The Brief

With more than 187,000 people sleeping on California’s streets and in its shelters, the state’s homeless services industry is struggling to hire enough qualified workers to help them.

Last year, Santa Monica College set out to fix that: It heralded the state’s first-ever community college program aimed at training the next generation of homeless service workers. But the program has fallen victim to many of the same challenges that have long stymied progress on homelessness in California, including unreliable funding, high attrition rates and political turmoil.

In fact, it’s not clear if the much-needed program will persist.

“We know the value added when somebody is adequately trained before they’re deployed,” said Vanessa Rios, a senior advisor for workforce development with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which funds the community college program. “It would be a disservice to our system should we not fund and support this effort. Where the dollars (will) come from, I don’t know.”

It’s the front-line jobs, where staff interact face-to-face with unhoused clients, that often are the most difficult for agencies to fill or keep filled. That includes doing outreach in encampments, staffing homeless shelters, and working as a case manager trying to find permanent housing for clients.

More than 8,000 people worked in the homeless services sector in Los Angeles County in 2022, a report by consulting firm KPMG and United Way of Greater Los Angeles found. But the county still had more than 1,300 open positions and would need more than 2,200 workers on top of that — so, more than 11,500 altogether — to meet the needs of Los Angeles County’s homeless population.

Even compared to other major U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Chicago or Houston, homeless service workers in Los Angeles have a higher turnover rate, according to a more recent KPMG report.

It’s an issue all over the state. Most nonprofits that provide homeless services in California can’t help everyone who asks, in part because they struggle to recruit and retain staff, according to a 2024 study by the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

The new community college program was supposed to fill those holes by giving students the specific skills they need to succeed in homeless services. But amid perennial state budget uncertainty and questions about the region’s homeless services, Rios couldn’t say if her team will be able to fund another round of students at Santa Monica College.

The state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention fund initially supported the program with roughly $750,000. That fund is the main source of flexible money that California cities and counties use to combat homelessness. Once the $750,000 runs out, it’s not clear whether it will be renewed. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget, released in January, did not include any new money for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention, although the Legislature could still add some.

That uncertainty is a major problem. For years, nonprofits, cities and counties have said a lack of consistent state funding hampers their ability to fight homelessness. While Newsom has poured billions into the cause, it has largely been in one-time grants — not the predictable, ongoing funding that service providers say they need in order to plan long-term programs.

At the same time, the agency that funds the community college program is in crisis. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority — a joint agency of the city and county of LA — has all but imploded. Earlier this month, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to pull its money out of the joint agency, following a scathing audit of its work. Three days later, the head of the agency said she would resign. Now, the city is considering pulling out as well.

Santa Monica College in Santa Monica on April 16, 2025. Santa Monica College launched a new Homeless Service Work Certificate Program last year in partnership with Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

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Alisha Jucevic

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CalMatters

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“We’re hopeful that we’re able to secure funding in the future,” said Patricia Ramos, dean of academic affairs for Santa Monica College. “But nothing is guaranteed.”

Rios said her team is looking for additional money to support the college program, including from the state and philanthropic partners. If the community college program does continue, it wouldn't accept another class of students until spring of 2026.

‘Can I do this?’

When Tamyra Simpson saw a LinkedIn advertisement about the Santa Monica College program, she thought it was “too good to be true.”

Growing up, her grandmother, a substance use counselor, would pick up Simpson at her childhood home in Pasadena and travel to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, where they’d serve food to homeless people on Thanksgiving.

“The women in my family, they’ve always been service-oriented,” she said.

Simpson works as a nanny in the wealthy Los Feliz neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles, but said her goal is to eventually work in homeless services.

She was one of about 70 people who applied for admission into the inaugural Santa Monica College homelessness services program, and one of just 27 students who were ultimately selected, said Steven Sedky, who oversees the program. Students take multiple courses over the span of two semesters, where they learn about the history of homeless services, effective practices to help homeless clients, and even strategies to avoid burnout. The program culminates in a paid internship at a relevant nonprofit or agency in Los Angeles County.

Tamyra Simpson at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica on April 16, 2025. Simpson is part of a new Homeless Service Work Certificate Program launched at Santa Monica College last year in partnership with Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

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Alisha Jucevic

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CalMatters

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Only about half of the students are left, Sedky said — an attrition rate “much higher than we initially anticipated.”

Students dropped out for a variety of reasons, he said. One student lost housing, while other students struggled with the commute to class, which includes in-person meetings on Wednesdays.

On Wednesday mornings, Simpson starts her nanny job at 7 am. Then, around 8 am, she begins the hour drive to Santa Monica. If traffic is bad, it can take up to an hour and a half. After class, a little after noon, she drives back to Los Feliz and works another five hours as a nanny.

“I really ask myself, ‘Can I do this?’” she said. “But there’s so much value in this program, this experience. I don’t think I would have changed anything if I could.”

After she graduates in June, she’ll face a job market rife with its own challenges. An entry-level position at LA-based homeless services nonprofit The People Concern, for example, typically pays between $21 and $25 an hour, said CEO John Maceri. Simpson said she makes about twice that much working as a nanny.

“LA is an expensive place to live,” Maceri said. “It’s hard to survive.”

“This sector does not pay livable wages unless you’re in senior management,” said Celina Alvarez, executive director of Housing Works. She helped create the Santa Monica College program and teaches a class there. “We’ve got to do better by (the workers). They are first responders. They don’t even have access to mental health support, considering they experience and witness a tremendous amount of human suffering on a daily basis.”

Alvarez said between 10 and 15 of the 73 total jobs at her organization are vacant.

At The People Concern, which will host two Santa Monica College students as interns, about 85 jobs are open — about 10% of their total positions. Once the interns complete the program, Maceri said his organization would be happy to hire them.

“The quality of the work is only as good as the quality of the people doing the work,” he said. “And we need more folks in the homelessness response system workforce.”

A difficult job

Low pay isn’t the only thing that makes people wary of jumping into a career in homeless services. The work is extremely grueling and difficult. Burnout is common. A lack of resources makes everything worse. Workers can try their best to help someone, but if there are no shelter beds or housing available, they can’t do much. That can be very frustrating, Maceri said.

“Sometimes people have a fantasy of what the work is like, and then get into it and realize ‘Oh, this is different than what I thought,’” he said. “I think most people want to help, but the intensity of the work day in and day out is a lot to handle.”

A lack of adequate training makes it even harder, as workers may not know how to respond to the specific challenges they encounter in the field. Alvarez gave an example of a newly hired case manager at her organization: The case manager went to a client’s house to pick up the client for a psychiatric appointment. Before they left, the client injected themself with an unknown substance. The big-hearted case manager didn’t know what the client had injected but took them to their appointment anyway — a dangerous move that could have ended with the client becoming aggressive or even overdosing in the caseworker’s car, Alvarez said.

Existing degree programs don’t train workers for the realities of what they’ll face in the field, such as navigating the bureaucracy of hospitals and nursing homes, or how to reunite a homeless individual with family, Rios said.

The program also tries to prepare students for burnout, by providing counselors who debrief with students after they go out in the field, and teach them techniques to cope with what they see.

Loma Linda University campus on April 22, 2024.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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But there are some intractable problems this training program can’t fix.

For social workers, who have a master’s degree, it’s more lucrative to work as a therapist in private practice. Even other low-paying industries, such as child welfare, offer special grants or fellowships. In Los Angeles, the county’s decision to gut the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority makes it even harder for graduates to imagine this industry as a stable career choice.

Still, as a current student, Simpson is hopeful that the community college program will continue.

“As an inaugural cohort, there are going to be missteps. We’re essentially the guinea pigs,” she said. “At its core, it’s an incredible opportunity.”

She said she’s well-aware of the pay cut that an entry-level job in homeless services might require, and that she’s willing to keep her full-time nanny position as long as it takes to find other work.

Given the number of job vacancies, it’s unlikely that she’ll wait very long.

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

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $200 million plan to revive the state’s stalling electric-car market faces several fundamental problems: It isn’t enough money, it may not reach consumers quickly enough and the state hasn’t decided whether to subsidize – or exclude – wealthier buyers.

The Newsom administration’s budget proposal — rolled out after President Donald Trump dismantled federal electric vehicle incentives and blocked California’s clean-vehicle mandate — would cover rebates for only about 20% of last year’s EV sales. That CalMatters estimate assumes the state follows the model of the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which offered rebates of up to $7,500 toward some electric and hybrid cars before the California Air Resources Board ended it in 2023.

So far the administration has released few details about the proposal, leaving experts and lawmakers circling a basic question: Who should get the money?

“It is better than nothing, which is what a lot of things are getting right now,” said Mars Wu, a senior program manager with the Greenlining Institute, which advocates for investments in communities of color. “How far that $200 million goes really depends on how the program is going to be structured.”

A small incentive in a huge market

California’s electric car market is one the governor celebrates on the world stage. While at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this week, Newsom highlighted that California has surpassed 2.5 million clean car sales, saying the achievement came after the state “invested in this future when others said it was impossible.” He framed the number against a modest goal to get 1.5 million clean cars on the road, set more than a decade ago.

California officials remain confident the state’s policies will succeed in pushing the transition to electric cars. Even as sales have slipped, EVs will drive future electricity demand, according to a long-term forecast approved Wednesday by the California Energy Commission.

But the limits of the governor’s $200 million EV proposal become clear in the numbers. A CalMatters analysis found the incentive would cover only one out of every five EV sales, assuming similar sales to last year, and the same average rebate level as the state’s last mass-market rebate program.

Advocates are also raising concerns about how quickly the money can get to consumers. Christopher Chavez, deputy policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air, a California-focused advocacy group, warned that the proposed rebates may not reach consumers until 2027, given how long it takes to approve the budget and to set up a new program. If the funding only lasts a year, the program would leave out buyers who need time to plan or save, he added.

“It's not going to be enough — just to be blunt about it,” Chavez said. “Two-hundred million for a mass-market program will go very quickly.”

The proposal comes as the latest sales numbers show an electric car market slump. Nationally, the loss of the uncapped, popular federal tax credit has accelerated manufacturer write-downs and sales declines as automakers adjusted to a tougher EV market.

In California, the slowdown has pushed the state further off course from its climate goals: even before Congress and President Trump blocked its vehicle mandate last year, California was struggling to hit a requirement that 35% of new cars sold in 2026 be zero-emission. Last year electric and other zero emission cars made up about 23% of new car sales in 2025, down from roughly 25% the year prior, California Energy Commission data shows.

Sales slowed down dramatically at the end of the year, when EVs and other clean cars accounted for just under 19% of new car sales in the fourth quarter of 2025 — the lowest quarterly share since mid-2022.

The Newsom administration will likely lay out the details of its proposal in a draft bill tied to the state budget. The Clean Vehicle Rebate Program would be “the foundation we’d be building from,” wrote Lindsey Buckley, an air board spokesperson, in an email, adding that the goal would be to deploy the $200 million “as soon as possible to support the market.”

Buckley said it is “speculative” to predict the impact of a new EV incentive or how quickly the money would reach consumers.

An environmental activist places signage calling for increased electric vehicle use outside the California Environmental Protection Agency building in Sacramento on June 9, 2022. Environmental activists urged the California Air Resources Board to push for a transition toward 100% electric vehicle consumer use. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters With limited funding, advocates say the question of who qualifies for the rebates becomes critical.

“What we really don't want to see is that money going towards higher-income folks for whom it would just be kind of like a bonus coupon,” said Wu, of the Greenlining Institute.

Fast or targeted: lawmakers face a choice

How the Newsom administration and lawmakers design the state’s next EV incentive will determine how quickly the air board can deliver rebates — and whether the program avoids recreating past inequities. California ended its last, broad EV rebate program in 2023 over concerns it benefited higher-income buyers. Targeting lower-income drivers delivers the greatest benefits because they tend to drive the most, and switching to EVs saves them money on fuel and maintenance, said Ethan Elkind, a climate law expert at UC Berkeley.

But income-based “means testing” can slow programs down, requiring income verification and layers of bureaucracy that eat up funding and discourage participation.

That’s a critique of one California program aimed at low-income buyers, Clean Cars 4 All, which offers grants to help drivers trade in older, more polluting vehicles for cleaner alternatives. As the state moved from budget surplus to deficit, the Newsom administration and lawmakers never adequately funded it, advocates say.

Lawmakers provided no new funding in the 2024–25 budget year, and in the current budget cycle, the state provided only about $45 million through a combination of funds and one-time budget actions, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That falls well short of a sustained, long-term commitment, said Chavez, of the Coalition for Clean Air.

“It's become — especially as the budget has become more difficult — more of a secondary priority, which is unfortunate,” he said.

Competing ideas, no clear consensus

California’s EV problem has no shortage of potential solutions — only disagreement over which one to choose.

Some policy analysts argue the state should focus on first-time adoption. A recent brief from Atlas Public Policy found that incentives are most cost-effective when they bring a household’s first electric vehicle into the garage — because once a family owns one EV, it is far more likely to buy another.

Elkind, of UC Berkeley, said a simpler approach — a point-of-sale rebate tied to lower-priced vehicles — would be easier for the air board to administer while avoiding subsidies for high-income buyers.

“If it's just tied to the price of the vehicle, that's pretty straightforward,” Elkind said.

Some lawmakers told CalMatters the air board should tightly target the rebates to communities most affected by pollution and transportation costs. State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, said incentives should focus on communities that suffer the most from air pollution, “so as to increase the bang for air quality buck.”

Senator Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, said new incentives should go to the people “who are most burdened by transportation costs and drive the most."

Fewer easy EV buyers in California

California needs to design its next rebate program well because its most eager EV buyers are gone and the state now faces a harder, more price-sensitive market, experts said.

“California is one of the first states to sort of get into that mainstream market: and it's a harder market to convert,” said Loren McDonald, a Danville-based EV analyst. Potential buyers now expect seamless charging and balk at waiting 30 to 40 minutes. They also are not keen to install home chargers or pay more upfront. Many, he says, stick with traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.

“We burned through the innovators and the early adopters — those people who want to save the planet, those people who make good money,” McDonald said.

Staff writer Erica Yee contributed to this report.

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

Topline:

Why it matters: Wedding is accused of running a drug trafficking operation that shipped narcotics from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, and ultimately throughout the United States and Canada. He is also accused of ordered the killing of a witness who was set to testify against him.

The backstory: FBI Director Kash Patel calls him "the largest narco trafficker in modern times." At a news conference announcing Wedding's arrest, Patel said "He's a modern-day El Chapo. He is a modern-day Pablo Escobar, and he thought he could evade justice."

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell says their investigation into Wedding with the feds led to the seizure of more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine and more than $55 million in assets.

How we got here: Patel says Wedding has been wanted on charges for cocaine trafficking and murder since 2024. He competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

What's next: Wedding is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California has taken steps the past few years to protect transgender young people on the playing field, in the classroom and in the doctor’s office. But a handful of federal court cases and new policies could threaten those protections.

A case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court could affect transgender students’ right to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Another case — possibly headed for the Supreme Court — could overturn California’s law banning school districts from requiring staff to “out” transgender students to their parents. And in December, the federal government said it would crack down on health care for transgender minors.

“We are witnessing a widespread, concerted, strategic attack on trans people existing in public spaces and in particular, trans young people,” said Dale Melchert, senior staff attorney for the Transgender Law Center, a nonprofit law firm based in Oakland. “The religious right is targeting trans people, and we know that these cases and policies are going to have a critical impact on trans young people, who are already such a vulnerable minority.”

The legal moves and policy shifts follow President Donald Trump’s vow to eliminate rights for transgender people, a topic he brought up frequently during his campaign and addressed in his inaugural speech. It was among his first executive orders.

Youth sports and transgender athletes

The case related to youth sports is based on a pair of lawsuits filed by transgender women in Idaho and West Virginia, states that prohibit athletes from playing on teams that don’t align with their gender at birth. California is one of about 23 states that allow transgender girls and women to play on school-sponsored women’s and girls’ teams.

The court heard arguments earlier in January and is likely to announce a ruling in June. Legal experts expect the court to uphold states’ rights to prohibit transgender women from playing on women’s teams, but it may leave the door open for states to set their own policies.

In that case, “California would be fine,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights.

But that doesn’t mean the case wouldn’t affect California in the future. It could strengthen future legal efforts and federal proposals to restrict states’ abilities to protect transgender athletes, Minter said. A year ago, Trump said he would withhold funding from any school that allows transgender females to play on girls’ and women’s teams; a Supreme Court ruling on the issue could make it easier for the federal government to follow through on the threat.

Parental notification policy in doubt

In a case directly affecting California, a pair of teachers from Escondido, near San Diego, sued the state over its recently enacted law prohibiting schools from requiring staff to notify parents if a child identifies as transgender. The teachers said the law “violates their faith and ethics,” according to the Thomas More Society, the nonprofit law firm that filed suit in U.S. District Court in Southern California on behalf of the teachers.

A federal district court judge agreed, and ruled in favor of the teachers in late December. The state immediately asked for and received a pause on the ruling allowing the law to remain in place while it prepares an appeal, but the plaintiffs asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the pause and implement the ruling immediately. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet issued a decision.

“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene,” Paul Jonna, an attorney for Thomas More Society, said. “The state is inserting itself unconstitutionally between parents and children, forcing schools to deceive families, and punishing teachers who tell the truth.”

Attorney General Rob Bonta is hopeful the court will uphold California's law.

"We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives," said Jordan Blue, spokesman for the Attorney General's office. "We look forward to continuing to make our case in court."

California’s law stems from a policy adopted by a half-dozen school districts over the past few years that would have required teachers and other staff to inform parents if a child uses different pronouns, names or other signs that they identify as transgender. The districts said that parents have a right to know if their children are undergoing such a significant change.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, as well as many lawmakers and advocates, said the policy endangers transgender students because students might not be “out” at home, and their parents might not be supportive. Transgender students are far more likely than their peers to become homeless, often as a result of family rejection, according to the nonprofit advocacy group The Trevor Project. Advocates also said the policy places an undue burden on teachers, who must act as “gender police.”

The issue has propelled at least one school board member to statewide prominence. Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board, is running for state superintendent, largely on the issue of parents’ right to know if their child is transgender. Shaw is a Republican.

Access to health care

Meanwhile, in December the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would bar hospitals from performing gender procedures on children. California health officials pushed back, telling hospitals that they must comply with state laws and continue offering gender care to minors, regardless of what the federal government says.

“We will continue to stand with transgender youth, their families and health care providers, and we will continue to fight the federal administration’s cruel and inhumane policies,” they wrote on the state’s Health and Human Services website.

On the mental health front, the state in July said it would train its counselors on the 988 suicide-prevention hotline to address issues specific to LGBTQ youth. The move came after the Trump administration cut funding for such services.

‘It’s heartbreaking’

Just over 3% of young people identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. They’re more likely to drop out of school, suffer from mental health challenges like anxiety and depression, and commit suicide, according to The Trevor Project. High-profile court cases and heated rhetoric only make matters worse, said Jorge Reyes Salinas, spokesperson for Equality California, which advocates for LGBTQ rights.

While California remains relatively safe for transgender youth, at least for now, Salinas expects right-leaning states and the federal government to continue to ramp up their anti-LGBTQ efforts. A proposed ballot initiative in Nevada, for example, would require any school that receives state funds to identify sports as male, female or co-ed.

“The trans community is being used as a scapegoat. The right is continuing to use trans people as a tool for igniting fear and hate, putting young people at risk in the process,” Salinas said. “It’s heartbreaking. Students feel trapped, like everyone is against you.”

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