The Brief

If you live in California, chances are you’ve seen the ads that say “Home insurance rates skyrocket” and “The FAIR Plan is broken.”

They urge you to contact your state representative to ask them to “fix our wildfire problem to make California more affordable.”

Those ads are connected to what Los Angeles fire survivors, consumer advocacy groups and the insurance industry say is a secretive, last-minute attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom to help utilities reduce how much they pay for wildfires they cause.

With the legislative session set to resume next week and run through the end of the month, the governor’s staff has been talking with state lawmakers about addressing challenges around wildfire recovery and rising catastrophic risk in California, a spokesperson for his office confirmed.

Lawmakers have not released the text of the proposals. Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez would not say whether the legislation will do the following, as alleged by fire survivors and a consumer advocacy group:

• Limit compensation for fire victims’ pain and suffering.
• Eliminate insurance companies’ right to recover wildfire costs from utilities or other corporations.
• Cap attorneys’ fees, making it harder for fire survivors to get representation.

Every Fire Survivors Network, a group started by survivors of last year’s Eaton Fire, and Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group that focuses on insurance and other issues, say the bills would shift recovery costs from utility companies to insurance policyholders. Insurance industry representatives agree. The strange bedfellows are calling out the late political maneuvering known as “gut-and-amend,” which lawmakers use to create bills by gutting other pending bills and replacing their language for a different purpose and are meant to be fast-tracked.

The groups are speaking out against the purported bill package, which appears to align with the goals of Wildfire Survivors First, a campaign funded by utilities that, despite its name, has no wildfire survivors groups among its supporters.

“Californians deserve a government that works in the open, not behind closed doors,” said Joy Chen, leader of the Every Fire Survivors Network, in a press conference last week. She urged the governor to “choose democracy over corporate special interests.”

In an open letter to the governor, Chen laid out how she said Newsom has, over the years, already helped utilities shift responsibility for wildfires they cause.

The state's three major utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, have tremendous influence in California. They have what seems to be an unlimited number of names, entities and affiliates; donate to campaigns by Democrats and Republicans; and together employ hundreds of lobbyists who advocate for hundreds of bills every session. In the 2025-26 session, their donations to sitting legislators totaled more than $1.2 million, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy Database.

Martinez said the discussions between the governor’s office and California lawmakers are informed by a report released in April by the California Earthquake Authority, which under Senate Bill 254 was tasked with studying how the state should “responsibly and equitably allocate the burdens from natural catastrophes.”

That bill — rewritten so late last year that it required the Legislature to extend its session — also allows utilities to shift additional wildfire costs to consumers if their costs exceed a wildfire fund created in 2019 through legislation also backed by the governor. The three major utilities paid half of the $21 billion fund. Californians paid the other half through monthly surcharges on their electric bills. Eaton Fire survivors have sued Edison over what they say is negligence that led to the fire; the cost of claims from the fire are expected to exceed what’s in the fund.

Among the April report’s many recommendations is to put more money in the wildfire fund by increasing the surcharge on utility customers by $8.50 a month, bringing the total to $11 a month.

Nathan Click, a spokesperson for Wildfire Survivors First, said the campaign is calling on lawmakers to “urgently implement” many of the conclusions in the SB 254 report, which he said “highlighted how payouts to financial middlemen — like trial attorneys, hedge funds and insurance companies — are often paid out before wildfire victims receive a single dollar for rebuilding.”

Click did not answer CalMatters’ question about why there are no fire survivors groups on the list of more than 200 organizations that support the effort. Most are local chambers of commerce or business groups.

CalMatters contacted nearly a dozen of the organizations. Ten did not respond or would not make their executives available for an interview.

But the chief executive of one of them, Jennifer Gray Thompson, said she changed her mind about participating once she realized the coalition did not include fire victims groups. Her organization, After the Fire, which helps support leaders in communities around the country that have experienced mega fires, was briefly on the list but was removed promptly at her request, she said.

“I’m from Sonoma,” Thompson told CalMatters. “I’m a national advocate for fire victims. I’m definitely not on their side,” she added. Former state Sen. Bill Dodd, a Democrat whom she said did a lot of good for fire survivors when he was in office, was among those who contacted her to solicit her group’s support for the effort, according to emails she shared with CalMatters.

Dodd did not return a phone call and text message from CalMatters.

A construction crew works on a home as Eaton Fire survivors and community supporters attend a news conference in support of Senate Bill 1090, the “Keep Altadena Land in Altadena Hands” Act, in Altadena on June 29, 2026. The bill aims to limit high-density development by outside investors on lots where single-family homes stood before the Eaton Fire.

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Mario Tama

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The Bay Area Council, another supporter, counts PG&E among its member businesses. Spokesperson Rufus Jeffris said the council “generally supports sensible policies and investments that reduce wildfire risk and increase community wildfire resilience and balance the diverse needs of business, consumers and residents.”

A Consumer Watchdog analysis of utilities’ required financial disclosures shows that 66% of the non-governmental organizations on the list have received utility-industry contributions, grants, sponsorships and more worth about $7.3 million from 2023 to 2025.

Click called Consumer Watchdog a “shadow lobby firm for trial attorneys” and said “it should come as no surprise that they are trying to protect a system that prioritizes trial attorneys over wildfire victims.”

Spokespeople for PG&E, Edison and SDG&E referred CalMatters to the Wildfire Victims First campaign regarding the campaign and the legislative proposal.

What state lawmakers are saying or not saying

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area whose constituents include survivors of the Palisades Fire, attended the Friday press conference.

“Any solutions that we have have to (hold) the responsible parties accountable,” Allen said in a room full of fire survivors.

Who’s responsible for the costs of wildfire recovery is important to both Allen’s current job and possibly his future one: He is chair of the Senate energy and utilities committee, and is running for insurance commissioner.

Allen’s spokesperson, Ben Cheever, said the senator was not available for an interview about the specifics of the legislative package.

But he sent the following statement from Allen: “I will carefully review any proposal put forth to ensure we hold responsible parties accountable while meaningfully reducing risk to improve affordability. We should not simply shift around the costs consumers pay without addressing this more holistically.”

Fellow Democrat Sen. Sasha Renee Perez, who represents Eaton Fire survivors, said in an interview with CalMatters that if a legislative package contains the proposals fire survivors suspect they do, she would have a “tremendous issue” with them being presented at the last minute. She also said she has talked with other members of the Legislature who “are very upset with what’s taking place.”

Perez said she would oppose any proposal that limits non-economic damages for fire survivors: “I represent Altadena. I have a friend who lost his sister in the fire. How do you put a price tag on losing your sibling?”

The senator also said she was “so frustrated and shocked” that SB 254, which started off as a bill intended to reduce profits for investor-owned utilities, ended up helping utilities instead during the last three days of last year’s session.

“That’s not the way government should work,” she said.

CalMatters also contacted several other lawmakers or their offices, especially ones who lead related committees. The following Democratic lawmakers’ offices did not respond: Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas; Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, who leads the insurance committee; and Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, who leads the utilities and energy committee.

Spokespeople for Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limon and Sen. Josh Becker responded with emailed statements similar to that sent by Newsom spokesperson Martinez: “The current system is unsustainable and not working for fire survivors, utility customers, or insurance policyholders.”

The insurance industry’s concerns

Insurance industry representatives say if insurance companies can’t recover wildfire costs from utilities, also known as subrogation, they will inevitably raise premiums.

“We don't think it's fair to make insurance policyholders pay more to bail out utility shareholders,” said Denni Ritter, a vice president at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Ritter also pushed back against the assertion by the utilities’ campaign that insurance companies usually recover their costs from utilities before paying out claims to their policyholders: “It's not like AAA goes, ‘OK, we'll pay you once we've recovered from the utilities’.”

Rex Frazier is president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, which represents the largest insurers operating in the state. He said this campaign is the latest attempt by utilities to chip away at their industry’s possible liability for wildfires. Sometimes, the insurance industry has had conversations with utilities, he said. That’s not happening this time, he said.

Now he, like other Californians, is seeing the ads from the Wildfire Victims First campaign, whose website says it’s funded by PG&E, SDG&E and SCE shareholders and three other organizations.

“We’re trying to understand why they’re talking about the insurance market,” Frazier said. “We can’t get a clear answer about what they have in mind.”

Jeanne Kuang contributed reporting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s latest attempt to sideline the L.A. region’s lead homelessness agency from a $239 million federal funding process, clearing the way for the agency to complete an application due next month.

The three-judge Ninth Circuit panel denied the federal government's request for a stay pending appeal, which would have paused a lower court's order blocking its June suspension of LAHSA.

The decision Thursday allows LAHSA to continue to function and steer funding for local service providers who rely on that money to offer services and housing for unhoused people.

“This ruling provides greater stability at an important moment for Los Angeles,” Stephanie Graves, chair of LAHSA’s governing board, said in a statement. “Most importantly, it gives our region the opportunity to keep people housed, help more people find a path home, and give people hope,” her statement continued.

The judges wrote in the latest decision that the federal government failed to adequately explain why an immediate suspension of LAHSA in June was necessary to protect the public interest.

That suspension was put on hold in August by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who ordered the federal government to restore LAHSA’s role in the region’s federal homelessness funding process while the case plays out.

Carter's injunction on LAHSA’s suspension is currently set to expire on Oct. 27.

The question of whether HUD’s suspension of LAHSA was ultimately lawful is still headed for trial, with a hearing before Carter expected in February.

What’s this fight about?

The legal dispute, at this stage, has focused primarily on who gets to control some key decisions about how $239 million in federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants are spent on housing and services for unhoused people in L.A.

The nationwide deadline to apply for that funding is next week, on Sept. 30, although HUD recently extended the deadline to Oct. 14 for L.A.-area applicants.

HUD’s rules require service providers and public agencies in places like L.A. County to form local geographic bodies called “continuums of care” and designate one agency to apply on behalf of the whole region for federal funds dedicated to solving homelessness.

L.A.’s regional body designated LAHSA as that one agency.

This year, LAHSA staff have been working since April with homeless service providers and other municipal partners to prepare a funding application according to HUD’s guidelines.

Then HUD’s June suspension of LAHSA stymied that process.

The appeals court said the timing of HUD’s suspension left the Los Angeles region in the lurch since the suspension came after a deadline to name another designated applicant had passed.

“HUD chose to suspend LAHSA at a time when it would leave the Los Angeles region particularly vulnerable,” the panel wrote.

Ben Kay works for a homeless services nonprofit and leads L.A.'s Continuum of Care Board. In a statement shared with LAist, Kay said "HUD’s attempts to impose its agenda on our community have created uncertainty and chaos in Los Angeles."

He said the Ninth Circuit ruling recognizes that there is a local legal right to set priorities for addressing homelessness.

Alternatives considered

HUD’s proposed alternative — allowing individual service providers to apply directly for federal funding — was “extremely difficult if not virtually impossible to implement,” the judges wrote.

That approach, according to HUD’s lawyers, would ignore much of LAHSA’s prior decisions about how to spend federal dollars.

“HUD, in the direct to HUD process, will not rely on any priorities set by LAHSA,” Weili Shaw, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, said at a hearing in the case held Tuesday in San Francisco. “That's expressly what HUD wants, is not to have to rely on LAHSA’s allocation and prioritization decisions.”

Thursday’s court decision means that the direct-to-HUD process is off the table, at least for now.

On Wednesday, a regional homelessness body recommended that, in case LAHSA remained suspended, L.A. County departments could handle the region’s application instead. That body, the L.A. Continuum of Care, is also soliciting applications for organizations to take on LAHSA’s key federal roles beginning next year, including the annual federal funding application and the homeless count.

LAHSA has indicated it will not compete to keep those roles itself next year. Other local government agencies, including L.A. County’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, have applied to take those roles sometime in 2027.

What LAHSA said in court

At Tuesday's hearing in San Francisco, the panel focused on the fast-approaching deadline.

Keri Curtis Axel, LAHSA's attorney, argued her client is the only entity actually prepared to make that deadline.

She also said dozens of local homeless service providers who rely on LAHSA to apply on their behalf wouldn't qualify to apply under HUD's alternative process, potentially cutting them out of guaranteed funding entirely.

Attorneys for the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, the regional body responsible for coordinating the application said that HUD never gave it a real opportunity to name a replacement for LAHSA for the process happening now.

Attorney Shayla Myers told the panel her client formally asked HUD whether it could designate a new collaborative applicant during a 30-day response window this summer. HUD never responded, she said, instead proceeding with plans for its own direct-to-HUD process.

The fight over LAHSA's suspension took on new urgency since the First Circuit Court of Appeals revived HUD’s controversial funding guidelines last week. That cleared the way for HUD to reopen this year's funding competition on a tight timeline.

Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said the agency “is moving full speed to finalize” the L.A. region’s federal funding application, due Oct. 14.

“Our priority has always been keeping frontline services running and ensuring that federal funding reaches our service providers,” O’Neill said in a statement.

LAHSA’s leader also said the agency will work with HUD to make sure that previously approved grant funding is promptly disbursed and will continue to prepare for January’s 2027 homeless count.

HUD has until Dec. 1 to announce this year's awards under a congressional deadline.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said in a statement that it “stands by the lawfulness” of its suspension of LAHSA.

“The Department will comply with the Ninth Circuit's temporary order, which was made in part due to the quickly approaching deadline for CoC applications,” a department spokesperson said.

“HUD looks forward to seeing the Ninth Circuit's full resolution on the merits,” the statement continued.

A status conference in the original case — which will ultimately decide whether HUD’s suspension of LAHSA was legal — is currently scheduled for Sept. 30 in Judge Carter’s courtroom.

The Ninth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments Oct. 19 on HUD's appeal of the preliminary injunction. The appeals court Thursday declined to pause the injunction while the case moves ahead, keeping it in effect. But the October hearing is where the judges will decide whether to uphold or overturn it.

If you're a fan of Indian food, there's a good chance you head to places like Artesia or Orange County when the craving strikes.

But there's a growing destination for Desi food you may not have heard of: Downtown Los Angeles.

Several Indian chefs have put down roots there in the past few years, and are doing their best to convince Angelenos there's more to the cuisine than the standard takeout or lunch buffet offerings.

Drawing on both street food tradition and a new confident creativity, they're producing dishes that arguably belong in a fine dining category.

Brick Lane

Take Brick Lane, a new Indian restaurant on the outskirts of the Arts District, near the 6th Street bridge, which opened earlier this year. The server arrives with a steaming plate holding what appears to be a large pie. The golden crust is topped with black sesame seeds; the server places it on the table and immediately begins carving a circle around its edges. Steam rises, and a rush of aromas and spices fills the air.

But it isn’t a pie; it’s dum biryani, a layered mixed-rice dish featuring marinated wild mushrooms, sealed and slow-baked, topped with a crispy puffed naan crust.

Executive Chef Sanjay Rawat at Brick Lane uses modern cooking techniques to execute beloved Indian flavors.

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It’s the kind of dish that Sanjay Rawat, the executive chef, wants to showcase on his new restaurant menu. Originally from New Delhi, he left at 17 to train as a chef in Malaysia. Before opening Brick Lane, he ran Kahani at The Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel. In his Arts District space, Rawat is using a variety of techniques he’s picked up during his tenure, such as using his Santa Maria grill to prepare Malaysian-Indian branzino and offering his delicate take on dessert: Valencia-orange-cardamom tarts.

Cali Chilli

Tandoori Chicken Wings from Cali Chilli's downtown L.A. location.

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Cali Chili

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At Cali Chilli, on the border of Little Tokyo and downtown, owner Parveen Nair and Michelin-starred chef-collaborator Manjunath Mural have carved out their own path. They opened their Long Beach location in 2022, and their DTLA location in 2024. Mural also leads Song of India in Singapore, which has held a Michelin star since 2015. The pair experiment with their menu, which they dub "unauthentic Indian" — a series of dishes rooted in traditional Indian cuisine and expanded through the lens of a street-food narrative. Think nachos and quesadillas made with tandoori chicken alongside butter lobster in a Thai panang curry.

Baar Baar

Baar Baar's tasting menu begins with pani puris, a popular Indian street snack made with tamarind, mango, yogurt mousse, and raspberry chat masala.

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Further west, a short walk from Crypto.com Arena, is Baar Baar, which has been open since 2023. Executive chef Sujan Sarkar’s restaurant portfolio spans the U.S., including a sister Baar Baar location in New York, Tiya, a restaurant in San Francisco, and Indienne in Chicago, which holds a Michelin star. Sarkar has built a career pushing the boundaries of contemporary Indian cuisine. Diners can take advantage of their $55 prix-fixe menu, including a dahi puri canapé (tamarind, yogurt mousse, raspberry chaat masala), Cauliflower 65 (a riff on Chicken 65, with carrot pachadi, peanut chutney, thecha) and beef short ribs in Madras curry.

Why DTLA

Speaking with Nair and Rawat, I found that each chef saw an opportunity in downtown’s changing character: a steady flow of travelers for Nair and a growing, still-forming community for Rawat.

“In downtown, we get 60% travelers and say about 40% ... from the neighborhood," said Nair.

He says the area’s possibilities sparked Cali Chilli's innovative approach: "There was a vacuum ... the idea [of the restaurants] was conceived pretty much at the same time."

A look inside chef Sanjay Rawat's open kitchen at Brick Lane in the Arts District.

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Meanwhile when Rawat first visited the future site of Brick Lane, near the 6th Street bridge, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was. “Looking from the outside, it made me think, where am I going?”

But when he entered the space, he knew he’d found the right place. With high ceilings and surrounded by large windows, the interior is filled with natural light.

“It's such a beautiful space. Whatever food you put into this space, it's just gonna shine.”

Just a ten-minute walk from Crypto Area, Baar Baar offers modern Indian cuisine with a unique twist.

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He also appreciates the location, too. “Arts District is a beautiful community, which is growing. ... Plus, it's a destination too,” he said.

Still, the chefs understand they have their work cut out for them to make their menus seen as high-end dining, beyond the traditional form Indian food has taken till now.

It’s going to take Indian cuisine in L.A. time to continue to modernize, Rawat said, to a point “where it is acceptable by other cultural groups or even by Indian people.”

The Legislature is forcing the city and county of Sacramento to try something unusual in their fight against homelessness, and both critics and supporters of the controversial plan say it could have broad implications for the rest of the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 802 on Sunday, which requires Sacramento, as well as all smaller cities within the county, to coordinate and form a joint powers authority that will lead the region’s homelessness response.

“Homelessness does not stop at jurisdictional boundaries,” Newsom wrote in a signing message, “and no city or county can solve this crisis alone.”

A joint powers authority is a public partnership where two or more local governments or agencies team up to jointly manage something. In Sacramento, the idea is that this new framework will allow the cities and county to better communicate and work together on homelessness – hopefully leading to more people getting off the streets.

Supporters say it’s a no-brainer, and they hope it will be an example to fix an age-old problem playing out in regions across the state: Cities and counties must work well together to effectively address homelessness, but they often don’t. On the other hand, opponents say forcing local governments to work together sets a bad precedent: Cooperation works best if it’s voluntary.

Meanwhile, this new experiment in co-governance is highly atypical for a number of reasons.

For one thing, this appears to be the first time the California Legislature has forced anyone to form a joint powers authority. Typically, those agreements are voluntary. In Sacramento, local jurisdictions chafing under this new mandate worry the new law will embolden the Legislature to do this again in other regions.

“This would be unprecedented, so it could have ramifications in 57 other counties,” said Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, who opposes the legislation. The county is threatening to sue the state to stop its implementation.

In addition, while it’s not uncommon for local governments to form joint powers authorities to manage other things that cross city boundaries — such as sewers or public transit — it’s very rare for this type of structure to govern a region’s homelessness response. In 2020, there were only three examples in all of California, according to Joe Colletti, chief executive officer of the nonprofit research organization HUB for Urban Initiatives. The most well-known is the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which recently has been reduced to a shell of its former self as a result of one headline-making crisis after another. In the rest of the state, a region’s homelessness response usually is led by a county or nonprofit.

Squabbling between cities and counties

This legislation was controversial from the beginning. It took Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Democrat from Sacramento and former city councilmember, two years of tense negotiations and multiple amendments to get it across the finish line. The final version allows the county and participating cities to keep control of their own funds, rather than pooling everything together — a major sticking point for the local governments.

The Sacramento region needed this legislation, Ashby argued during a recent committee hearing, because its various agencies have eight boards and nearly 90 board members working separately on homelessness without coordinating. The result is duplicated and inconsistent services, leaving people who are homeless in Sacramento County with no idea where they should go for help, she said.

It’s a problem the city and county have tried to fix for more than two decades. In 2010, the county board of supervisors and city council approved resolutions that supported creating a joint powers authority, but it didn’t happen. Two separate grand jury reports, one in 2019 and another in 2023, said the region’s homelessness response was dysfunctional and recommended better coordination.

It’s hardly an issue unique to Sacramento. Across California, cities typically provide shelter beds, while counties are responsible for the other services homeless residents need, such as mental health and addiction treatment. That’s because counties receive state funding for social services, and cities don’t. So, neither can effectively address homelessness unless they work together. But, frequently, they don’t. Instead, they often squabble over who should pay for what, and who isn’t doing their fair share.

Fighting between neighboring cities is common, too. As unhoused people move across city lines, local governments argue over who should have to provide shelter beds and other resources.

It was a major frustration for former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. His constituents saw people on the street in mental health crisis, suffering. Voters demanded he do something, but his hands were largely tied, he said, as he had no control over the county’s mental health services.

“There was just a major gulf between my accountability to the people and my authority to be able to actually make the difference that the people expected,” Steinberg said.

During his time in office, which ended in 2024, Steinberg negotiated a partnership between the city and the county. But it lacked a governance structure that would have forced them to make decisions together. That’s the missing piece that this law brings to the table, he said.

Under the new law, the city and county of Sacramento, as well as Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights and Folsom, have until January 2028 to finalize their joint powers authority. They recently convened a joint task force of elected officials, and have started working together on homelessness issues.

But there’s some lingering tension. While the city of Sacramento is on board with the legislation, the county and the city of Folsom are opposed. Neither is against the idea of collaboration, but they don’t like that it’s being forced upon them.

“It’s an unnecessary cost,” county Supervisor Kennedy said. “It’s an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, it's an unnecessary burden that’s just going to slow down processes.”

Staffing and running the new joint powers authority is expected to have an annual price tag of anywhere between the mid-hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the low millions, according to a Senate analysis.

Examples in Los Angeles and Solano counties

As the Sacramento region gears up to create this new power structure, it has two main examples it can turn to.

One, in Los Angeles, is a cautionary tale. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint powers authority between the city and county, was the target of recent audits criticizing its handling of homelessness funds. A downward spiral followed. LA County pulled its funding from the authority and the Trump administration now is prosecuting homeless services providers that it alleges misused money from the agency.

Kennedy said the parallels between LA and Sacramento’s new agency worry him “very much,” and clearly show that a joint powers authority is hardly a panacea for homelessness.

But Steinberg believes the new Sacramento agency can do better. The LA agency didn’t have enough authority, and as a result, the city and county weren’t governing effectively together, he said. He hopes that will be different in Sacramento.

The other example Sacramento leaders can turn to is in Solano County, which created the current version of its joint powers authority in 2022. Local leaders pushed for a collaborative agency after hearing reports that other cities were dropping off their homeless residents at parking lots in Fairfield, assuming that services would be available because it’s the county seat, said Doriss Panduro, a Fairfield city councilmember and chair of the joint powers authority.

Now, the authority is made up of two elected officials from each city and the county, and they meet once a month to discuss how to spend money and how many people are receiving services.

“It is a big undertaking,” Panduro said. “We started the work in 2021, 2022, and here we are four years later just getting paid staff on board. It’s been a big lift.”

But, she said, it’s been worth it.

Recently, the county and all the cities involved in the joint powers authority applied together for state funding to clear one encampment along a flood control basin in Vallejo. Even though Vallejo would be the only city to get that money, it arguably would benefit everyone since it targets the largest encampment in the county, Panduro said. And Vallejo wouldn’t have had the resources to manage the state grant without the support of everyone else, she said.

“Homelessness is such a big issue, and I think finding an out-of-the-box way to approach it, for me, I can only say it’s a positive,” she said. “Everyone felt like we had been doing the same things over and over and nothing was changing.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.