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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Olivia Hughes

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LAist

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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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Olivia Hughes

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LAist

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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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Olivia Hughes

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LAist

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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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Olivia Hughes

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LAist

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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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Olivia Hughes

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LAist

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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.

Southern California is getting a dose of unseasonably cool weather — a welcome break after a series of hot, humid heat waves over the last few months.

Lower than normal temperatures are expected to stick around through the weekend.

Highs along the coast will be in the 70s over the next few days. Inland areas of L.A. and Orange counties will get up to the 80s. Even the Inland Empire is expected to peak at about 90 degrees on Friday.

The cooler temperatures are also expected to come with cloudy skies across the region.

The cloud cover will likely be widespread on Friday and much of Saturday, but concentrated mostly in the morning hours and along the coast, where skies could stay cloudy through the afternoon.

The cool, mild conditions won’t last long, though.

Forecasters say temperatures will start to tick back up on Saturday. They will stay below normal seasonal levels for a few days, but the summer heat will be back by the middle of next week.

So this weekend might be a good time to go on a hike or host that barbecue.

Low pressure equals mild temperatures 

The cool weather is a pretty stark change.

Just a few weeks ago, the National Weather Service was issuing warnings across Southern California for extreme heat and predicting nearly record-breaking temperatures. Now, atmospheric conditions have shifted.

Much of that suffocating heat was driven by a massive system of high pressure air hovering over the Southwestern U.S.

High pressure systems trap warm air beneath them and compress it, further warming the air and preventing cooler air from displacing it.

This week, the high pressure system finally loosened its grip.

“That ridge of high pressure kind of broke down, and then a trough of low pressure developed off and along the coast of California,” said Devin Black, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Low pressure systems force air to rise, and as air rises it cools. It also eventually condenses, often forming cloud cover.

That’s one reason behind the clouds in Southern California this week.

Meanwhile, a deep marine layer and onshore winds are helping push those clouds farther inland. Forecasters note that the low pressure system and onshore winds are also keeping humidity levels up.

Despite the cloud cover and moisture, it’s unlikely there will be much, if any, rain. Some minimal precipitation could be possible in Ventura and Santa Barbara county mountains.

The low pressure system and marine layer will start to shrink on Saturday, allowing heat-generating high pressure to move back into the region.

The deadline set by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass for the removal of all rotting food from the Lineage Logistics cold storage facility in Boyle Heights is fast approaching.

Bass reiterated on Thursday to The LA Local that all of the approximately 88 million pounds of food that had been stored inside when the facility caught fire in June is expected to be removed by Friday. 

City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents District 14 where Lineage is located, said in a press release Thursday afternoon that the cleanup efforts will likely not meet the deadline. 

“I fully support the Mayor leveraging all the enforcement, cost-recovery, and accountability tools available to make clear that when the City establishes a public-health deadline, corporations are expected to meet it — and there are consequences when they do not,” Jurado said in the statement.

The company’s reports on the cleanup progress, similarly, have not appeared to be on pace with meeting that deadline. And some residents believe the putrid air they’ve had to live with for months will linger indefinitely despite the bureaucratic goal posts being met or moved.

Here’s what we know about the final phase of cleanup.

What is the deadline?

Workers continue to clear out the Lineage warehouse in Boyle Heights.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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Soon after a fire broke out on the roof of the 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility on Los Palos Street on June 17, the managers cut the power to the two massive refrigerated rooms in the building. While firefighters took about a week to contain the blaze, the millions of pounds of food inside quickly began to rot in the summer’s heat.

Bass on June 29 issued an executive order requiring the removal of all remaining food in 45 days, or Friday, Aug. 14. Food cleanup began in early July.

Meanwhile, residents of Boyle Heights, East L.A. and several other neighboring communities who were left to deal with the putrid odors, have made more than 4,000 air quality complaints to regulators since early July.

It’s not the only deadline Lineage Logistics faces.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in the region, issued 19 notices of violation alleging the odors created a public nuisance. Last week, the agency ordered the company to meet dozens of cleanup and air quality control standards, including enforceable requirements for food removal and full facility cleaning.

That agency set a separate deadline of weeks for the food and other material to be removed before the remaining freezer room is fully sanitized.

What’s been cleaned up so far?

The freezer that was extensively damaged by fire has been cleared. The remaining freezer held the vast majority of the rotting food that has been polluting the air in nearby neighborhoods.

Lineage Logistics has for weeks reported on its website about its progress toward 100% cleanup. 

Residents can get a sense of their pace for cleanup by tracking their reports:

• Aug. 7: 85% of food waste had been removed 
• Aug. 11: 92% of “bulk food cleanup” was completed
• Aug. 12: 93% of food had been cleaned up

It’s unclear how exactly Lineage is arriving at these measurements and how the city or some other agency is independently verifying this progress.

Will they meet the deadline?

The deadline set by Mayor Karen Bass for the removal of all rotting food from the Lineage Logistics cold storage facility in Boyle Heights is fast approaching.

Lineage is clearing between 1% and 1.5% of food each day, according to their progress reports. This roughly aligns with the weekly goal AQMD ordered Lineage to maintain, 10% or 8.8 million pounds of food removed each week.

At that pace, it is unlikely they’ll be able to remove the remaining 7% of food waste in the next 24 hours. 

Unless they significantly accelerate, this puts full food cleanup somewhere into next week. That revised timeline better aligns with the one Dominic DiCarlo, vice president of global safety and compliance for Lineage, outlined during the AQMD hearing last week.

DiCarlo added that the company expects to spend between $80 and $100 million on the cleanup and related expenses, which has been described as continuing around the clock.

Lineage did not respond to The LA Local’s request for more information about their progress toward the mayor’s deadline on Thursday.

What happens if they blow the deadline?

Jurado reported Thursday that Lineage would not meet the deadline, and expressed frustration with what residents have had to deal with.

Jurado’s statement reflected this: “For nearly two months, families in Boyle Heights have lived with unbearable odors, flies and pests, truck traffic, uncertainty, and disruption to their homes, businesses, and daily lives. They were told there was a deadline, and they had every right to expect that deadline to mean something.”

Bass’ executive order does not provide details on what will happen if Lineage does not meet the Friday deadline for clean up. Her office told The LA Local that it will provide more information on Thursday about the consequences if the deadline is not met.

She is also hosting a virtual community meeting Thursday about the cleanup efforts. 

Bass was among several local elected officials who had pushed AQMD to levy fines on Lineage for its air pollution violations, which it did not do. She has pushed city agencies to prevent Lineage from reconstructing the facility and continuing its business there. Local lawmakers have also introduced legislation that could increasingly regulate similar businesses in the future.

AQMD can levy penalties if Lineage does not meet its deadlines for cleanup in the coming weeks.

What are residents saying?

Residents on Prado Street were still hopeful Thursday that cleanup would be finished by the deadline.

“Ojalá,” that’s what Irma Soto said when she was asked if she believed workers would finish in time. “I hope they finish so this could all end.”

“It smells horrible,” she added as the stench emanated from the neighborhood early Thursday afternoon.

Soto said she’s been seeing more trailers picking up debris lately. Her neighbor said there appears to be more nighttime work near the facility recently.

“Who knows if they’ll finish, but they are working faster,” the neighbor said.

The post Lineage unlikely to meet deadline to clear 88 million pounds of rotting food from Boyle Heights appeared first on LA Local.

Jake Hemann grabbed a board and headed out to surf. But an hour later, he wound up sitting at the lifeguard station soaking his foot in a pail of hot water alongside four other beachgoers.

It is a common scene at Bolsa Chica State Beach and some other popular beaches in Southern California where the number of people being hit by the sharp, serrated caudal barbs found on the tails of stingrays has gone up significantly from a year ago as a marine heat wave draws more stingrays — and people — to shore.

Hemann, a 31-year-old tourist from New Mexico, said he was learning to surf when he hopped off his board and landed on what he thought was a sharp stick. “It hurt pretty bad,” he said, while sinking his throbbing foot into the hottest water tolerable to ease the pain. “It was radiating up to my ankle.”

Bolsa Chica and Huntington State Beaches reported more than 3,100 incidents so far this year, twice the number for all of 2025. The city of Huntington Beach’s 3.5-mile (5.6-kilometer) stretch of shoreline has reported more than 2,000 such incidents so far this year, more than during all last year, while more than 900 stings were recorded on San Diego’s beaches during the first half of 2026, more than during the first six months of any of the past five years, lifeguard data shows.

“We’re definitely seeing an increase,” said Bryan R. Etnyre, state park superintendent in northern Orange County. “A lot of it is due to warming ocean temperatures that are consistently staying in the 60s. I don’t think there was a week all winter where we dropped below 60 this year.”

Warmer water draws rays and people

Round stingrays are found in Pacific Ocean waters from Panama to Southern California and are known to veer toward the shore when the swell is down and the water warm.

In recent years, many species that feed on rays, such as sharks, sea lions and giant sea bass, have seen their populations dwindle, causing the number of stingrays to grow, said Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach.

Rays are known to prefer warmer water, such as lagoons. Females prefer these waters to reproduce, and during the summer male rays have a higher metabolism that drives them to seek out food in the invertebrates along the shore, Lowe said.

“They’re really a subtropical species that is thriving at the end of its range because of climate change,” Lowe said.

The ocean already has been warming because of human-caused climate change, according to meteorologists.

This year has seen even more rays with a marine heat wave persisting off parts of the West Coast, marking the third time on record that such a large section of coastal waters stayed warm for so long, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In June, officials confirmed the formation of an El Niño, the natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide, that is expected to grow to historic strength.

Meanwhile, more people have been heading to beaches seeking outdoor recreation since the coronavirus pandemic. And when the water is warm, they are more likely to swim.

When rays are stepped on, they instinctively flick up their tails, stinging people with venomous barbs. Lifeguards urge bathers to shuffle their feet as they enter the water as the movement often gets rays to slide out of the way without stinging.

In Southern California, lifeguards can treat 10,000 stingray injuries a year, Lowe said.

In Seal Beach, one area draws so many due to an influx of warm water from a nearby power plant it is known as “ray bay,” though lifeguards there haven’t seen much change in stings this year.

Using a 75-foot-long net, researchers swept up some 200 stingrays, each about the size of a dinner plate, on a section of the beach on a recent morning.

“There can be so many that they actually carpet the bottom, like you can’t see sand,” Lowe said. “During El Niños, we get more of them up from the south, and they come closer to shore. So this year, we’re expecting record numbers.”

Sting advisory and booties aim to help

Lowe said he is working with television stations to develop a stingray advisory to help reduce the number of people who get stung, and the number of rays that get squished. Rays help keep the beach healthy by feeding on small clams and aerating sediment.

Many beaches use an app to notify bathers when there are multiple stings at a location. Meanwhile, a company has developed surf booties that claim to be barb-resistant — though swimmers are urged to still tread lightly to avoid trampling the rays.

At Bolsa Chica State Beach, swimmers suffering stings to the sides of their feet and toes sat in a circle refilling their pails with hot water from a hose. Some were there more than an hour waiting for the pain to ease.

Most stings don’t require additional medical attention. If redness and swelling continue more than four or five days, there could be a medical complication such as an infection or a retained barb that can be seen on an X-ray, said Dr. Christanne Coffey, who researches the stings at University of California, San Diego Health.

Allen Lowry said he was playing with his 7-year-old grandson when he came down on something squishy. He lifted his foot and saw blood so his wife drove him to the lifeguard station for a hot water soak, which is the remedy for stings.

Lowry, 69, said he swims three times a week at another beach, and getting stung, though painful, won’t change that. He said some people in his swim group have been stung multiple times.

“Usually, once the pain you feel goes away, you feel fine the next day,” he said.

California's prison system has systematically failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment by guards, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

The federal investigation also found that California’s corrections department failed to provide victims with a safe way to report sexual abuse and harassment without retaliation. On top of that, staff who were tasked with investigating the misconduct were often themselves accused of sexual abuse or harassment.

The investigation, which began during the Biden administration, focused on two state prisons: the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino. It uncovered numerous instances where guards regularly sexually abused incarcerated women. In at least one instance, a guard was convicted of rampant abuse over roughly a decade and sentenced to 224 years in prison.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Women were told to report misconduct on an online system that wasn’t confidential and that the accused officers had access to, according to Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon said that women are “fully aware of this gap in confidentiality, and this serves as a deterrent from women reporting this misconduct.” She named at least one sergeant whose job it was to investigate misconduct who was himself sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to receiving child sexual abuse images on the job.

“The upshot of our investigation is that California’s prison system, when it comes to women, has inadequate systems in place to deter, detect, and hold accountable rampant sexual misconduct and assault on female prisoners,” Dhillon said at a news conference held in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The Associated Press in previous years exposed similar patterns of rampant abuse by federal prison staff against women held in Dublin, California, a facility that at the time was nicknamed the “rape club.” The prison was closed following the AP investigation.

The federal government on Thursday gave California's prison system 49 days to remediate the conditions  that enabled the rampant abuse, warning that a failure to do so could result in civil litigation.

The measures include expanded camera coverage, enhanced confidential reporting channels and strengthened investigative protocol.U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who was appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said California has to take action.“The State must confront the persistent failure of its own employees to prevent and address sexual abuse at these facilities,” Essayli wrote in a statement, “and the systemic breakdowns that have permitted these conditions to persist.”

How to report abuse

An incarcerated person, or someone acting on their behalf, has several options to report alleged abuse while in custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR):

• Complete a form
• Call the Office of Inspector General’s hotline at (800) 700-5952 or *7732# (quick dial from a CDCR phone or tablet)
• Write to: OIG, 10111 Old Placerville Road, Suite 110, Sacramento, CA, 95827