The Brief

Los Angeles County agencies are beginning to train educators and other mandated reporters about a change in state law that has narrowed the definition of “general neglect.”

Mandated reporters are people who work closely with children and are required by state law to report suspected child abuse or neglect. There are 49 categories of people in California, including teachers, doctors and nurses.

The bill, which went into effect last year, excludes poverty alone as a reason to report child welfare cases under “general neglect.”

What is ‘neglect’?

Brandon Nichols, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, says the breadth of “general neglect” has led to a wide range of calls, like a child not having enough food.

“Is the kid hungry because the parent is on drugs and not functioning well enough … to go and get food and give the kid food. Or is the kid hungry because the parent just doesn't have the money?” he said. “We're trying to get more precise in those categories and look at the driver.”

In cases where it’s the latter, and a child is in a safe and loving family, the department wants the family to be referred to resources.

“There's better ways to handle situations where families are struggling, [where] families don't have access to economic supports,” he said.

The county now has a Mandated Supporting Initiative where the aim includes building out a system to instead connect families who need economic resources.

New 'general neglect' definition

• Mandated reporters have to report suspected or observed child abuse or neglect cases, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, unlawful corporal punishment and neglect.
  
• Previously, “general neglect” applied to parents and caretakers who weren't providing "adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision.”
  
• A law that went into effect in 2023 changed that definition to only include situations where a child is "at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm or illness," and excludes a 'parent’s economic disadvantage.'"

What makes for a case of neglect?

The majority of calls that come through the county’s Child Protection Hotline end up not resulting in a child welfare case, Nichols said. He added that, on average, the county receives over 200,000 calls a year, but only about 7-9% of those result in the agency opening a case.

“I worry that when we're looking at those [unsubstantiated] cases, we're missing cases where kids really are in danger and really need our intervention,” he said.

Calls also have disproportionately involved children of color, particularly Black children. While Black residents make up less than 8% of L.A. County’s population, Black children made up 19% of all calls made to the hotline in 2022, according to the agency.

A 2020 analysis found 1 in 3 Black children in the county had a hotline call made on them before they turned 5 years old, the agency said.

And calls didn’t necessarily lead to help.

Betty Zamorano-Pedregon, early care and education director at the Child Care Resource Center, says that in the past, a child without access to food or clothes — like a coat — would get reported to child protection.

“What would they get? They would get a put in the system,” she said. “They would get a social worker, but they would never get the coat that they really need.”

How are people being trained on the new law?

Zamorano-Pedregon says her agency has been training early educators at four of its Head Start sites as part of a pilot. The aim is to collect data and evaluate calls and referrals, and to eventually provide training to all of its sites, as well as family childcare providers.

Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County, said the Los Angeles County Office of Education is getting ready to train all of its 80 school districts. It started a pilot training program in Inglewood last year.

“With the change of the law, it made it very clear that poverty is not a crime,” she said. The shift from mandatory reporting to supporting families also helps families from becoming unnecessarily involved in the child welfare system, she said.

“When you have a social worker come knock on a door and say, ‘I'm here to investigate child abuse,’ what that does to the family — the mistrust that that puts on a family when there's no abuse,” she said. What that can do, she says, is lead them to not trust the schools and the people that are supposed to support their children and families.

Nichols, with DCFS, said the rollout of the initiative and “transforming the system” is “slow” on purpose, and they’re not by any means restricting the Child Protection Hotline.

“We don't want to make a misstep or rush in a way that inadvertently puts children at risk ,” he said. “Anybody, anywhere that has concerns about the safety of the child, they should call our hotline and we'll do what we do to make sure kids are safe. That's the number one thing, and that is not going to change even throughout all of this.”

The big news in L.A. food-land this week is the $1500 price tag for Copenhagen restaurant Noma’s upcoming residency here in L.A. In this economy? I think I’d rather fly to Copenhagen. Nonetheless, if you’re lucky (and flush!) enough to snag a reservation, please report back.

While that did not make any of our staffers' resolution lists, Senior Marketing Manager Patricia Tumang has some food goals of her own, including getting a coffee at Quat LA, trying some dipping ramen for lunch at Tsuke Artisan Noodle in Pasadena and getting a basturma sandwich at III Mass Bakery & Deli in Glendale (new). Much more reasonable (and probably just as tasty!).

On the music calendar this weekend, our friends at Licorice Pizza recommend new-school SoCal punks Together Pangea at the Teragram on Friday, old-school SoCal punks Black Flag at the Roxy, or Beastie Boys associate Mix Master Mike at the Venice West. Saturday, there’s the big iHeartRadio ALTer EGO show at the Forum with Green Day, Cage The Elephant, Good Charlotte, Sublime, Twenty One Pilots, Gigi Perez, Myles Smith and Almost Monday. Nikka Costa is at the Venice West, or head to Riverside to see legendary teen idol Shaun Cassidy at the Fox Performing Arts Center. Plus, a treat on both Saturday and Sunday: Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra will be playing the Troubadour, with a 4 p.m. matinee on Saturday for those of us who like to be in bed early!

Elsewhere on LAist, you can follow Northeast L.A.’s “treat trail,” learn about the challenges facing Long Beach’s Planet Books and catch up with last weekend’s Golden Globe winners.

Events

Morleigh Steinberg: Someplace, Somewhere

Through Sunday, February 8
Arcane Space
324 Sunset Ave., Venice 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Morleigh Steinberg

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Arcane Space

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The small gallery Arcane Space in Venice punches above its weight, with top-tier shows and a winding venue that lets out to a very cool, neighborhoody patio in the back. Choreographer and artist Morleigh Steinberg owns and operates the gallery, which has hosted inspiring new artists and group shows lately, but this time she’s showing her own work. Steinberg’s mesmerizing nature photos are printed on silver mylar substrate and show her adopted Ireland (she’s married to U2 guitarist The Edge) in a new — and possibly even more emerald — light that you can imagine.

I’m Not a Comedian, I’m Lenny Bruce

Sunday, January 18, 2 p.m. 
La Mirada Theatre
14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada
COST: FROM $19.80; MORE INFO

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Courtesy La Mirada Theatre

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Freedom of speech is in the news daily, and no one championed the right to say what you want in a more direct way than comedian Lenny Bruce. Directed by Tony Award-winning actor Joe Mantegna, this one-man show (written by and starring Ronnie Marmo) combines Bruce’s classic comedy bits with biographical insight.

DTLB Live 

Saturday, January 17, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. 
Promenade N. between Broadway and 3rd Street, Long Beach
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Downtown Long Beach Alliance

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Usher in the new year with the Big Butter Jazz Band as the Downtown Long Beach Alliance kicks off the first DTLB Live!, a new recurring monthly event series bringing live music, crafts and family-friendly activities to the Promenade every third Saturday of each month. There will also be live swing dancers, a maker’s market with local vendors, food, drink and much more.

NFL Playoffs & Mimosas

Saturday, January 17, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. 
Chulita 
533 Rose Ave., Venice
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Watch the playoffs, drink a mimosa, soak up some sun on the patio — what could be better? There will also be tunes from DJ El Cizzle, and bottomless mimosas are $35.

Park Pages

Sunday, January 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 
L.A. Historic Park 
1245 N. Spring Street, Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

This whole week has been summer in January, so keep the sunny vibes going and bring your book, a blanket and a donation for Project Angel Food to the L.A. Historic Park for the first Park Pages, a new monthly group read and hang. The Fleuria indie book truck will be there, along with plenty of fellow sun-loving bookworms.

About Last Night

Saturday, January 17, 8 p.m. 
Three Clubs 
1123 Vine Street, Hollywood 
COST: $23.10; MORE INFO 

If you thought your dates were bad, just wait until you hear the unhinged horror stories of some of your fellow single Angelenos at About Last Night. The regular storytelling showcase features locals getting up on stage and sharing their funniest, most outrageous dating stories.

Chopstick-Making Workshop

Saturday, January 17, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. 
Allied Woodshop
4160 Whiteside Street, East L.A.
COST: $160, MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Ali Chen Studio

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More than one of our LAist staffers had “go to a woodworking workshop” on their 2026 L.A. resolutions list. What better time to start than just ahead of the Lunar New Year with this chopstick-making workshop at Allied Woodshop in East L.A., led by Ali Chen?

Greatest Story Ever Told with Guillermo del Toro 

Academy Museum 
6067 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile
COST: $5; MORE INFO

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MGM

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This is for my fellow film nerds and our reason d’etre for living in L.A. The Academy Museum (for only $5!) hosts this screening of a 4K restoration of 1965’s The Greatest Story Ever Told, plus a lecture from Guillermo del Toro talking about George Stevens’ career on the film’s 60th anniversary.

MLK Celebration: Dream @ Blu’

Sunday, January 18, 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
Blu' Arts & Wellness Gallery
580 Pine Ave., Long Beach
COST: FREE, DONATIONS WELCOME; MORE INFO

An afternoon of poetry, music and art honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. awaits you at the Blu’ Arts gallery in Long Beach. The day features acoustic jazz and spoken word poetry curated and hosted by Tommy Domino, an author, poet and teacher. Plus, enjoy the gallery’s work by current artists-in-residence, Shelton Gillis, Mohammed Mubarak and Wan Jean the Artist.

MLK Day Concert

Saturday, January 17, 7:30 p.m. 
Skirball Cultural Center 
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Skirball Center

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The sounds of the Inner City Youth Orchestra of L.A. will fill the Skirball Center to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at this free concert. The group is the largest Black-majority orchestra in the nation, with more than 100 musicians and choir singers total.

Jam Session 
Friday, January 16, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. 
SteepLA 
970 N. Broadway, Ste. 112, Chinatown 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

One of my favorite discoveries of 2025 was the charming SteepLA, a teahouse in a Chinatown plaza that also houses restaurants and art galleries. They are launching jazz jam sessions, starting with one on Friday in their courtyard. Tea cocktails and their after-dark menu will be available.

Nine months had passed since a wildfire destroyed Mark Johnson's southern California home, and he was still waiting for State Farm to pay his claim. Desperate for a resolution, Johnson asked the insurer in October to negotiate a settlement so his family could rebuild.

"I was on the verge of leaving money on the table," Johnson recalls, "just to get some kind of assurance of what we could move forward with."

Then, just before Thanksgiving, a State Farm representative told him the money was on its way.

"Needless to say, it was a huge relief," Johnson says, fighting back tears.

Johnson isn't alone. State Farm is California's top home insurer, and many customers around Los Angeles started to get checks in November after L.A. County announced it was investigating complaints about how the company had handled claims from last January's wildfires, says Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

For homeowners, the battle to collect insurance money after the Eaton and Palisades fires has exacerbated a grueling recovery that's far from over. As Johnson's case with State Farm languished, he had to scramble for other sources of funding to try to rebuild. Other fire survivors have gone into debt while bouncing between rental housing, as they wrangled with State Farm and other insurers over coverage.
The struggle Los Angeles residents have faced with insurers mirrors what's happening in communities around the United States. Years of rising premiums, due in part to threats from climate change, have added to the frustration with insurance companies.

"This is a national issue," Rep. John Garamendi, a California Democrat, told reporters recently. He added, "the first commandment of the insurance industry is to pay as little, as late as possible."

Asked about its handling of insurance claims, State Farm sent NPR a statement from its website that says the company takes every claim seriously and tries to provide customers with appropriate coverage.

"The rebuilding process [in Los Angeles] is underway, but frustration with the pace is understandable," David Sampson, chief executive of American Property Casualty Insurance Association, an industry group, said in a statement to NPR. "Insurers have paid tens of billions of dollars to policyholders impacted by the fires, and that process continues."

Insurers face 'staggering' costs from LA fires

The Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 structures around Los Angeles. They rank as the most expensive blazes ever globally, with $40 billion of insured losses, according to Swiss Re Institute, the research arm of reinsurance company Swiss Re.

Soon after the fires were extinguished, homeowners started to complain about how insurance companies were responding to the disaster.

"The price tag is so staggering for the insurers here that they are bringing strategies to try to limit the pain" they experience financially, says Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a national consumer advocate. "But it's nothing new under the sun what we're seeing."

In November, the Los Angeles County counsel opened an investigation of State Farm following reports from residents that the company delayed, underpaid and denied valid insurance claims. The county counsel's office declined to comment on the state of the investigation.

State Farm said in a statement on its website that the investigation is a distraction from its efforts to help fire victims recover.

Chen of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network says State Farm's alleged behavior was devastating for its customers.

"Around February or March, I realized that whether a family was recovering or not depended largely on which insurance company they were with, which was shocking," Chen says. "These are all people who have been paying [their] insurance premiums faithfully for 20 or 30 years, but only some of them were getting the benefits."

The Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 structures around Los Angeles.

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The fight for insurance money has been especially hard for homeowners whose houses survived the fires but were contaminated with lead and other toxins from the smoke, according to survivors and consumer advocates.

"With total loss, it's a very clear-cut, 'OK, we either rebuild or we sell. And if we rebuild, it's this. And if we sell, it's that.' And we do not have any paths to take," says Krista Copelan, whose Altadena home suffered smoke damage and lead contamination in the fires. "It's 100% trying to figure it out, fighting every step of the way, having no clear-cut answers."

Until about Thanksgiving, Andrew Wessels says State Farm resisted replacing his family's personal belongings, like clothes and bedding, that had been contaminated with lead, insisting the items could be cleaned instead. As the one-year anniversary of the fires approached, Wessels still didn't know how much State Farm would pay to remediate lead contamination in his Altadena house. To get rid of all the toxic ash, Wessels says floorboards need to be pulled up and walls torn down.

"We're here almost a year later, and we haven't taken one step forward," Wessels said in December.

As they've waited, Wessels, his wife and two young children have moved a dozen times, and the family has taken on tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

A lot of families are in similar situations. In Altadena, 65% of residents are still in temporary housing, according to a report this month from Department of Angels, a nonprofit that was set up to help victims of last year's fires. In Pacific Palisades, the number is even higher, with nearly three-quarters of residents still displaced.

As the recovery has dragged on, the toll on residents has grown, according to the Department of Angels report. Around half of respondents said they have depleted much or all of their savings. And about the same share said they worry about their mental health.

"I think everyone has been overwhelmed and drained for, literally, the past 11 months," Copelan, a State Farm customer, said in December.

'They're trying to make it difficult'

More than a thousand miles east, in Oklahoma, State Farm faces separate allegations that it has shortchanged policyholders. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, recently accused the insurer of running a scheme to deny and minimize payments for roof damage from hail and wind.

"Oklahomans are paying rising homeowners insurance premiums yet receiving less protection in return, as State Farm simultaneously pursues additional rate increases while allegedly escalating its claims denials and underpayments practices," Drummond wrote in a December court filing.

Drummond's complaint is part of a growing wave of frustration with insurers nationwide as rising premiums strain household budgets.

In Texas, Democratic state Rep. Mihaela Plesa recently told reporters that homeowners who are struggling to pay for insurance in her district near Dallas routinely have their claims denied.

"That's not insurance, that's extraction," Plesa said. "That's a system that's designed to pull maximum dollars out of Texas pockets and providing minimum protection when disaster strikes."

And in southwest Florida, Jessica Gatewood, a Realtor, told NPR that home insurance feels like "a scam."

"You pay into it for, like, 30 years, 40 years, and then you have to make a claim, and they don't want to pay you what you actually need," Gatewood says.

The insurance industry says it has been dealing with years of rising disaster costs that have forced companies to raise premiums and to limit coverage in some high-risk areas.

The cost of disasters is increasing in part because climate change fuels more-intense storms, floods and wildfires that damage and destroy property. Additionally, people continue to move to coastal regions vulnerable to hurricanes and to forested areas prone to wildfires. That means more property is in harm's way. Then, when homes get damaged or destroyed, inflation has made it more expensive to rebuild.
Robert Gordon, a senior vice president at American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the industry group, says Florida and other states have also been plagued by cases of what Gordon described as insurance "fraud" related to alleged roof damage from storms, which he says have contributed to rising costs.

Construction workers build a home in the Palisades fire zone on the one-year anniversary of the fires.

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Allen J. Schaben

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In California, Mark Johnson hopes to move into his rebuilt Altadena home by fall. Reflecting on his ordeal with State Farm, part of him wonders if the insurer was just overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. But he can't shake the feeling that all of the delays he faced were intentional.

"They're just trying to push you away," Johnson says. "They're trying to make it difficult for you so that you won't ask for much, so you'll be happy with whatever you get."

Copyright 2026 NPR

$8.63 million in emergency grants sent to 562 families.

That’s how much financial assistance the Entertainment Community Fund has provided to performing arts and entertainment industry workers since fires broke out in Southern California in January last year. And the organization still is distributing grants, with the knowledge that needs are likely to increase soon.

 ”We know that the trajectory of the recovery process with homeowners and their insurances is that they will often pay some portion or all of a rent expense while people are displaced from their homes,” says Keith McNutt, the ECF’s Western Regional director. “That usually only lasts nine months to a year, and we're of course coming up on that year.”

Why entertainment workers?

Providing support to the entertainment community is nothing new for the nonprofit Entertainment Community Fund (formerly known as The Actors Fund), a national organization that’s been around since 1882 and is a sort of safety net for arts and entertainment workers in any kind of need or crisis. They also have built some of their own affordable housing.

A significant portion of their work, McNutt says, is making people aware that help is available and also that it’s OK to access it.

“It’s hard for any professional person in their craft to ask for help from anyone,” McNutt says. “But literally, we were created 140 years ago for exactly that reason. Because people work hard in this industry, but the industry doesn't provide regular income, regular benefits, [...] predictability, a standard career ladder.”

On top of the normal unpredictability factors of a career in the performing arts, there’s also the fact that the past five years have been “such a brutal onslaught of crises,” as McNutt describes it, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023 to the January 2025 fires, “that people have not had time to recover.”

What help is available?

The Entertainment Community Fund’s staff of social workers, career counselors and health insurance counselors provides a wide range of services (many of them free), like classes on things like building “parallel” or “sideline” careers to supplement income and support groups (including some specifically designed for people impacted by the 2025 fires).

Some services, like emergency financial assistance, require a more formal application to show that a recipient does in fact work professionally in performing arts or entertainment.

From ‘parallel’ careers to career changes

For a long time, McNutt says, he heard from arts professionals who saw their non-arts-related day jobs (ECF calls them “parallel” or “sideline” jobs) as sort of betrayal of their art, but “ our message has always been, ‘No, no, no [...] that's what helps you stay in your creative craft.’”

Over the past couple of years, though, with hardships compounding and  ”profound shifts in the amount of employment, particularly in television and film,” McNutt has seen something different.

“We have seen significant increases in the number of people who are coming to our career center to consider transitioning to other careers," he says. "And that is definitely a change.”

And even for those cases and questions like, “How do you apply for a job that's not in the industry when you've never worked outside the industry?” McNutt says that's "something we can help people with.”

When it comes to renters, Scorpios are “particular,” Libras are “gold,” and Aquariuses “can't make up their mind.” That’s according to Dave Goldstein, the Los Angeles landlord behind the company Art Deco Apartments.

For years, Goldstein has asked prospective tenants to tell him their astrological sign as part of the application process. He said he doesn’t care about credit scores, and he loves tenants with pets. He knows his approach to tenant screening is unusual. But when it comes to picking the right renters for his century-old, tastefully appointed buildings, he said it works.

“It gives me an idea of their personality,” Goldstein told LAist outside The Mauretania, a well preserved example of 1930s Streamline Moderne architecture in Hancock Park.

“I mean, it's impersonal to just get an application,” he said. “You're going to get buildings that aren't that good. You're going to get impersonal people that don't care about anything.”

The question might be helpful to Goldstein, but some housing rights experts say it could be pushing the boundaries of what’s legal.

Why Leos make good tenants

While he hasn’t blacklisted any particular star sign, Goldstein said in his experience, people with certain signs are easier to deal with as tenants.

“If they say that they're a Leo, I go, ‘Great,’” he said. “‘I can't wait to rent to you. You're your own boss. I don't have to do nothing. You'll change every light bulb. You'll never call us.’”

Goldstein also likes to ask tenants where they grew up and the color of their car. He said people are sometimes surprised by the questions, but they tend to like his approach.

“They just can't believe it, because they're used to just texting a management company,” he said. “They're not used to personal service.”

The Mauretania, a 1930s apartment building with distinctive curved windows looking out on the street, is one of the properties Dave Goldstein owns through Art Deco Apartments.

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Housing rights lawyers weigh in

But is asking a tenant about their astrological sign legal? Housing rights attorneys told LAist they’re not aware of any laws or court rulings that explicitly ban landlords from screening tenants based on their birth month. But they said the question is still legally precarious.

“There's not a specific law against it,” said Rodney Leggett, director of litigation at the L.A.-based Housing Rights Center. “But because of the seemingly arbitrary nature of asking somebody about their astrological sign, it could potentially violate the [California Unruh Civil Rights Act].”

The law bans businesses from discriminating against people based on personal characteristics including sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status or sexual orientation.

It does not specifically mention astrology. But lawyers said depending on how businesses treat people with different signs, an argument could be made that they’re being discriminated against for no legitimate business reason based on a personal characteristic they can’t control.

“Astrological signs are not a traditional ‘protected characteristic’ in most anti-discrimination laws,” said Alisa Randell, a managing attorney with the legal aid organization Public Counsel. “But we do have this expansive law in California that is not limited to the categories that are laid out… So I think this is dicey for him.”

Goldstein said he has tenants of all astrological signs, and he plans to keep asking applicants about their birth charts.

“I don't know if it's legal to ask about it or not,” he said. “But it's fun to. And I know they're not going to lie about it.”