The Brief

The Legislature announced today a $10 billion bond to pay for repairs and upgrades at thousands of K-12 school and community college buildings across California, some of which have languished for years with dry rot, mold, leaks and other hazards due to lack of funds. K-12 schools would get $8.5 billion and $1.5 billion would go to community colleges.

“This money is badly needed,” said Rebeca Andrade, superintendent of Salinas City Elementary District in Monterey County. “We don’t have the money to make the basic, structural repairs that are needed at every one of our schools. Students need safe spaces to learn if they’re going to reach their full potential.”

The agreement comes after months of wrangling by lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had to choose between two competing school facilities bills – one that included four-year colleges and one that didn’t. Assembly Bill 247, sponsored by Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, had the edge because it asked for less money and because four-colleges have their own means of raising funds. The bond needs a ⅔ approval majority in both houses and Newsom’s signature.

Originally, the bill asked for $14 billion, which would have made it one of the largest school bonds in state history.

There were several potential bonds competing for room on the fall ballot, but Newsom hinted he was leaning toward the school bond in his revised budget proposal. That called for draining the remaining $375 million in an existing school facilities fund and eliminating a $550 million grant program that would have paid for new kindergarten and preschool classrooms. He noted in his proposal that a school facilities bond could fill both those funds. The proposal ended up as part of the final budget.

No dedicated funding system

Money to fix California’s schools is sorely needed. In 2020, voters rejected a $15 billion school facilities bond, leaving the state’s school repair fund – last replenished in 2016 – nearly empty.

Unlike most states, California doesn’t have a dedicated stream of funding to repair school buildings. Money comes from state or local bonds — a system that benefits more affluent districts, according to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California. State money usually requires matching funds from the district, which is easier to raise in wealthier areas where voters are more apt to approve bonds and where bonds raise more money because property values are higher. Rural districts and those with higher numbers of English learners, Latino and low-income students typically have the hardest time securing money to fix school buildings.

Plenty of research points to the link between student achievement and the condition of school buildings. Students whose schools are modernized, clean and safe tend to have higher test scores, lower suspension rates and higher rates of attendance.

The unequal way California distributes school repair funds prompted Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm, to threaten to sue the state, claiming the system is unconstitutional. Public Advocates has been urging the state to adopt a sliding scale that would allow smaller and low-income districts to collect more state funds to make needed repairs. The bond does call for a sliding scale, but it was unclear today if Public Advocates would proceed with its lawsuit.

The bond needs a simple majority to pass in November, but it’s not clear how receptive voters will be. In light of economic worries, 64% of voters said this is a “bad time” for state bonds, according to a survey released in June by the Public Policy Institute of California. At the same time, respondents said that K-12 education was their second-highest priority for state spending, just behind health and human services.

'We need help'

Salinas City Elementary, where half the students are English learners and more than 75% are low-income, has struggled for decades with building repairs and upgrades at its 15 campuses. Walls are cracked, roofs leak, window frames are rotten, some schools lack air conditioning and wheelchair ramps are pocked with holes. The district lacks a large stage for performances, or a decent STEM lab. A recent survey of all needed repairs put the cost at $500 million.

In 2022, local voters overwhelmingly passed a pair of school facilities bonds, despite the fact that the bonds will raise property taxes in the predominantly low-income community. But the bonds will only bring in $149 million, not nearly enough to meet the need. That’s why the state bond money is crucial, Andrade said.

“This community is amazing. They value education and they trust us,” Andrade said. “But we need help. It’s become an issue of equity — our students deserve safe conditions for learning like everyone else.”

A coalition that organized an independent homeless count in Hollywood found the neighborhood’s unsheltered population has remained flat over the past 18 months, despite ongoing city-led efforts to move people inside.

A RAND Corporation report released last week found Hollywood’s unsheltered homeless population stayed mostly unchanged throughout 2025, as reductions in tent encampments were offset by large increases in vehicle-dwellers and so-called “rough sleepers,” people living on the streets without even a makeshift roof over their heads.

Findings released Wednesday by Hollywood 4WRD, a public-private coalition, show that trend continued in Hollywood over the past four months. But the group also found in May that more people were living in tents and fewer in cars than RAND had observed in January, a surprising reversal of the recent overall trend.

“ It's not something we expected to find,” said Brittney Weissman, Hollywood 4WRD’s executive director. “The headline has been that there are no tents and no encampments left in Hollywood, but that’s not the case right now. So, we’ll have to see where this goes.”

About 745 people were camping in Hollywood and East Hollywood on May 19, according to the count. About 19% slept in tents or makeshift lean-tos. An estimated 35% slept in cars, vans or RVs. Meanwhile, 45% were rough sleepers camped directly on sidewalks and streets.

Organizers say understanding and tracking those breakdowns over time helps make sure the right services are directed to the right people and develop new outreach strategies for people falling through the cracks.

“ We can really only meet the moment if we know who's there and we adapt to the need,” Weissman said.

The count covered 29 census tracts and relied on volunteers from local homeless service provider organizations. They followed methods developed by RAND researchers, who also verified Hollywood 4WRD’s findings.

Terry Boyd, left, repairs a bicycle rim in his tent at an encampment along Hollywood Blvd. and Gower Street on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024

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Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times

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Getty Images

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Timely data

Official homeless counts from the region’s lead homelessness agency, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, occur once a year. The latest official estimates are based on 14-month-old data. The results from this January’s official count are expected sometime this summer.

Service providers said they want more frequent and precise data.

“ It feels good to have the data immediately and figure out what we need to do,” said Arnali Ray, executive director of the Hollywood Food Coalition who volunteered for last week’s count.

Service providers in Hollywood have relied on data from The RAND Housing Center, which led bimonthly counts of the neighborhood, along with Venice and Skid Row, since 2021. That project, the Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey, or LA LEADS, conducted its final unsheltered counts this January and released its results last week.

RAND is looking for funding to restart the project, researchers said. In the meantime, the researchers said they hope community efforts like Hollywood 4WRD’s can help fill the void.

“You need to understand the homeless population to end homelessness,” said Louis Abramson, lead author of RAND’s LA LEADS study who consulted on Hollywood’s count. “As RAND's marquee project in this field ends, the best thing we as researchers could do was give the community the tools to gain this understanding in perpetuity for themselves.”

In 2022 and 2023, RAND’s LA LEADS estimates were in line with LAHSA’s official point-in-time tallies. But RAND found LAHSA increasingly undercounted the unsheltered population in both 2024 and 2025.

That has increased demand for independent data-gathering among service providers and public officials.

Hollywood 4WRD said it aims to complement, not replace, official data.

“Our annual count sometimes misses people,” said Weissman. “ We can really only meet the moment if we know who's there and we adapt to the need.”

Hollywood 4WRD deployed its count of 29 Hollywood and East Hollywood census tracts from the Hollywood Partnership's pit stop building on Hollywood Boulevard.

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Aaron Schrank

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LAist

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Building on RAND’s work 

Official estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority showed a nearly 18% citywide reduction in unsheltered homelessness between 2023 and 2025, along with small declines in overall homelessness.

RAND’s previous surveys found declines in overall street homelessness in Hollywood throughout 2024, led by reductions in tent-encampments through programs like Inside Safe. Tent dwelling dropped by nearly half between late 2021 and January 2026 within RAND’s LA LEADS study area, including a 23% drop in 2025 alone. But those reductions were mostly offset by an increase in rough sleepers and vehicle dwellers.

RAND’s survey data suggested tent removal could be contributing to the rise in rough sleeping. About half of rough sleepers surveyed reported losing a dwelling within the past year, and 46% of those said it was confiscated or towed by government officials.

Vehicle dwellers are, on average, more likely to have jobs than people living in tents, researchers said. Rough sleepers are harder for outreach workers to engage and have greater health needs.

Hollywood 4WRD said its findings might encourage some providers to advocate for more safe camping and safe parking programs in Hollywood.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

As concerns linger after last week’s East L.A. oil spill, qualifying Eastside residents can still apply for free in-home air purifiers provided by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. 

The residential air filtration program is open to residents of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Eastern Coachella Valley and parts of Commerce. Applications are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Read more: Live near the East LA oil spill? What you need to know about your health and safety

Parents, teachers and environmental advocates have raised concerns about possible health risks after crews punctured an underground pipeline, spilling more than 2,000 gallons of crude oil onto East L.A. streets and into storm drains. Some students and teachers on Friday complained about strong odors, with some reporting feeling nauseous or dizzy.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice warned about potential respiratory exposure to nearby residents. “The oil releases volatile organic compounds,” said mark! Lopez with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “Benzene is of particular interest because it’s so hazardous. When people breathe it in, that exposure is happening.”

The air filtration program, which predates the spill, aims to reduce residential exposure to particulate matter (PM), defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air so small they can be inhaled and cause serious health problems, in neighborhoods disproportionately affected by air pollution. 

Funding for the units comes from Assembly Bill 617 (AB 617), a state law passed in 2017 aimed at addressing environmental justice concerns in such neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods of East L.A., Boyle Heights and Commerce are impacted by rail yards, freight and freeway activities, as well as industrial activities at refining, rendering and processing facilities in the area, according to the California Air Resources Board.

How to apply

To qualify, applicants must submit the first page of a utility bill or property tax statement to verify residence in one of the four target areas. Specific boundaries for these areas for program eligibility are available here.

Interested applicants can find more information on the program and apply online here.  

The following is a South Coast AQMD guide on how to apply:

The Los Angeles City Council’s recently approved budget includes funding to expand a program that diverts police from some mental health crisis calls to 911.

Since launching in 2024, trained clinicians with the city’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) have handled over 20,000 calls ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 96% of those calls were resolved without police or a response from the L.A. Fire Department.

The new city budget includes funding to expand those teams from nine police divisions — including Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley — to a total of 15.

“In a year where many programs continue to fight for service funding from the city, it’s so great that we are able to continue prioritizing this,” Godfrey Plata, deputy director of progressive policy advocacy group the LA Forward Institute, told LAist.

Plata said UMCR’s expansion is one more step toward taking the program citywide, which his group hopes to do by the 2028 Olympics.

The crisis teams are slated to go online within the six additional police divisions by June 2027. It’s not yet clear which police divisions will be selected for expansion.

The move comes after the City Council voted unanimously in February to make the pilot program permanent.

A 2024 LAist investigation found that nearly one-third of LAPD shootings since 2017 involved someone living with a mental illness and/or experiencing a mental health crisis.

How the program works

In 2024, the city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide teams of trained clinicians in service areas spread across L.A. The teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

In its first year, Los Angeles’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response sent teams of unarmed clinicians to more than 6,700 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 4% were redirected to the LAPD. Average response times have been under 30 minutes.

Examples of these interactions include members of the teams taking food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

Support from LAFD

During an L.A. City budget hearing last month, fire officials expressed support for the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response.

The department said it’s worked with the teams of clinicians to divert calls for service away from fire first responders since September 2025. The department saw 144 calls diverted to UMCR in the month of March alone.

“We’ve found them to be an incredible asset and ally to addressing some of the issues in the field,” LAFD Chief Jaime Moore told council members at the hearing. “The recommendation would be to expand the program, get it into more police divisions which would then get it into more of our battalions and our bureaus."

What’s next 

City officials have expressed support for expanding UMCR citywide by the 2028 Olympics.

With the plan to expand to 15 police divisions by June 2027, UMCR would need to expand into another six divisions to meet that goal.