The Brief

The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides water to farmers in the southeastern corner of California, drew a figurative line in the sand earlier this month, calling for a halt to the conversion of agricultural fields into solar panel farms .

Noting that more than 13,000 acres of fertile land had already been converted, the water district asked the Imperial County Board of Supervisors to protect productive farmland.

“Our identity and economy in the Imperial Valley are rooted in agriculture,” Gina Dockstader, who chairs the district board, said in a statement. “Solar energy has a role in our region’s future, but it cannot come at the cost of our farmland, food supply, or the families who depend on agriculture. This resolution is about protecting our way of life.”

The Imperial Valley conflict is one manifestation of an increasingly sharp debate within California’s $60 billion agricultural sector — the largest of any state — over what should happen as the acreage devoted to crops and livestock shrinks.

The state Department of Conservation says that agricultural lands declined by more than 1.6 million acres between 1984 and 2018 , averaging 47,000 acres a year. The most productive land experienced the largest decline. Urbanization — the conversion of fields into homes and businesses — accounted for most of the decline, but residential development has slowed in recent years, contributing to a chronic housing shortage.

Other factors, such as labor shortages, production costs and uncertain water supplies, have created what industry leaders say is a crisis . The Public Policy Institute of California has estimated that the recently imposed limits on tapping underground aquifers to irrigate crops will result in 500,000 acres of farmland being taken out of production .

More recently, President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants have put more pressure on the agricultural industry.

As farmers, particularly the larger corporate growers, take land out of production, many believe that their economic salvation lies in solar panel arrays that generate the emission-free electricity that the state wants, as it phases out power fueled by hydrocarbons.

However, that doesn’t sit well with farmers who want to continue production, as the Imperial Irrigation District’s call for a solar moratorium implies.

Like many conflicts, this one has landed in the Capitol in the form of legislation. Assembly Bill 1156 would make it easier for farmers whose lands are contractually obligated to remain open space under the Williamson Act to avoid paying the heavy penalties required by law.

The Williamson Act , enacted six decades ago to slow the sprawl of urban development into farmlands, gives farmers hefty breaks on property taxes on land they maintain as open space. AB 1156 would specifically declare that farmers can replace crops with solar farms without incurring penalties if the owner is experiencing water shortages. The bill is backed by the solar power industry, environmentalists, labor unions and many large farmers.

The California Farm Bureau and family farm groups oppose it, arguing that it will undermine the Williamson Act because almost any farmer can declare a water shortage, given the chronic uncertainty of California water supplies. Emulating the Imperial Irrigation District’s stance, opponents say wholesale conversion of farmland into solar farms will devastate rural communities that depend on agriculture for jobs.

Politically, it’s a David vs. Goliath conflict. AB 1156, carried by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks , an Oakland Democrat, has been moving briskly through the legislative process. It’s already cleared the Assembly and is likely to hit the Senate floor soon.

The solar farm displacement issue is only one of many factors that will determine the future of agriculture in California. The larger existential issue deserves more political attention than it’s getting.

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

The Department of Justice on Thursday joined a lawsuit to block new congressional district lines approved by California voters last week through Proposition 50 .

Gov. Gavin Newsom championed the congressional maps as an attempt to help Democrats win more seats in the House of Representatives, countering Republican-led gerrymandering in states such as Texas. But California Republicans argued in a suit filed last week that the maps unfairly advantage Latino voters over other Californians.

The Trump administration joined that lawsuit, asking a judge in the Central District of California to block the new map from taking effect for the 2026 midterm elections.

“California Democrats are openly gerrymandering by race in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media platform X. “That’s immoral and illegal.”

Proposition 50 was overwhelmingly approved last week, winning support from 64% of voters. The measure sets aside political lines drawn by an independent citizens commission and enacts a map that could help Democrats flip up to five seats currently held by Republicans — and protect a handful of incumbent Democrats from competitive challenges.

The measure’s passage was a political win for Newsom and Democrats in the midst of a nationwide fight over political maps. New district lines in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina could net Republicans a handful of additional seats, while states including Virginia, Indiana and Florida are considering their redistricting plans.

The lawsuit against the Proposition 50 map argues the new lines were designed to maximize the voting power of Latino residents, thereby violating the equal protection and voting rights of non-Latino voters. The DOJ argues that it is not necessary to draw districts where a majority of voters are Latino because white California voters often prefer candidates of various races and ethnicities.

“Recent elections show that Hispanics have not struggled to elect politicians of their choice in California,” the complaint said. “That is because results in California are largely driven by party-bloc voting, not race-bloc voting.”

An analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the Proposition 50 map has the same number of majority-Latino districts (16) as the maps enacted by the independent commission in 2021, which have been used in the last two congressional elections.

While the lawsuit quotes supporters of Proposition 50 touting the Latino-majority districts, Newsom and Democratic leaders in the state Legislature argued throughout the campaign that the purpose of the maps was explicitly partisan: to help Democrats retake the House. That could help the state thwart a challenge under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court,” said Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Newsom, in a statement.

The passage of Proposition 50 has scrambled the electoral playing field ahead of California’s June primary. Sonoma State University professor David McCuan said the measure could face more legal challenges from Republicans facing political headwinds.

“You could see half a dozen to a dozen [lawsuits] … challenging both the process of how Prop. 50 got to the ballot and the constitutional legal questions related to Proposition 50 itself,” he said.

There’s a parking lot in the city of Los Angeles lined with plywood platforms where unhoused people can set up tents and access meals, bathrooms and other services — all at taxpayers’ expense.

The Lincoln Safe Sleep Village in South L.A. opened in 2022 and is one of only a handful of similar encampments around the state. Public records show it was contracted to provide space for up to 88 residents last fiscal year.

But two observers who made separate visits to the location during that time — one of them a commissioner with the governing body that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the other a “special master” appointed by a federal judge — found the site was operating at half capacity.

Still, LAHSA paid a nonprofit organization $2.3 million to operate the site — with 88 spots.

A federal judge this week described the situation as “obvious fraud.”

The nonprofit that runs the site, San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy, told LAist it reduced the site’s capacity by half in April 2024 at the request of L.A. city officials and LAHSA. The homeless services agency did not update its funding formula for the site until more than a year later.

LAHSA records show Urban Alchemy was paid in full.

The situation has emerged at a time when LAHSA is under intense scrutiny for failing to properly manage hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with service providers, and the city of L.A. remains under a court order to provide more shelter for the city’s unhoused residents.

Federal court scrutiny

During a sometimes tense federal court hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter described the situation at the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village as "obvious fraud." The hearing was the latest in a series of court appearances stemming from a settlement between the city of L.A. and a group of downtown business and property owners known as the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights.

The judge has been overseeing the settlement, specifically the city’s progress in meeting obligations to provide housing and shelter for unhoused people. The agreement requires the city to open nearly 13,000 new shelter beds by next year.

According to testimony on Wednesday, Michele Martinez — the special master Carter appointed to help enforce the terms of the settlement — visited the Safe Sleep Village on June 9. She tried to verify the number of beds available at the site with city officials, but did not get an answer, Carter said.

Three weeks later, the city responded by questioning whether Martinez’s inquiry was proper.

In a June 30 email, L.A. Deputy City Attorney Jessica Mariani argued that Martinez had “no authority or basis to review or provide any assessments.” However, the Mariani added, the city was still looking into Martinez’ questions about the safe sleep site.

Carter questioned Mariani during the hearing, noting that the city (through LAHSA) continued to pay full amounts for more than 80 spots at the site and tell the court those spots existed, even though at least half appeared to not be available at the time.

"Is the City's position when the Special Master notes obvious fraud and that the documents don't match, that you are bringing forth to this Court that Ms. Martinez should disregard that and not report this to the Court when you try to curtail her monitoring activities?” the judge said, according to a transcript of the proceedings .

Carter described the city’s actions as potentially “contemptuous.”

LAist reached out to Mariani and the City Attorney’s Office, but has not yet received a response.

Weeks before the special master’s visit to the site, LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa stopped by the South L.A. campground. The 10-member LAHSA Commission makes policy and funding decisions for the regional homelessness agency.

Szlasa said later that he noticed during his visit that half of the campground was closed down. He said budget documents sent to him for approval described the site as a “low-cost, high-impact” program serving 88 people.

“We at LAHSA must ensure that we receive what we are contracting for,” Szlasa wrote in a social media post describing his findings.

He filed a public records request with LAHSA to obtain the contracts and payment details for the Urban Alchemy campground.

“I want to understand, first and foremost, why this was misrepresented to the Commission,” Szlasa said. “Then I want to understand if Urban Alchemy was actually in compliance with the contracts.”

He continued: “I am concerned this Safe Sleep program — which I happened to arbitrarily spot-check — is not an outlier.”

A drone's view of the South LA site prior to one section closing down in 2024.

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Jay L. Clendenin

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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LAHSA response

LAist reached out to LAHSA for more information about its contract with Urban Alchemy and about the number of people who lived at the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village during the last fiscal year.

LAHSA authorities said the site had a 41% average “utilization rate” during the budget year that ended in June, based on capacity information Urban Alchemy provided in a database called the Homeless Management Information System.

But the agency’s calculations appear to have been based on outdated capacity data, not on how many spaces were actually available for use.

LAHSA said it was Urban Alchemy’s responsibility to update the information in the database.

"All providers are required to record their data in [the database]; if the data is inaccurate, it would be based on that data entry,” a LAHSA spokesperson said.

LAHSA did not respond to LAist’s questions about when it learned capacity at the site had been reduced. An agency spokesperson said LAHSA has been “engaged with” Urban Alchemy about the site since April 2024, and that the program has been “under review.”

In April, when the city of L.A. submitted its quarterly bed report to Carter, it described the South L.A. campground program as having 88 beds.

But approximately half of those beds had been unavailable for about a year, according to Urban Alchemy.

The city adjusted the count to 46 spots in its July 2025 update.

LAHSA’s troubles 

LAHSA manages more than $742 million in contracts with 121 service providers.

Over the past year, audits and reports found the agency had mismanaged hundreds of millions in contracts for homeless services, including a failure to collect accurate data on nonprofit vendors or properly track how they spent taxpayer dollars.

The South L.A. campground is the only “safe sleep” site of its kind currently in LAHSA’s portfolio, the agency told LAist. LAHSA also administers funding for about a dozen “safe parking” sites, where unhoused people can legally park and live out of vehicles they own.

LAHSA has paid Urban Alchemy more than $12 million to operate the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village since 2021, according to the agency’s records.

The nonprofit told LAist has operated under the terms of its contract, and that it followed direction from the city to close down part of the site, reducing its capacity.

The city of L.A. has not responded to questions from LAist about that claim, including whether it gave the nonprofit that direction.

"We're focused on providing the highest-level of service for our guests,” Urban Alchemy spokesperson Jess Montejano told LAist. “Given the resources provided, we're helping as many guests as we can have a safe place to sleep and get better connected to services and support."

Urban Alchemy did not clarify why it was told to close part of the campground, but property records show a South L.A. nonprofit called the Coalition for Responsible Community Development purchased the property in 2020.

It has plans to convert the property into a 60-unit affordable housing complex. Until that project is ready to start construction, the site is expected to keep operating as a safe sleeping location, according to the office of L.A. City Councilmember Curren Price, who represents the area.

“When the site first opened, beds were consistently full,” Angelina Valencia-Dumarot, Price’s communications director, told LAist Thursday. “That’s why the current occupancy rate is especially concerning.”

She said council offices are too often left out of updates by LAHSA.

“We can’t address problems quickly if we’re finding out only after numbers fall or from the press,” Valencia-Dumarot said.

A sign at the South LA campground

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Jay L. Clendenin

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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What should this cost? 

At full capacity, the monthly operating cost for the South L.A. campground would have been about $2,180 per participant.

Shayla Myers, a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said these campground sites are expensive to operate.

“They are the kinds of programs that shock the conscience of taxpayers,” Myers said, adding that they cost much more than paying rent, while keeping people unsheltered.

LAHSA staff say per-person costs for homeless programs differ based on location, hours and staffing needs.

Examples include:

• The region’s safe parking sites, which receive about $1,200 per participant per month to provide a set of similar resources to vehicle dwellers, according to LAHSA contract documents. 

• LAHSA programs that provide temporary rental assistance to families and cost about $2,000 per household per month, officials said. 

• The city of L.A.’s Inside Safe program, which moves people from encampments to hotel rooms. It costs about $6,900 per person served each month, according to a recent report by the city’s chief administrative officer.

Urban Alchemy has operated temporary campgrounds for unhoused people in the city and county of L.A. since 2021, including one in Virgil Village that has since closed and another in Culver City that is still operating.

In 2021, L.A.’s city administrative officer reported the Virgil Village campground cost more than $2,600 per participant per month.

Culver City opened its campground in 2023, so that the city could legally enforce a ban on camping in public approved that February. The city spent nearly $4.6 million on the campground in 2025, according to budget documents .

The Culver City site has space for 40 people, and the city says the occupancy rate is around 85% this year . That’s a cost of more than $11,000 per person served each month.

Myers said interventions like this will always cost more than moving people into homes.

“It doesn’t matter whether you're paying for a hotel room, a shelter, or in this case, lines drawn on a parking lot,”said Myers. “Continuing to provide shelter to folks who are unhoused — rather than providing permanent housing — is always going to be exponentially more expensive.”

After the city finalized its budget in June, LAHSA allocated $1.2 million — instead of $2.3 million — to Urban Alchemy for the South L.A. campground for the current budget year.

LAHSA now lists the site’s capacity as 46 tent spaces, authorities said. The agency said the site now has a “utilization” rate of 70%, compared to 41% the previous fiscal year.

That’s at a cost of about $3,100 per participant per month.

Nick Gerda and Makenna Sievertson contributed to this story.