal funds for syringes.
L.A. County officials have not said whether federal policy played a role in the pause. The campus is funded through opioid settlement money, Medi-Cal managed care plans, the state and the county — not federal grants, according to officials.
County officials and employees have credited harm reduction programs with helping drive down overdose deaths, which fell 6% in 2025 — the third straight annual decline — according to the county Department of Public Health.
A person walks past an encampment of unhoused people in the Skid Row community. Skid Row is home to thousands of people who are either experiencing homelessness on the streets or living in shelters.
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Harm reduction’s track record
Harm reduction programs including needle and syringe exchanges started in L.A. more than three decades ago in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. L.A. County declared a local public health emergency in 2000 to authorize syringe exchange under a new state law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.
People who use fentanyl in L.A. have increasingly shifted from injecting it to smoking it, according to a 2025 study co-authored by Bluthenthal, with USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
Bluthenthal called the recent syringe and pipe distribution pause at the Skid Row Care Campus “obviously a setback.”
“Harm reduction programs, through providing social and material support, have been one of the most consistent pathways to treatment for people who are currently using illicitly purchased drugs,” he said.
In a statement on the pause, officials at L.A. County’s Department of Health Services said people who receive syringe services are three times more likely to reduce or stop using drugs and five times more likely to enter substance use treatment.
John Raphling, an organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network based in Skid Row, said his group is “extremely concerned that the county is cutting these services” and that Skid Row residents “were not at all consulted.”
“Harm reduction services, like those provided by Homeless Health Care, help save lives, prevent the spread of disease, and allow people to survive and work through their recovery,” Raphling said.
Some Skid Row residents see it differently — including Don Garza, who has lived in the neighborhood for 27 years and resides in a single-room-occupancy building there.
“It’s not helping anyone,” Garza told LAist. “It exponentially accelerates the overdose deaths.”
“The part of harm reduction that we still need is the overdose prevention, but without the pipes and the needles,” Garza said. “We still need the Narcan because Skid Row is not going anywhere, and people are still gonna OD, and they're gonna die.”
