The Brief

On a late autumn day, a team of forestry workers spreads out among the burned trunks of giant sequoia trees. The 1,000-year-old trees in the grove are dead but still standing, killed in an extreme wildfire that raced through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

In the shadow of one of the trees, the crew gets to work, pulling tiny, 4-inch seedlings out of bags clipped to their belts and tucking them into the dirt.

"Wish it some luck and that's it," says Micah Craig of the Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps, standing back to look at the young sequoia. He then grabs another seedling, part of a historic planting effort that the National Park Service hopes will be enough to preserve one of the world's most iconic species.

Ecologists estimate that up to 14,000 sequoias have been killed in recent wildfires, a shocking number for a species that was thought to survive most fires.

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Over only two years, about one-fifth of all giant sequoias have been killed in extreme wildfires in California. The numbers shocked ecologists, since the enormous trees can live more than 2,000 years and have evolved to live with frequent, low-intensity fires in the Sierra Nevada.

Recent fires have burned bigger and more intensely than sequoias are accustomed to, a result of the way humans have changed the forest. After the 2020 and 2021 fires, scientists watched the sequoia groves to see if the next generation of trees is emerging to replace their lost parents. In some places, seedlings are filling the forest floor. In others, fewer are emerging from the burned soil.

The smaller numbers of seedlings concerned scientists and the National Park Service. So in a historic step, the agency for the first time has begun replanting some severely burned areas. With a life span of thousands of years, the new seedlings will grow up in a climate that's rapidly changing. So, park officials are bringing in seedlings from other sequoia groves, ones that may have the genetic tools to handle a more hostile future.

With so many ancient trees killed, the National Park Service has sprouted hundreds of sequoia seedlings to replant the severely burned areas, along with other species normally found there like white fir and sugar pines.

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The project has run into opposition. A handful of conservation groups are suing to halt the effort, arguing that such intervention shouldn't occur in an area designated as federal wilderness and that the sequoia trees could possibly regenerate adequately on their own.

The debate is one occurring on public lands across the country as the impacts of climate change get worse. Land managers face a key question: As humans take an increasing toll on natural landscapes, how far should we go to fix it?

Sequoia National Park was created in 1890 to protect the mammoth trees for the public. Along with Kings Canyon National Park, the two parks are home to about 40% of all sequoias.

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A carpet of green

Hopeful signs have emerged in the wake of the KNP Complex Fire, which tore through Sequoia National Park in 2021. The forest floor is still scorched black, but in some areas, thousands of lime-green sequoia seedlings have sprung up, a few inches high.

"It's awesome," says Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. "This is what has happened for millennia."

The lifecycle of sequoias is bound to fire. The massive trees, often 15 feet around, are protected from the heat by a thick, shaggy bark. Their lowest branches are far from the forest floor, reducing the chances they'll ignite when smaller trees burn. And when a fire's heat rises, the sequoias' cones open up, releasing thousands of seeds. Those seeds sprout quickly in the newly cleared soil below their parent trees. Most of the seedlings will die, eventually leaving only one or two giant trees centuries from now.

Some areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks show a carpet of green — thousands of sequoia seedlings poking a few inches above the ground. In more severely burned areas, there are fewer emerging from the soil.

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"Lots of bad things are going to happen to these," Brigham says, looking down at the carpet of green. "Another fire, fire after fire, before they get that big. Dead trees are going to fall on them. So they make a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot."

High above, the thousand-year-old sequoias in this part of Redwood Mountain Grove are still alive, their broccoli-shaped tops still green. The fire burned at low or moderate intensity here because the forest floor was relatively clear of brush and other vegetation that could burn. National Park Service crews had previously done prescribed burns, purposely using fire to remove the dry, dead fuels.

Sequoia trees are susceptible to heat and drought, conditions that are expected to get more extreme as the climate keeps changing.

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Gates of Mordor

Farther down the trail, it's a different story. Many of the giant sequoias have little or no green foliage left, their bare, jagged branches rising high above the rest of the forest.

"We have now arrived at the location we call the Gates of Mordor," Brigham says. "These trees are not coming back."

The KNP Complex Fire roared up this sequoia grove in less than a day. Fire crews made a last-ditch effort to save some of the enormous trees, clearing the vegetation around them as the flames moved in.

"It was horrible," Brigham says. "I don't think I've cried so much in my entire life."

Smaller pines and other trees, killed in California's extreme droughts, acted as kindling in recent wildfires, fueling the intense burning.

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The forest here was primed to burn. Historically, the Sierra Nevada saw regular low-grade wildfires, caused by lightning strikes and set by Native American tribes who shaped the landscape through controlled burning. But for the last century, humans have extinguished wildfires, allowing dead and dry vegetation to build up on the forest floor.

Extreme drought, exacerbated by climate change, has also led to millions of smaller trees dying in recent years. Water-stressed pines and other trees were more vulnerable to attacks from bark beetles. Researchers found that the dead trees acted as kindling, contributing to the extreme heat and intensity of the KNP Complex Fire.

Along with two other extreme fires in 2020-21, between 13% and 19% of all giant sequoias were killed, up to more than 14,000 trees.

"We have never seen anything like this in giant sequoia," Brigham says. "Large giant sequoias, before now, survived wildfire."

With so many giant trees gone, teams from several federal agencies turned to another key issue: the next generation of sequoias. They surveyed how many seedlings are growing below the burned trees. Two studies from scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey found that some of the severely burned areas have lower densities of sequoia seedlings, compared to the numbers found after previous fires.

Brigham says it's possible that too many sequoia cones and their seeds burned up in the fire. But with fewer adult trees left alive to make seeds in the future, there's a risk some of this sequoia grove won't come back.

"These parks were in part established to conserve sequoias," Brigham says. "What would it mean for that mission if we did nothing here?"

Mules and horses are stationed at a trailhead to help transport seedlings deep into the park.

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A replanting effort begins

In the late afternoon, a line of mules winds its way through the burned sequoia grove. On their backs, they carry boxes of sequoia seedlings deep into the backcountry. A crew from the Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps takes the seedlings on the last steps of their journey, searching for planting spots that offer some protection from the upcoming summer heat.

"Planting sequoias, that's a legacy thing. Something we were all stoked to do that will transcend after us," says crew member Micah Craig.

Micah Craig and a team from the Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps replant sequoia seedlings. Some are from groves already experiencing hotter, drier conditions, which could give them a better shot at withstanding climate change.

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Most of these sequoia seedlings were grown from seeds collected from this same grove. But 20% come from seeds collected from other groves. Sequoia seedlings are vulnerable to heat and drought, conditions that will get more extreme as the climate keeps changing. With that in mind, managers selected seeds from groves at lower elevations that already naturally live in hotter conditions. The idea is to increase the genetic diversity, in case those trees are better adapted to a hotter, drier future.

"We have the ability to give this grove a little bit of a bigger toolkit for adapting to changing conditions, and that's what we're trying to do," Brigham says. "We're asking a lot of these trees to survive for 400 years, 1,000 years, and they can do it, but let's give them a little help."

A mule train delivers boxes of sequoia seedlings through shrubs that have sprung up in the wake of the KNP Complex Fire. Sequoia seedlings do best in the first few years after a fire, when there's little vegetation to shade them out.

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The technique, known as "assisted gene flow," has been used in a handful of cases already to help coral survive a hotter climate or whitebark pine trees resist disease. It's part of a larger toolkit land managers are beginning to consider as ecosystems struggle to keep up with climate change. The National Park Service has developed a new framework for considering when to intervene, known as "resist, accept, or direct," acknowledging that some ecosystems will need help to resist changes, while in others, change may be inevitable.

Lawsuit filed to stop replanting

A group of four conservation groups is suing to halt the project, contending that because the sequoia groves are protected under the federal Wilderness Act, a higher level of intervention isn't appropriate. They argue that having wilderness protection means the land should remain untouched, even if that means losing sequoias there.

"We need to allow nature some places where human beings aren't trying to be the managers, aren't trying to be the gardeners," says George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, one of the groups that filed suit. "Because we're the ones that messed it up, it doesn't flow that we're the ones to fix it. That's that sort of arrogance of humanism, if you will. That's when we need to learn to step back."

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The Wilderness Act specifies that protected areas should be "untrammeled by man." That framing has frustrated Native American tribes in California, which shaped the landscape for millennia with cultural, or prescribed, burning.

The National Park Service doesn't comment on pending lawsuits. But in public documents, it responded that language in the Wilderness Act mandates that the land be "protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions," and the act doesn't infringe on the agency's responsibility to preserve the ecosystem.

The conservation groups' lawsuit also contends that sequoias in severely burned areas could regenerate on their own. Sequoia seedlings tend to do best in places that have burned more intensely, since it clears out vegetation that shades the forest floor.

"I'm not worried about it because the system is massively and redundantly resilient to these sorts of disturbances," says Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, another group that joined the lawsuit.

"These parks were in part established to conserve sequoias," says Christy Brigham of the National Park Service. "What would it mean for that mission if we did nothing here?"

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Hanson contends that any number of sequoia seedlings, no matter how low, is adequate for the groves to endure into the future. However, numerous scientific studies show that sequoia seedlings have high rates of mortality over the first few centuries of life, with more than 90% dying in the first 20 years alone.

In proposing the project, the National Park Service says climate change poses an even greater risk that sequoia seedlings will struggle to get established. Hanson says he'd prefer that the park service monitor the seedlings' survival before making a decision to replant.

"What I would say is if they start dying at high levels, which is inconsistent with the data we've had up until this point, then I would have to evaluate my assumptions and maybe would need to do something there," Hanson says.

Light streams through the trees in Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National park.

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The debate is a sign of the increasingly complex decisions land managers are facing in a hotter climate. In the face of unprecedented impacts, the risk of losing species only gets worse. Managers are having to weigh bigger and bigger human interventions, if they're seeking to preserve what's left.

Brigham says that as one of the largest and longest-living species on the planet, giant sequoia trees are forcing that conversation to happen.

"You cannot look at them without thinking about 1,000 years in the future," Brigham says. "They demand better of us. And I think we need that. We need those species that are being impacted by climate change that we love to be, like, hey, I think you can do better."

The immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles has placed dozens of people in solitary confinement each month since June, according to the most recent data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In May 2025, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center had 14 people in isolation. When the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort revved up in June 2025, the number of detainees in solitary confinement there more than tripled. By July, it was 73; by August, 105.

The most recent data available shows that number went down slightly in January, to 74 people.

Ranked by percentage of the detainee population in “segregation,” as it is called at immigrant detention centers, Adelanto is among the U.S.’s top 10 facilities as of January, according to an LAist analysis of the most recent ICE data.

The data shows that of 229 ICE facilities that reported holding people since October 2024, between 50 and 60 usually reported putting at least one person in segregation in a given month. Out of the facilities that did place people in solitary confinement, Adelanto tended to do so less often than others until June 2025. (The facility held just a few people from October 2024 into January 2025.) When ICE’s presence increased in L.A. in June, the number of people sent to isolation in the facility also shot up — three to five times as many people have been isolated in Adelanto compared to the average facility that used any solitary confinement.

Since June, only two facilities have sent people to solitary confinement more times than Adelanto: one southwest of San Antonio, the other in central Pennsylvania.

Both of those facilities held twice the number of detainees as Adelanto on average from October 2024 through September 2025; but the number of people held in Adelanto since then has tripled, growing larger than either of the other facilities to hold an average of 1,800 people a day since October.

More on solitary confinement  

According to ICE, detainees may be placed in segregation for “disciplinary reasons,” or because of:

• “Serious mental or medical illness.”
• Conducting a hunger strike.
• Suicide watch.

The agency also says it might place detainees “who may be susceptible to harm [if left among the] general population due in part to how others interpret or assume their sexual orientation, or sexual presentation or expression.”

Not only is ICE holding more people in solitary confinement, but the agency's data also shows that detainees across the country are being isolated for longer periods of time. Detainees ICE considers part of the "vulnerable & special population" spent an average of about two weeks in solitary confinement each time they were isolated in 2022, when ICE first made the data available. By the end of 2025, the average stay in isolation had risen to more than seven weeks straight.

The GEO Group Inc., a private company that operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, has not responded to requests for comment.

How isolation can affect immigrant detainees  

UN human rights experts consider solitary confinement placements that last 15 days or more to be torture, though the U.S. Supreme Court has held that isolation doesn’t violate the Constitution.

The UN also maintains that solitary confinement should be prohibited for people “with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures.”

In January, a coalition of immigrant rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of current detainees, calling for conditions at Adelanto to be improved. In addition to an unsanitary environment and a lack of healthy food and clean drinking water, detainees say solitary confinement is frequently used to punish those who speak out about conditions at the facility.

People held in immigrant detention centers are technically in “civil detention,” meaning that they are being detained to ensure their presence at hearings and compliance with immigration orders — not to serve criminal sentences.

According to the immigrant rights groups’ complaint, one detainee was placed in solitary confinement after complaining about the showers being broken. Another detainee said that, after asking a guard to “use more respectful language toward him, he was ridiculed, written up and given the middle finger by a guard who shouted, ‘Who the f--- do you think you are?’” Then, the detainee was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.

Alvaro Huerta, the director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing detainees at Adelanto, told LAist that when people are placed in isolation at the facility, they’re typically in the same cell for 23 hours per day, unable to receive visits from their families.

For clients who are experiencing mental health challenges — especially those with suicidal thoughts — being placed in solitary confinement “can really exacerbate their condition,” he added.

In multiple statements to the media, ICE has said that the agency “is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.” The agency has also said that detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” and that all detainees “receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility.”

Huerta called that “laughable.”

“We have countless examples of people who have said that this is not true, that they're not getting the medication that they're requesting, that they're not being seen for chronic conditions and emergency conditions,” he added. “And we know it's not true because 14 people have died in ICE custody this year alone.”

Lori Rovner of Manhattan Beach is a big sports fan, so there was no question that when tickets for the Olympic Games went on sale, she'd be signing up.

She scored a slot in the first ticket drop, which launched Thursday, and logged on right at 10 a.m., hoping to score tickets to the Opening Ceremonies and some finals too. After battling her computer to get through "access denied" screens and a lost shopping cart due to a 30-minute time limit, she bought 16 tickets.

It was only when she was about to purchase that she noticed the service fees, which were around 24% of each ticket. One $2,100 ticket had a $505 service fee, bringing the total cost to $2,604.63.

"It's insane," she said of the fee. "I don't understand what the service is."

As the locals-only sale kicks off and Southern Californians have their first chance to buy tickets to the Olympic Games, some fans are wide-eyed at the high fees on all tickets and the prices in general, which start at $28 but go up to more than $5,500 a pop. Opening Ceremony tickets start at $328.68

The service fees aren't a surprise add-on. The price fans see when browsing the site is the total cost, including the fee. Still, some who bought in the first phase of sales were surprised when they saw the fees add up.

One user on Reddit of shared their cart of 10 tickets, which added up to $11,264. That included $1,038 in fees alone. Commenters responded in shock and awe.

Service fees are standard in ticket sales, but the percentage they charge can vary widely. High fees have been a source of ire for music and sports fans for years. A 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the average fees on a primary ticket market were 27%.

LA28 did not respond to LAist's requests for details on the service fee, like what it pays for or why it's a percentage rather than a flat rate.

Not everyone seemed bothered by the prices. Some people LAist spoke with opted for only $28 or similarly priced tickets, even if it meant missing some of the biggest Olympic events. One user on Reddit said they purchased 18 tickets for around $550.

"I went with all $28 tickets," they wrote in the online forum about the Olympics. "I got women’s soccer, gymnastics, beach and regular volleyball, track and field, baseball and a few others."

For some, the ticket process, the prices and the dense web of events to choose from made it too hard to pull the trigger.

Jeff Bartow of Sierra Madre made a spreadsheet with some competitions he was interested in seeing before he logged on to buy tickets Friday.

"So many times, so many schedules, so many events," Bartow said. "I think I initially thought I was going to go to a bunch, but thinking about how crazy it's going to be … I might be a little more limited."

This is just the first ticket drop. There will be more opportunities to buy tickets in the months to come — and on a resale market that launches in 2027.

Some ticket-buyers told LAist they already were contemplating which tickets they'd keep and which ones they'd re-sell, just minutes after buying them.

In the more than two months since the Department of Justice released its latest batch of files on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors have not brought any new charges based on the documents, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.

The more than 3 million pages of documents include accusations by alleged victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's abuse and thousands of emails and photos showing Epstein associated with prominent figures. The files indicate that many of these people maintained contact with the disgraced financier long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to sex crimes that involved minors. Appearing in the files is not necessarily an indication of criminal wrongdoing.

The release of the Epstein files came after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all documents it held related to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison about a month after a 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Since the release of the files in 2025 and 2026, there have been no related arrests in the U.S. However, the disclosures have led to some resignations and other reputational repercussions for some high-ranking Americans.

The lack of arrests in the U.S. contrasts to the fallout in the U.K., where investigators have pursued charges related to corruption, not sexual abuse, in their dealings with Epstein. Two former government officials — former Prince Andrew and ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson — were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, has denied wrongdoing and has not been formally charged. Mandelson has also not been charged, and lawyers for Mandelson have said that the arrest was prompted by a "baseless suggestion."

In the U.S., top Justice Department officials have said that they found no evidence compelling enough to pursue further charges related to Epstein, and that the public can make their own assessments based on the disclosed documents.

In a statement to NPR, Justice Department spokesperson Katie Kenlein said that "there have not been additional prosecutions beyond Epstein and Maxwell because there has not been credible evidence that their activities extended to Epstein's network. However, if prosecutable evidence comes forward, the Department of Justice will of course act on it as we do every day in sexual trafficking and assault cases across the count[r]y."

On Thursday, President Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out of the top job at the Justice Department, following bipartisan criticism over her handling of the Epstein files.

NPR asked four former prosecutors and one former law enforcement officer why there may not have been enough evidence to levy additional charges. Here's what they said.

Prosecutors must prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt"

Prosecutors must prove to a jury that a person committed a crime "beyond a reasonable doubt," according to Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

"One of the biggest misconceptions people have is how difficult it is to charge and convict somebody for a criminal case," said McQuade, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A prosecutor's ethical responsibility is to charge cases only if they believe there is enough evidence for a conviction, McQuade said. Documents, including emails, jokes, and even plane itineraries, can be a place to start, but, alone, they are not enough to prove guilt, McQuade said.

"What you would need [is] rock solid evidence," McQuade said. "You can't charge someone for a crime without sufficient evidence, and I have yet to see evidence of a crime involving an Epstein associate that has gone uncharged."

Based on his understanding of the case, Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown Law, said he agreed that prosecutors who investigated Epstein's alleged associates "may have believed that they couldn't persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." He said problems with witness credibility or certain forensic evidence can prevent a case from moving forward.

The U.K. cases are focused on corruption 

In the U.K., the two people arrested are being investigated on suspicion of "misconduct in public office." McQuade said the U.S. does not have a single equivalent federal law. Instead, the U.S. prosecutes public corruption through statutes that focus specifically on crimes such as bribery and extortion.

After the release of the latest files, British police began investigating Andrew's correspondence with Epstein when Andrew was a U.K. trade envoy. At that time, Andrew allegedly shared government itineraries, investment plans and notes from official foreign trips with Epstein. The information may have been covered by the United Kingdom's Official Secrets Act.

Similarly, Mandelson has been accused of passing confidential government information to the late sex offender when Mandelson was a U.K. Cabinet minister.

Meeting the burden of proof is especially challenging for sex crime cases

Victim statements are essential for establishing basic elements, such as the timeframe of events, required to build sexual assault cases, said Diane Goldstein, a retired police lieutenant from California and the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. But a victim may be reluctant to come forward because of a fear of retaliation, not believing the police can help, believing it is a personal matter, or not wanting to get the perpetrator in trouble.

McQuade noted that in some sex trafficking cases, especially those in which a perpetrator is in a position of power, victims may experience intimidation or threats that prevent them from speaking out.

Victims also may be hesitant to move forward with allegations because they fear having to testify at trials where defense attorneys may attempt to poke holes in their allegations, McQuade said.

Goldstein said that for sex crime cases to advance, investigators need to follow certain policies and procedures. "If you don't have a legitimate police investigation to start, you're not going to get any type of criminal filing," Goldstein said.

Other potential charges are also a difficult path

Prosecutors may have considered pursuing charges of criminal conspiracy related to sex trafficking against people associated with Epstein, said Jessica Roth, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. FBI documents in the files relating to its investigation into Epstein's crimes identify certain people as "co-conspirators."

But Ankush Khardori, a senior writer and columnist at Politico magazine who worked as a federal prosecutor on financial fraud cases, told NPR those identifiers are not "formal accusation[s]" and are simply part of "interim documents."

"The FBI does not determine who is a co-conspirator," Khardori said. "That is a legal judgment that prosecutors make."

But for those conspiracy cases, "criminal intent," in particular, is difficult to establish, said Roth, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York for seven years. Criminal conspiracy charges "would require knowledge and intent on the part of each individual who was charged," Roth said. If a person who communicated with Epstein had some suspicion that he was engaged in illegal activity, that alone would not be sufficient evidence to press charges, she said.

Investigators may have considered charges related to criminal tax violations, McQuade said. But the statute of limitations has likely ended on those cases, she said, meaning that prosecutors can no longer bring charges.

The current evidence lacks context

Legal experts say the haphazard way the documents were released and redacted makes it difficult for the public to understand why no additional charges have been filed.

Roth, the Cardozo law professor, said the information is in "isolation," without the appropriate context. "We'll see an individual photograph that looks perhaps incriminating. We'll see an email that looks incriminating, but we don't necessarily have everything that was said before and after that email and that exchange," Roth said.

One document that could explain why no charges were pursued, according to Butler, is a heavily redacted DOJ memo naming "potential co-conspirators" of Epstein. "The parts that should indicate why the department declined prosecution on any alleged co-conspirators other than Ghislaine Maxwell [are] redacted," said Butler, the Georgetown law professor and a former federal prosecutor.

Butler said those redactions are "unusual" because they do not appear to follow the permissible reasons for redactions in the Epstein documents. Those reasons include confidentiality for Epstein's alleged victims, or anything that would compromise an ongoing investigation, Butler said.

"When the Justice Department grudgingly releases information when pressed by politics or forced by Congress, it also creates the impression that they have something to hide," Butler said. "That there is some cover-up going on."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nearly 30% more students in Los Angeles County experienced homelessness from 2022-23 to 2023-24, making it the county’s highest rate in the past five years and far outpacing the rate of homelessness across the state in the same timeframe, as the resources to identify and support this student population have decreased.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools published two reports on Wednesday on the state of student homelessness in the county: “Rising Numbers, Fading Resources: Students Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles County” and “Hidden in Plain Sight: Fear, Underidentification, and Funding Gaps for Housing-Insecure Students in Los Angeles County.”

Researchers found that Norwalk-La Mirada Elementary Unified School District had the highest rate of student homelessness in the county — 1 in 3 students, meaning that over 4,700 students were identified as experiencing homelessness during the 2023-24 school year out of a total cumulative enrollment of about 15,600.

The city of Norwalk, where the district is located in the eastern region of the county, was sued by the state in 2024 for banning emergency shelters and other support services for people experiencing homelessness. Last year, the state reached a settlement with the city, which was forced to overturn the ban and put $250,000 toward building affordable housing.

Student homelessness is defined differently under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law that requires every public school to count the number of students who are living on the street, in shelters, in motels, in cars, doubled up with other families, or moving between friends’ and relatives’ homes.

As a result of this expanded definition, McKinney-Vento includes doubled-up students in the count of homelessness. Doubled-up is a term used to describe children and youth ages 21 and under living in shared housing, such as with another family or friends, due to various crises.

There were a few other patterns seen in the L.A. County data analyzed by the UCLA researchers:

• Latino students were disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness: they represent 65% of the county’s student population, but 75.5% of student homelessness
• A third of homeless students were in high school
• Many districts with the highest rates of homelessness had higher school instability but lower dropout rates

While McKinney-Vento has an expanded definition that includes more types of homelessness than several other definitions, identifying students remains difficult.

The second report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools focuses on the lack of dedicated funding for school staff to identify and support homeless students. Students and families facing homelessness do not always self-identify, whether due to fear, shame or being unaware that their housing situation is considered homelessness under McKinney-Vento.

“A lot of these young people are dealing with a lot of trauma, so they don’t want to be identified. They don’t want to be pointed out; sometimes it’s scary for them, because they think we’re going to report them to the Department of Children and Family Services,” said L.A. County Office of Education staff interviewed for this report.

School staff, known as homeless liaisons, who work with homeless students received a historic influx of federal funds during the Covid-19 pandemic — $98.76 million for California, out of $800 million nationwide, from the American Rescue Plan-Homeless Children and Youth.

That funding has since ended, and there is no other dedicated, ongoing state funding set aside solely for the rising number of homeless students. This has led districts in California to “heavily depend on highly competitive and unstable federal streams,” the UCLA researchers wrote. Those federal streams have become increasingly precarious as the federal administration last year sought policy changes that would shift how they are structured.