The Brief

Homelessness among families with children has been growing.

In California, more than 74,000 children under age 4 experienced homelessness between 2022 and 2023, up from the year before, according to a report by SchoolHouse Connection. The study found a similar dynamic across the United States.

Resources for unhoused families have become increasingly scarce, too, amid rising economic stress. Last year, the vast majority of families in California with young children struggled to meet a basic need such as housing or utilities, according to a survey by the Stanford Center on Early Childhood — one of the highest levels in years.

We spoke to five families with young children in Southern California who spoke of how they ended up struggling to stay housed, whether because of a job loss that depleted hard-earned savings, an eviction after a spike in rent, or escape from a home of domestic abuse.

They shared varied experiences of navigating housing stability in L.A., but all expressed a similar sentiment — the emotional weight of protecting their children and the visceral longing to preserve their kids’ childhoods.

(LAist is using first names only because of concerns around safety and potential ramifications.)

“I may not be rich, but I feel like seeing my daughter paint and draw, that makes me rich,” Erika says.

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Erika left a bad situation to prevent a worse one

'It's a struggle to be a mom in Los Angeles at this day and age, period.'

The repurposed motel room where Erika stays with her two children is bare in furnishings, but she’s laid down shaggy rugs and decorated the bunk beds with bright comforters. Her 8-year-old daughter’s bunk is covered in Hello Kitty decor.

“Here, in this room, it doesn't feel like I’m homeless,” she said.

It’s not Erika's first time in this shelter near Koreatown. The first was with her children’s father about two years ago after they were evicted. Their one-bedroom apartment in Crenshaw went from $1,200 to $1,800.

They had a baby boy while at the shelter, and moved out to Section 8 housing. But about a year ago, Erika took her children and left, breaking a cycle of domestic strife at the cost of becoming homeless again.

“I’m not going to have DCFS (the Department of Child and Family Services) come and take my kids from both of us because we’re fighting and we’re toxic,” she said. “I don't know where I would be right now if I didn't have this place. I would probably be in the street with my kids, or I probably wouldn't even have custody of my kids.”

Erika isn’t new to the foster care system. She herself entered foster care when she was 12 years old because of her mother’s drug addiction.

“I just knew that I didn't want to give the lifestyle that I was given to my children,” she said.

She shares custody of her children, and pines for the days when she’s with them. She’ll buy coloring supplies for her daughter from Ross across the street. Her 2-year-old son is busy climbing the beds and running around.

“I may not be rich, but I feel like seeing my daughter paint and draw, that makes me rich,” she said. “Even little things like reading my kid a book at night. As funny as this sounds, like no one read me a book.”

She said she’s working on going to school and getting her real estate license. She hopes to secure low-income housing. Research shows economic hardship — tied to the high cost of housing — is a primary driver of homelessness.

“Los Angeles is not a fairy tale, you know?” she said. “I know it's temporary. I know one day I'll get my house. I know one day, I'm gonna be cooking with my daughter watching ‘Cocomelon.’ One day, but I know I’m trying. I’m trying.”

After leaving a domestic violence situation, Jessica found housing help through several nonprofits and is now renting a house on her own.

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Jessica juggles three part-time jobs

'I have done everything possible … sometimes it’s just not enough.'

When Jessica fled her abusive husband, pregnant and with her two young boys, she told them they were on an adventure. They sought shelter in hotels.

“I would try to make it as fun as I could,” Jessica says. “I kept them entertained — a lot of jumping on the bed, a lot of just having fun or playing with their toys or being outside, like parks — just try to only be there when it was time to eat, shower and go to bed.”

But it wasn’t ideal for parenting. She couldn’t store groceries, the weekly rates were expensive, and transient visitors made it a less-than-ideal environment for her two kids.

“[It was] a never-ending rollercoaster,” she recalled.

After about six months, she got in touch with House of Ruth, a nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic violence, that helped her find housing and help with a portion of her rent. Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness among women.

But that help was time-limited, and she faced eviction after falling a month and a half behind on her payments.

“I was literally losing it. I didn't know if we were gonna be in the middle of the streets. I don't have family. I don't. It's just me and my kids,” she said, echoing a sentiment LAist heard from other families.

She was able to get rental help from a homeless prevention program through another nonprofit — a program designed to help families stay in their homes. That’s since ended, and now, she rents a house from a church in an L.A. suburb at a discount.

When LAist visited in January, Jessica had just moved into the two-bedroom. Her three young children — 7 and under — share the master bedroom. Her favorite part of her new house is a kitchen bar counter.

“The kids are really enjoying just sitting there and watching me cook and it feels like a hibachi restaurant,” she said.

When her kids are in school, she juggles three part-time jobs — at the church nearby, cleaning houses, and as a substitute teacher. She’s also in school full-time working toward a degree in healthcare administration. She wakes up at 2:30 in the morning and works on her schoolwork until her kids wake up around 6.

“They'll never see a time where like I'm crying or something like that. They always see me joking around with them, laughing with them, doing something with them,” she said.

“The most important thing is keeping a roof over my kids’ heads,” she added. “When you see families, um, mothers and fathers with children and they're on the street or they're in shelters, it's not by the lack of effort, it's by the lack of resources and rent.”

Caseworkers have helped Marie get connected to temporary shelter. Soon, she says, she will be moving into permanent housing and wants to get into this line of work to help others.

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Marie got clean for her daughter

'If I could have anything portrayed from any of this situation with me and my family, it would be that we love each other.'

Marie glanced at her phone, which has a timer of the days, hours, minutes she’s been sober.

“ I've been clean for 11 months, 12 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes,” she said.

Marie held her 4-month-old daughter, who blinked contentedly in the beam of the afternoon sun.

Last July, Marie was living in a “tiny home” in North Hollywood with her partner when she found out she was pregnant. She stopped using meth immediately.

“I was a drug addict for 25 years and stopped completely because of my daughter,” she said.

Marie became homeless about three years ago after being in and out of jail. She’d been arrested for identity fraud and larceny. With no family nearby, she began living in her truck. “It was not easy. Living homeless is not for the weak at all,” she said. Marie also lives with bipolar disorder.

She and her partner were able to move into a tiny home, which she said, at the time, was “awesome” — until she was pregnant.

“I was like, OK, listen, I’m about to pass out. There’s not enough ventilation there.” At seven months pregnant, she moved into a family shelter in the San Fernando Valley, a 100-unit former motel. “Moving here was a luxury and a breath of fresh air.” Her water broke in their room about a month before her due date. Her baby spent 10 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. “She’s been doing great ever since.”

Pregnancy while homeless is common. A study from UC San Francisco in 2023 found that 1 in four unhoused women between 18 and 44 years old in California was pregnant. They’re also less likely to access prenatal resources.

Marie soaked in her daughter’s recent developments. Just days ago, the newborn haze cleared from her eyes and she looked up at her mom. “ And then she got this big old grin on her face. And it, I swear to God, it was the single most rewarding feeling in my life because she looked at me like she was falling in love with me for the first time,” she said.

In a few weeks, Marie said, they’ll be moving out of the shelter to a two-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys, where she’ll have permanent supportive housing, a program that helps pay for housing people living with mental illness. There, she’ll pay 30% of the rent. She said she plans to drive Uber part-time, so she can take her daughter around. She said she also wants to work in the field of homeless services after her experience and because of the people who helped her.

As for what she’s looking forward to in her new home for her baby? “Everything ... I’m excited to watch her grow.”

After losing his job, Wayne and his family lost their apartment in L.A. and had to sleep in and out of their car.

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Wayne moved his family away to find a home

'We're willing to give California up for that because the most important thing is to be housed and fed.'

When Wayne lost his job two years ago in A/V tech support, he had $30,000 saved up — enough to stay afloat for at least a little while. But months went by, and the job market was brutal. Soon, they ran out of money and lost their one-bedroom apartment in L.A.

He and his partner stayed in and out of motels and in their car with their 4-year-old son at the time. “The first time we slept in the car it was really, really hot, and [the son] ended up with heat rashes all over his back,” he said.

Thousands of Angelenos use cars as shelter. Although it’s difficult to get an exact number, a recent Homeless Count found that more than 23,000 people live in a vehicle on any given night.

His son, A., has autism and struggles to sleep. “He hates it,” Wayne said, who wanted to use the first initial of his son's name. “The only way he'll sleep in the car is if he's literally on, usually my lap.” LAist interviewed Wayne last fall and chronicled his story.

But during the days, he would take A. to the park or the library, playing with him and his car toys.

“The most important thing is trying to make sure he basically is comfortable as much as possible, that he's [having] fun, that he's not really understanding what's going on — which I think we're doing a good job [at] so far,” Wayne said.

After months of searching, Wayne got a job out of state late last year — and left California, where he was born and raised. They moved into a home in the dead of winter. His son ran into every room, exploring.

“He was kind of standing there for a bit, just kind of blank stare, and then I told him, ‘It's our home,’ and he smiled,” Wayne said. He said after months of living in their car, his son was still getting used to having a home.

“We left to go to the store earlier today, and he didn't wanna leave. He said ‘bye-bye’ to the house and started crying. He didn't wanna leave,” Wayne said. “He just wants to be inside. I think he just wants to take in — the stability of being inside."

Diana came to the U.S. two years ago with her three children for economic opportunity. “We went hungry a lot—way too much,” she said.

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Diana hopes her children don’t grow to resent her

'We came here to better ourselves, to do good things here, what we couldn’t do back home.'

Diana and her three children came to the U.S. from Venezuela two years ago, settling in L.A.. The economic collapse there has led to nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans leaving the country, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

She said her family went hungry far too often. “ Es duro como mamá que los hijos le piden comida a uno y porque es horrible cuando un hijo le pide comida a uno y uno no tenga," she said through tears, hurt that she couldn't give her children food when they asked for it.

Desperate, she left with her kids, two of them teenagers — traveling through the notorious Darién Gap, a 70-mile stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama where hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed in recent years — and where the number of deaths is largely known to be undercounted.

Children under 5 have been the fastest-growing group of migrants crossing the treacherous terrain. Diana and her children traveled for months.

"Pasado mucha necesidad de, este, la cual el, en la selva, la selva del Darién," she said, talking about the hardships faced crossing the Darién jungle. She said there were many rapes, deaths and murders.

When they got to Mexico, they lived on the streets.

" Andando en la calle, durmiendo en la calle, pidiendo limosna," she said. You go hungry, you live on the street, you just keep going.

After staying in motels in L.A., Diana found a temporary family shelter where her family shares one room, including with their 1-year-old dog Dulce.

She and her husband make minimum wage, cleaning at a factory that makes burritos, and are trying to figure out how to afford rent on their own. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, living on $16 an hour for a family of five when the median rent in the Los Angeles Metro area is over $2,000.

She says she's grateful they're in a better spot, not out on the street — but as a mother, she wants to give her children the best.

"Yo me imagínese que mi hijo me diga: 'Mamá, ¿y entonces para qué me sacaste de allá? ¿A tenernos aquí, porque en estas cuatro paredes?'" — "I can just imagine my son telling me, 'Mom, why did you take me out of there? Just to have us here, inside these four walls?'"

But she said here, her kids aren’t starving. They have food and are going to school. Her oldest is enrolled in a summer program that has field trips across the city.

Still, recent news about immigration and mass deportations has her on edge.

"No hay comida en mi país no hay y no me gustaría volver," she said. There's no food left in her home country. And that's what causes her anguish and anxiety: Getting caught by immigration, she and her family getting deported. "A veces me pone, me llena de angustia, de ansiedad, de eso, de saber de eso que me lleno."

She said she prays for protection over her and her children.

"Es en los manos de Dios," she said.

It’s in God’s hands.

Los Angeles County is reporting the highest number of rabid bats on record, a to-date total of 69, officials said.

This year’s rabid bat count has already matched 2025’s total, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health, which released the count Monday, marking World Rabies Day.

Health officials emphasized that rabid bats have been found all over the county "from suburban areas such as the San Fernando Valley to urban areas like downtown Los Angeles, in office buildings, parks, schools, businesses, and residential backyards."

That said, a large share of rabid bats — 68% of the 69 found so far — were in the Santa Clarita Valley, and they were mainly canyon bats, which are common in California.

When to be on high alert

Officials warned that a third of human encounters with rabid bats happened indoors, where the risk of exposure to the virus is higher.

Bat bites are small and can be hard to detect. Rabies can also be spread through scratches or other transfers of saliva.

“If you find a bat indoors or think you may have had contact with one, contact your medical provider or Public Health right away,” Dr. Muntu Davis, a Los Angeles County Health officer, said in a statement. “And remember, never touch a bat or any wild animals. Immediately report any bat found indoors, or outdoors if it appears sick, active during the day, unable to fly, or dead, to your local animal control.”

Who to call

Veterinary Public Health

Phone: 213-288-7060
Email: vet@ph.lacounty.gov
Website: publichealth.lacounty.gov/vet

*Call 211 to find your local animal control

What to know about rabies

Rabies in humans is treatable with a series of vaccines. Rabies is always fatal in animals, the county said in a release, so vaccinate your pets.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Sunday that tightens building rules for sites that store explosive chemicals, responding to an Orange County chemical incident that forced thousands of residents to evacuate Memorial Day weekend.

The law also adds the chemical methyl methacrylate to a state program that aims to prevent chemical disasters.

In May, CalMatters reported that California’s toughest accidental-release prevention rules do not cover the chemical in the tank at GKN Aerospace, a company that makes cockpits and windshields in Garden Grove. Weeks later Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana amended an existing bill with language that addressed that gap. Assembly committee and floor analyses noted CalMatters’ reporting. 

Had the chemical exploded, it “would have been perhaps the greatest catastrophe, certainly in the last several decades in California,” Umberg said at a June Assembly hearing.

Umberg’s original proposal would have set stronger standards for more types of explosive chemicals, but legislators narrowed it significantly in last-minute negotiations.

The final law bars building new facilities near homes and schools and requires backup cooling systems. It also strips an exemption from environmental review that facilities storing methyl methacrylate previously qualified for.

Garden Grove advocates call the bill a good step, but say it offers the community little immediate recourse, especially with GKN Aerospace planning to reopen by the end of September.

The law’s siting requirements apply to new facilities, not to existing ones like GKN’s Garden Grove plant.

Mai Do, research and policy manager for the Orange County advocacy group Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, said she hopes the state will do more to address the threat of toxic chemicals at existing facilities.

“This is a much larger fight than just what's happened in Garden Grove,” Do said. “What we see in terms of the Lineage fire and other industrial crises is that this is a problem that is affecting a lot of different communities”

In an interview with CalMatters, Umberg said the bill reflected a balancing act. “This is a net benefit for the state, a net benefit for the community,” he said.

Stronger rules for new facilities, not existing ones

Over Memorial Day weekend, residents learned of a problem with a tank storing methyl methacrylate at the GKN Aerospace facility. A crack in the tank released pressure and, along with efforts by emergency responders, averted disaster, but questions remained about what went wrong.

CalMatters reported in May that methyl methacrylate and other chemicals that could explode under certain conditions falls outside the California Accidental Release Program, which requires facilities to maintain detailed plans for preventing or responding to chemical leaks or explosions.

Rachel Tochterman, a spokesperson for Sen. Umberg, said the senator took note and initially proposed incorporating a broader category of reactive chemicals into the program.

But industry groups opposed the plan, arguing it was too broad without clearer evidence.

Dawn Koepke, a lobbyist for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, said she does not believe a regulatory gap exists that would justify incorporating more chemicals into the state’s accidental release regimen.

Facilities storing toxic chemicals are already heavily regulated under other federal and state laws, she said, including a requirement for plans to protect people from chemical releases.

Koepke said she worried that "jumping to conclusions and over-regulating" could affect "a wider array of facilities."

Tim Shestek, a lobbyist representing the American Chemistry Council and other groups, said in an email that Umberg’s original proposal would have affected “far more facilities, substances and sectors than were in the original scope.”

After amendments on the next-to-last day of the legislative session, nine industry groups stopped lobbying against the bill.

Most provisions of the law only apply to methyl methacrylate — the chemical involved in the Garden Grove incident. The bill adds it to the state’s accidental release program, requires facilities to maintain prevention and emergency-response plans, and closes the environmental-review exemption for new sites where the chemical is present.

Scrapped from the bill: a requirement to map reactive-chemical sites in CalEnviroScreen, a state program that identifies polluted communities.

GKN Aerospace plans to reopen 

Steve Carlin, senior vice president for GKN Aerospace programs, said the company has been working with regulators and independent experts “to safely reset the remainder of the facility with the appropriate oversight” work that has included inspections, upgrades to safety equipment, and additional monitoring. The company plans to reopen in the next few days.

The company also announced an additional $100 million program to pay residents and businesses that lost money during evacuations.

Lisa Fu, director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, a worker-safety group, wants California to regulate hazardous chemicals more broadly.

“It's just unfortunate that it's a piecemeal thing,” said Lisa Fu, director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative. “Is it worth it to go piece by piece in terms of trying to ban certain chemicals? It makes the work harder for us, and you can see who's benefiting and who's not.”

Newsom also signed a pair of bills in response to the Lineage fire, a June cold storage fire in Los Angeles. The fire briefly prompted a shelter-in-place order over fears that toxic anhydrous ammonia had been released into the air.

The new laws raise the fines agencies can levy on companies that endanger health and safety. They also bar building permits for cold storage facilities that lack contingency funds or insurance to help communities in emergencies.

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

California is now the second state to recognize the two main Muslim holidays as state holidays.

Eid ul Fitr is the festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and Eid ul Adha is the festival honoring Abraham or Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as a mark of his devotion to God. They join a state holiday list that also includes Lunar New Year and Diwali.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the change into law Monday. Washington first recognized the holidays in 2025.

Oussama Mokeddem, legislative and government affairs director at the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told LAist the signing day is  “an exciting day for the California Muslim community and a big day for the American Muslim community at large.”

Muslims follow the lunar calendar, so the dates of the two festivals vary each year. Next year, Eid ul Fitr will likely fall on March 10 and Eid ul Adha on May 17.

Why it's important to Californians

The holiday recognition comes at a time when the community is facing “unwarranted and unjustified criticism,” Mokeddem said, which he cited as a reason for a May 2026 attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego. A recent Pew study also found that 42% of Americans believe Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the country.

Adam Khaja, an 11th grader at Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, said the holiday recognition signals that  "you don't have to give up an important part of your identity to fully participate in Californian society."

" For a long time, immigrant and minority communities have sometimes felt pressure to leave parts of their identity at home in order to fit into American educational or industrial institutions," he said.

What does the holiday recognition mean?

California is home to more than 1 million Muslims, and with this law, state employees can use existing paid time off to celebrate the two holidays.

And for students in K-12 public schools, Mokeddem said the law does not mandate statewide time off, but local school districts can declare a district-wide day off if enough community members bring it up as a need.

He added that students can also cite state law when they are absent from school to celebrate the holiday.

Khaja said he will be advocating for his school district to give a district-wide day off.

"Eid has always been a huge part of our lives, but I think that the school calendar and district policies haven't always reflected that," he said.

He hopes his students will not be put in a situation now "to choose between going to school or fully participating in one of the most important days of their faith."

Muslim Women Professionals, a nonprofit, has templates on how to advocate for time off to celebrate Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha.

Usually when you go to a show at the Hollywood Bowl, you know what to expect: crisp air, views of the hills, plus maybe a picnic you brought.

Tuesday’s concert will have all of that. But visual artist Lauren Halsey is promising something much more out of the ordinary for her one-night takeover, called emajendat (pronounced “imagine that”).

Erykah Badu and the Alchemist are headlining, but Halsey’s visual art will take center stage — figuratively and literally — for a one-night “funk opera” that she hopes will be proof of concept for more events like it.

Who’s performing?

Beyond Badu and the Alchemist, who are touring for their new album "Before the World Blows," the night will also feature a performance from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a DJ set from Anderson .Paak under his alias DJ Pee .Wee. Actor and comedian Yvonne Orji will host the evening.

Jazz duo Black Nile will appear on stage with saxophonist Devin Daniels and Halsey’s former teacher, Charles Gaines. Black Nile’s members, Aaron and Lawrence Shaw, have known Halsey for years and said playing to their biggest crowd yet in their hometown of L.A. is a matter of affirmation.

“You just don't see a lot of Black people in that way, you know?” said Aaron Shaw. “Unfortunately, popular society, they benefit off of not putting us in a positive light. Jazz, this Black American art form, has become the underground thing, when it shouldn't be.”

The promo poster for Lauren Halsey's emajendat.

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Courtesy L.A. Philharmonic

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What to expect

The evening will also feature all kinds of art and family-friendly activities scattered across the Hollywood Bowl’s grounds, like a Technicolor pyramid, ping-pong, mini golf and a basketball game that Halsey said is inspired by one that she played at the Santa Monica Pier as a kid.

Halsey wanted to keep previews of emajendat “cryptic,” so if you’re curious, you’ll have to see it for yourself. But she was quick to mention her references, including George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. Though Clinton won’t perform, Halsey said “his musicality and the mythos around that” is a major inspiration for emajendat, and there’ll be plenty of Easter eggs for her fellow “hardcore Funkateers.”

“Before I even knew there was a fine art world, before I knew I would have a practice and be a sculptor and all these things, I was already deeply embedded in the world of P-Funk,” she said. “ Literally any and everything is an ode to just what that band has done for me.”

Halsey is promising her stage concepts will feel tactile and energetic, and says much of the work on and off stage is handmade.

“You're gonna see Lauren, who doesn't touch music at all, put her craft and her mark on the stage, and it's gonna be revolutionary,” Black Nile’s Lawrence Shaw said. “Nobody's ever seen anything like this before.”

Halsey recommended showing up early since a funk opera is still an opera — not to mention the effort that went into the visuals and ephemera for the show.

“I know it's Tuesday, I know it's gonna be traffic on Cahuenga, on Highland, on Hollywood, I know,” Halsey said. “So I would say plan accordingly.”

Doors open at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, and the show starts at 8 p.m. sharp.

“Everyone's gonna get a program when you walk in that describes the run of show and my Funkafesto,” Halsey said. “We're gonna get to it, so please don't miss it.”

How the night came together

Like a lot of big concepts, emajendat started with a cold pitch — though Halsey had been envisioning and working on it for years before putting it in front of the right people.

Halsey, who grew up taking school trips to the Bowl to watch the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s open rehearsals and estimates she’s been there 50 or 60 times, calls it “the people’s venue.” One of her favorite memories was as a guest in one of the venue's box seats at a 2002 Ms. Lauryn Hill show, as she and her neighbors got to know each other in the venue’s “beautiful scoop.”

The last few years have been very prolific for Halsey: She’s displayed sculptures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries and the roof of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and opened a sculpture park on 76th and Western in L.A. called Sister Dreamer.

Halsey, who already had hundreds of renderings of what the night would look like, put the ideas in front of the Hollywood Bowl’s Johanna Rees, who runs its non-classical programming.

“ I said, ‘Hey Johanna, could you ever imagine an artistic takeover of the campus, from entrance to exit? And could you ever imagine me proposing a stage concept?’" Halsey said. “She's like, ‘Yeah, I can imagine that.’ That's not even a pun.”

Lauren Halsey poses at her sculpture park located on 76th Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, sister dreamer.

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Courtesy Lauren Halsey

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But to get a yes, Halsey needed headliners. She’d booked artists like Doechii, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Parliament-Funkadelic for past art events, so she drew on connections she said she’d built “strategically.”

Halsey, who estimated she’s been to the Bowl 50 or 60 times, said one of her favorite memories is when she got to sit in the box during a 2002 Ms. Lauryn Hill unplugged show and experience the social connections being made in the venue’s “beautiful scoop.”

“You get to know your neighbors. It's a whole thing,” Halsey said.  “It's always been on my list, and it'll always be on my list. It's just, like, it's the Bowl.”

Lauren Halsey's plans for the future

Beyond deepening Halsey’s artistic connections with musicians, taking her work to a broader audience is another goal of emajendat, since not everyone is tapped into the world of fine art where Halsey often works.

Halsey said she’s energized by people entering her world for the first time. To make ticket prices for the show as accessible as possible, she said she intentionally booked the show with the L.A. Phil as the promoter.

“It's cool that so many Angelenos are gonna come through and just get to experience it all on the same playing field,” Halsey said.

Halsey said that if you can’t make it to Tuesday’s show, emajendat is “a proof of concept for the type of — perhaps it's a park, perhaps it's a festival, perhaps it's both — that I want to bring to the city one day soon,” she said.