The Brief

When 44-year-old Montassar Dhaouadi decided to leave his home country of Tunisia to come to Los Angeles with his family three years ago, he started over completely.

“I spent 17 years in the army, then I resigned and came here,” Dhaouadi said. “Now, I drive Uber and I work as a delivery driver with OnTrac.”

But on one bright, scorching hot Tuesday in June, he was working on learning something new: cooking. Dhaouadi spent the day in an East Hollywood kitchen cutting up onions, garlic and shallots with three other people under the guidance of his teacher and chef Jamie Lauren, whom some may know from shows like Top Chef.

“I hope in the future, I will own my own restaurant,” Dhaouadi says.

Chefs in the making

Dhaouadi is one of five aspiring chefs who are a part of a new culinary training program offered by L.A. caterer and restaurant Flavors From Afar.

The eight-week course aims to help refugees and other displaced groups, like asylum seekers, immigrants and even local Indigenous communities develop skills in the kitchen that can help them get work or, one day, own a catering company or restaurant. The program is free with the exception of a food handler certificate, which costs $15.

The aspiring chefs meet twice a week to learn knife skills, pan frying, plating and how to cook cuisines from all over the world. Those dishes are then sold as part of the Flavors From Afar catering menu, with the student chefs making back 5% of what is sold. Every dish they cook is halal because most of the chefs are Muslim.

Montassar Dhaouadi cuts a cucumber while another aspiring chef in class looks at his technique.

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Moving to a new country can be a challenging experience for many refugees, who are often forced to leave their homes due to war, persecution or natural disasters. Some of them have multiple degrees and have left behind successful careers or businesses. Now, in the U.S. they have to start over in entry-level positions because their careers do not transfer.

For example, one of the participants was a bank manager in Ukraine. Now she’s an aspiring chef, says Julie Vautrot, the culinary training program coordinator for the restaurant’s nonprofit funding arm The Tiyya Foundation.

Vautrot serves as a liaison between aspiring chefs and potential employers at times, forging relationships with restaurants looking to hire and handing out her cards at job fairs to let them know about the cooks who have been trained by Flavors From Afar.

The end goal for many of those who go through the program is to eventually run their own businesses. The restaurant industry can seem like an easier segue into a quality life for these newcomers to L.A., Vautrot says, because the skills are universal and many of the participants grew up learning how to cook.

“It’s familiar. It's transferable,” Vautrot says “A knife's a knife. Water boils at the same temperature. It doesn't matter what country you're in.”

Why cooking school?

Flavors From Afar is an example of similar programs across the U.S. — and the world — that help support refugees and other migrants through culinary training. And with L.A. being a top destination for refugee arrivals in recent years, programs like Flavor From Afar’s provide a service.

“Finding employment is definitely a top need, and can sometimes be especially difficult for newcomers to the community — whether they’re facing language barriers or just having difficulty getting back into their careers,” says Carly Boos, the community relations manager for the resettlement agency International Rescue Committee in L.A., adding that programs like this can “remove those barriers to entry that normally face refugees and immigrants.”

From Oct. 1, 2023 through June 30 of this year, California received 4,692 of the 68,291 refugees who came to the U.S. In that same period, L.A.-based resettlement agencies have helped about 1,100 refugees here, according to Martin Zogg, executive director of the IRC in L.A..

Vautrot says when refugees and newly arrived immigrants are first looking for work in L.A. — or, really, in any new city — a kitchen job is usually the first thing that pops into most people’s heads. “It's like, ‘well, what can I do? What kind of job can I have?’ And cooking is something immediate,” adds Vautrot. “They’re sharing their culture, they're doing something that's from home. It's a way to share. It's an opportunity for them to highlight their cuisine.”

The Flavors From Afar program also teaches its students how to get permits and insurance, and find affordable kitchen space. Vautrot says that the last part is often the biggest barrier because you can’t get a permit unless you have a place to cook.

A social enterprise

This story — of the food and the training — begins with Meymuna Hussein-Cattan. She is a former refugee herself from East Africa, and moved to the U.S. in the 1980s with her mother, Owliya Dima. In 2010, she and her mother created the nonprofit organization The Tiyya Foundation (“tiyya” means “my dear” or “my love” in the Oromo language) to help others like her and her mom resettle in L.A. and Orange County. Over the years, she says the group has helped people find entry-level jobs and build up their English-language skills. Tiyaa has also hosted community events like playdates at the park for families that include parenting workshops and donations of diapers, toys and school supplies.

Meymuna Hussein-Cattan founded The Tiyya Foundation with her mother Owliya Dima in 2010. In 2018, she founded the social enterprise Flavors From Afar.

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Hussein-Cattan started Flavors From Afar as a catering company and social enterprise in 2018. In 2020, it opened as a brick-and-mortar restaurant, receiving a Michelin Bib Gourmand nod two years in a row, until it closed temporarily to move locations. About 40% of the eatery’s profit goes to support The Tiyya Foundation's programs.

The goal for Flavors From Afar’s cooking program was always to help refugees and asylum seekers gain skills, while also sharing global cuisines with L.A. foodies. But only until recently has it been able to bring groups of people through its culinary program (due to the stay-at-home orders early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, she could only work one-on-one with aspiring chefs in the beginning).

“I'm really passionate about the program because growing up in a refugee household, I realized that there are cuisines out there that are at restaurants but don't really represent the food that we eat at home,” Hussein-Cattan says. Through the catering company and opportunities to cook for special dinners hosted by Flavors From Afar, the chefs in training are able to share meals they’ve prepared with the eating public and be compensated for it. “The foodie community out here,” Hussein-Cattan says of L.A. “They love what we're doing, they trust us and they know it's authentic.”

Learning in the kitchen

When class starts, the aspiring chefs stand in their own sections around the kitchen listening to Chef Jamie Lauren explain the plan for the three-hour class.

Today, they are making braised chicken with preserved lemons and olives, Lebanese couscous in the style of tabbouleh, with cucumber, tomato, onion and parsley and braised romano beans.

Before they can get to the cooking part, they have to do “mise en place” which is the chef’s discipline of knowing your recipe, preparing your ingredients, arranging all of your items and preparing your workstation. Lauren first teaches the small group how to hold a chef’s knife and cut ingredients, like onions, that brighten the taste profile. Some of the aspiring chefs need more practice than others.

Then they break down whole halal chickens in 10 pieces — two breasts, two wings, two tenders, two thighs, two drumsticks.

Lauren turns on the large pots to toast spices and sautee the aromatics with the ingredients the group sliced and diced. They start to make the couscous, the beans, the chicken and the stock. The dish is North African inspired, which is where all of the aspiring chefs in this current class are from.

“When I teach you Indian food, it’s going to be similar, but with different spices,” says Lauren.

She has the class try preserved lemons, Moroccan olives and Moomtaz date syrup, before choosing to add them into the pot. Nearly three hours later, the class has prepared a full, savory meal.

Volunteer chef Jamie Lauren and the aspiring chefs made braised chicken with preserved lemons and olives, Lebanese couscous in the style of tabbouleh, with cucumber, tomato, onion and parsley and romano beans.

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In class, Algerian-born immigrant Nawel Hadj-Arab, 36, is scribbling down notes as fast as Lauren is saying them, making sure she gets every single detail.

“While she's talking, she's giving us a waterfall of information,” Hadj-Arab says. “You're learning multiple things about how to cook or even about utensils or anything, so I learned a lot.”

Volunteer professional chef Jamie Lauren teaches Montassar Dhaouadi, Nawel Hadj-Arab and other aspiring chefs how to cook braised chicken, couscous and romano beans.

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Soon after prepping the meal, Hadj-Arab went to the main dining area to take some professional pictures for the chefs’ website.

Hadj-Arab moved to L.A. in 2019 with her now ex-husband and her children. She says she was a victim of domestic violence and is now attempting to start over as a single parent.

“I didn't get a choice to move here in L.A.,” Hadj-Arab says. “I came here with my abuser, my ex-husband. He was working with people here in L.A.”

She thought about returning home to Algeria but after she found herself alone with her two kids, she decided to stay.

“I knew I could succeed,” Hadj-Arab says. “So I'm trying again.”

Her dream is to learn how to cook and become a chef so that she can eventually own a “big restaurant” with various global cuisines — from French to Middle Eastern to American — and that being a part of the Flavors From Afar culinary program has helped her get closer to that.

Aspiring immigrant chef Nawel Hadj-Arab poses for a picture for the Flavors From Afar website.

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“Back in Africa, a woman is very limited in her choices in life, especially if you're divorced or if you're a single mom,” Hadj-Arab says. “There’s no way for you to go as far as you want. That’s why I’m here now because I know I can and I will. It’s helped me to gain confidence.”

Flavors From Afar

Flavors From Afar has now worked with more than 23 chefs from 21 countries, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. This fall, Hussein-Cattan says she plans to open a full restaurant again, and says her goal is to hire the chefs-in-training to work there. “I’m looking forward to working with more chefs over time,” Hussein-Cattan says. “They need to put food on the table and this is a skill that they have and it's just a beautiful exchange for our chefs and foodies in Los Angeles.”

This summer, Flavors From Afar is hosting a Friday night Global Dinner Series, featuring different cuisines from different chefs each week, many of whom have gone through the training program. On the menu are dishes from Guatemala, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and Lebanon. The dinners will be held through Aug. 30. Tickets for the Global Dinner Series are available on Eventbrite. Prices range from $25 for a tasting menu to $250.

The next culinary workshop starts Aug. 6. Find out more here.

The immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles has placed dozens of people in solitary confinement each month since June, according to the most recent data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In May 2025, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center had 14 people in isolation. When the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort revved up in June 2025, the number of detainees in solitary confinement there more than tripled. By July, it was 73; by August, 105.

The most recent data available shows that number went down slightly in January, to 74 people.

Ranked by percentage of the detainee population in “segregation,” as it is called at immigrant detention centers, Adelanto is among the U.S.’s top 10 facilities as of January, according to an LAist analysis of the most recent ICE data.

The data shows that of 229 ICE facilities that reported holding people since October 2024, between 50 and 60 usually reported putting at least one person in segregation in a given month. Out of the facilities that did place people in solitary confinement, Adelanto tended to do so less often than others until June 2025. (The facility held just a few people from October 2024 into January 2025.) When ICE’s presence increased in L.A. in June, the number of people sent to isolation in the facility also shot up — three to five times as many people have been isolated in Adelanto compared to the average facility that used any solitary confinement.

Since June, only two facilities have sent people to solitary confinement more times than Adelanto: one southwest of San Antonio, the other in central Pennsylvania.

Both of those facilities held twice the number of detainees as Adelanto on average from October 2024 through September 2025; but the number of people held in Adelanto since then has tripled, growing larger than either of the other facilities to hold an average of 1,800 people a day since October.

More on solitary confinement  

According to ICE, detainees may be placed in segregation for “disciplinary reasons,” or because of:

• “Serious mental or medical illness.”
• Conducting a hunger strike.
• Suicide watch.

The agency also says it might place detainees “who may be susceptible to harm [if left among the] general population due in part to how others interpret or assume their sexual orientation, or sexual presentation or expression.”

Not only is ICE holding more people in solitary confinement, but the agency's data also shows that detainees across the country are being isolated for longer periods of time. Detainees ICE considers part of the "vulnerable & special population" spent an average of about two weeks in solitary confinement each time they were isolated in 2022, when ICE first made the data available. By the end of 2025, the average stay in isolation had risen to more than seven weeks straight.

The GEO Group Inc., a private company that operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, has not responded to requests for comment.

How isolation can affect immigrant detainees  

UN human rights experts consider solitary confinement placements that last 15 days or more to be torture, though the U.S. Supreme Court has held that isolation doesn’t violate the Constitution.

The UN also maintains that solitary confinement should be prohibited for people “with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures.”

In January, a coalition of immigrant rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of current detainees, calling for conditions at Adelanto to be improved. In addition to an unsanitary environment and a lack of healthy food and clean drinking water, detainees say solitary confinement is frequently used to punish those who speak out about conditions at the facility.

People held in immigrant detention centers are technically in “civil detention,” meaning that they are being detained to ensure their presence at hearings and compliance with immigration orders — not to serve criminal sentences.

According to the immigrant rights groups’ complaint, one detainee was placed in solitary confinement after complaining about the showers being broken. Another detainee said that, after asking a guard to “use more respectful language toward him, he was ridiculed, written up and given the middle finger by a guard who shouted, ‘Who the f--- do you think you are?’” Then, the detainee was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.

Alvaro Huerta, the director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing detainees at Adelanto, told LAist that when people are placed in isolation at the facility, they’re typically in the same cell for 23 hours per day, unable to receive visits from their families.

For clients who are experiencing mental health challenges — especially those with suicidal thoughts — being placed in solitary confinement “can really exacerbate their condition,” he added.

In multiple statements to the media, ICE has said that the agency “is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.” The agency has also said that detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” and that all detainees “receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility.”

Huerta called that “laughable.”

“We have countless examples of people who have said that this is not true, that they're not getting the medication that they're requesting, that they're not being seen for chronic conditions and emergency conditions,” he added. “And we know it's not true because 14 people have died in ICE custody this year alone.”

Lori Rovner of Manhattan Beach is a big sports fan, so there was no question that when tickets for the Olympic Games went on sale, she'd be signing up.

She scored a slot in the first ticket drop, which launched Thursday, and logged on right at 10 a.m., hoping to score tickets to the Opening Ceremonies and some finals too. After battling her computer to get through "access denied" screens and a lost shopping cart due to a 30-minute time limit, she bought 16 tickets.

It was only when she was about to purchase that she noticed the service fees, which were around 24% of each ticket. One $2,100 ticket had a $505 service fee, bringing the total cost to $2,604.63.

"It's insane," she said of the fee. "I don't understand what the service is."

As the locals-only sale kicks off and Southern Californians have their first chance to buy tickets to the Olympic Games, some fans are wide-eyed at the high fees on all tickets and the prices in general, which start at $28 but go up to more than $5,500 a pop. Opening Ceremony tickets start at $328.68

The service fees aren't a surprise add-on. The price fans see when browsing the site is the total cost, including the fee. Still, some who bought in the first phase of sales were surprised when they saw the fees add up.

One user on Reddit of shared their cart of 10 tickets, which added up to $11,264. That included $1,038 in fees alone. Commenters responded in shock and awe.

Service fees are standard in ticket sales, but the percentage they charge can vary widely. High fees have been a source of ire for music and sports fans for years. A 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the average fees on a primary ticket market were 27%.

LA28 did not respond to LAist's requests for details on the service fee, like what it pays for or why it's a percentage rather than a flat rate.

Not everyone seemed bothered by the prices. Some people LAist spoke with opted for only $28 or similarly priced tickets, even if it meant missing some of the biggest Olympic events. One user on Reddit said they purchased 18 tickets for around $550.

"I went with all $28 tickets," they wrote in the online forum about the Olympics. "I got women’s soccer, gymnastics, beach and regular volleyball, track and field, baseball and a few others."

For some, the ticket process, the prices and the dense web of events to choose from made it too hard to pull the trigger.

Jeff Bartow of Sierra Madre made a spreadsheet with some competitions he was interested in seeing before he logged on to buy tickets Friday.

"So many times, so many schedules, so many events," Bartow said. "I think I initially thought I was going to go to a bunch, but thinking about how crazy it's going to be … I might be a little more limited."

This is just the first ticket drop. There will be more opportunities to buy tickets in the months to come — and on a resale market that launches in 2027.

Some ticket-buyers told LAist they already were contemplating which tickets they'd keep and which ones they'd re-sell, just minutes after buying them.

In the more than two months since the Department of Justice released its latest batch of files on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors have not brought any new charges based on the documents, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.

The more than 3 million pages of documents include accusations by alleged victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's abuse and thousands of emails and photos showing Epstein associated with prominent figures. The files indicate that many of these people maintained contact with the disgraced financier long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to sex crimes that involved minors. Appearing in the files is not necessarily an indication of criminal wrongdoing.

The release of the Epstein files came after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all documents it held related to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison about a month after a 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Since the release of the files in 2025 and 2026, there have been no related arrests in the U.S. However, the disclosures have led to some resignations and other reputational repercussions for some high-ranking Americans.

The lack of arrests in the U.S. contrasts to the fallout in the U.K., where investigators have pursued charges related to corruption, not sexual abuse, in their dealings with Epstein. Two former government officials — former Prince Andrew and ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson — were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, has denied wrongdoing and has not been formally charged. Mandelson has also not been charged, and lawyers for Mandelson have said that the arrest was prompted by a "baseless suggestion."

In the U.S., top Justice Department officials have said that they found no evidence compelling enough to pursue further charges related to Epstein, and that the public can make their own assessments based on the disclosed documents.

In a statement to NPR, Justice Department spokesperson Katie Kenlein said that "there have not been additional prosecutions beyond Epstein and Maxwell because there has not been credible evidence that their activities extended to Epstein's network. However, if prosecutable evidence comes forward, the Department of Justice will of course act on it as we do every day in sexual trafficking and assault cases across the count[r]y."

On Thursday, President Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out of the top job at the Justice Department, following bipartisan criticism over her handling of the Epstein files.

NPR asked four former prosecutors and one former law enforcement officer why there may not have been enough evidence to levy additional charges. Here's what they said.

Prosecutors must prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt"

Prosecutors must prove to a jury that a person committed a crime "beyond a reasonable doubt," according to Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

"One of the biggest misconceptions people have is how difficult it is to charge and convict somebody for a criminal case," said McQuade, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A prosecutor's ethical responsibility is to charge cases only if they believe there is enough evidence for a conviction, McQuade said. Documents, including emails, jokes, and even plane itineraries, can be a place to start, but, alone, they are not enough to prove guilt, McQuade said.

"What you would need [is] rock solid evidence," McQuade said. "You can't charge someone for a crime without sufficient evidence, and I have yet to see evidence of a crime involving an Epstein associate that has gone uncharged."

Based on his understanding of the case, Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown Law, said he agreed that prosecutors who investigated Epstein's alleged associates "may have believed that they couldn't persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." He said problems with witness credibility or certain forensic evidence can prevent a case from moving forward.

The U.K. cases are focused on corruption 

In the U.K., the two people arrested are being investigated on suspicion of "misconduct in public office." McQuade said the U.S. does not have a single equivalent federal law. Instead, the U.S. prosecutes public corruption through statutes that focus specifically on crimes such as bribery and extortion.

After the release of the latest files, British police began investigating Andrew's correspondence with Epstein when Andrew was a U.K. trade envoy. At that time, Andrew allegedly shared government itineraries, investment plans and notes from official foreign trips with Epstein. The information may have been covered by the United Kingdom's Official Secrets Act.

Similarly, Mandelson has been accused of passing confidential government information to the late sex offender when Mandelson was a U.K. Cabinet minister.

Meeting the burden of proof is especially challenging for sex crime cases

Victim statements are essential for establishing basic elements, such as the timeframe of events, required to build sexual assault cases, said Diane Goldstein, a retired police lieutenant from California and the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. But a victim may be reluctant to come forward because of a fear of retaliation, not believing the police can help, believing it is a personal matter, or not wanting to get the perpetrator in trouble.

McQuade noted that in some sex trafficking cases, especially those in which a perpetrator is in a position of power, victims may experience intimidation or threats that prevent them from speaking out.

Victims also may be hesitant to move forward with allegations because they fear having to testify at trials where defense attorneys may attempt to poke holes in their allegations, McQuade said.

Goldstein said that for sex crime cases to advance, investigators need to follow certain policies and procedures. "If you don't have a legitimate police investigation to start, you're not going to get any type of criminal filing," Goldstein said.

Other potential charges are also a difficult path

Prosecutors may have considered pursuing charges of criminal conspiracy related to sex trafficking against people associated with Epstein, said Jessica Roth, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. FBI documents in the files relating to its investigation into Epstein's crimes identify certain people as "co-conspirators."

But Ankush Khardori, a senior writer and columnist at Politico magazine who worked as a federal prosecutor on financial fraud cases, told NPR those identifiers are not "formal accusation[s]" and are simply part of "interim documents."

"The FBI does not determine who is a co-conspirator," Khardori said. "That is a legal judgment that prosecutors make."

But for those conspiracy cases, "criminal intent," in particular, is difficult to establish, said Roth, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York for seven years. Criminal conspiracy charges "would require knowledge and intent on the part of each individual who was charged," Roth said. If a person who communicated with Epstein had some suspicion that he was engaged in illegal activity, that alone would not be sufficient evidence to press charges, she said.

Investigators may have considered charges related to criminal tax violations, McQuade said. But the statute of limitations has likely ended on those cases, she said, meaning that prosecutors can no longer bring charges.

The current evidence lacks context

Legal experts say the haphazard way the documents were released and redacted makes it difficult for the public to understand why no additional charges have been filed.

Roth, the Cardozo law professor, said the information is in "isolation," without the appropriate context. "We'll see an individual photograph that looks perhaps incriminating. We'll see an email that looks incriminating, but we don't necessarily have everything that was said before and after that email and that exchange," Roth said.

One document that could explain why no charges were pursued, according to Butler, is a heavily redacted DOJ memo naming "potential co-conspirators" of Epstein. "The parts that should indicate why the department declined prosecution on any alleged co-conspirators other than Ghislaine Maxwell [are] redacted," said Butler, the Georgetown law professor and a former federal prosecutor.

Butler said those redactions are "unusual" because they do not appear to follow the permissible reasons for redactions in the Epstein documents. Those reasons include confidentiality for Epstein's alleged victims, or anything that would compromise an ongoing investigation, Butler said.

"When the Justice Department grudgingly releases information when pressed by politics or forced by Congress, it also creates the impression that they have something to hide," Butler said. "That there is some cover-up going on."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nearly 30% more students in Los Angeles County experienced homelessness from 2022-23 to 2023-24, making it the county’s highest rate in the past five years and far outpacing the rate of homelessness across the state in the same timeframe, as the resources to identify and support this student population have decreased.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools published two reports on Wednesday on the state of student homelessness in the county: “Rising Numbers, Fading Resources: Students Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles County” and “Hidden in Plain Sight: Fear, Underidentification, and Funding Gaps for Housing-Insecure Students in Los Angeles County.”

Researchers found that Norwalk-La Mirada Elementary Unified School District had the highest rate of student homelessness in the county — 1 in 3 students, meaning that over 4,700 students were identified as experiencing homelessness during the 2023-24 school year out of a total cumulative enrollment of about 15,600.

The city of Norwalk, where the district is located in the eastern region of the county, was sued by the state in 2024 for banning emergency shelters and other support services for people experiencing homelessness. Last year, the state reached a settlement with the city, which was forced to overturn the ban and put $250,000 toward building affordable housing.

Student homelessness is defined differently under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law that requires every public school to count the number of students who are living on the street, in shelters, in motels, in cars, doubled up with other families, or moving between friends’ and relatives’ homes.

As a result of this expanded definition, McKinney-Vento includes doubled-up students in the count of homelessness. Doubled-up is a term used to describe children and youth ages 21 and under living in shared housing, such as with another family or friends, due to various crises.

There were a few other patterns seen in the L.A. County data analyzed by the UCLA researchers:

• Latino students were disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness: they represent 65% of the county’s student population, but 75.5% of student homelessness
• A third of homeless students were in high school
• Many districts with the highest rates of homelessness had higher school instability but lower dropout rates

While McKinney-Vento has an expanded definition that includes more types of homelessness than several other definitions, identifying students remains difficult.

The second report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools focuses on the lack of dedicated funding for school staff to identify and support homeless students. Students and families facing homelessness do not always self-identify, whether due to fear, shame or being unaware that their housing situation is considered homelessness under McKinney-Vento.

“A lot of these young people are dealing with a lot of trauma, so they don’t want to be identified. They don’t want to be pointed out; sometimes it’s scary for them, because they think we’re going to report them to the Department of Children and Family Services,” said L.A. County Office of Education staff interviewed for this report.

School staff, known as homeless liaisons, who work with homeless students received a historic influx of federal funds during the Covid-19 pandemic — $98.76 million for California, out of $800 million nationwide, from the American Rescue Plan-Homeless Children and Youth.

That funding has since ended, and there is no other dedicated, ongoing state funding set aside solely for the rising number of homeless students. This has led districts in California to “heavily depend on highly competitive and unstable federal streams,” the UCLA researchers wrote. Those federal streams have become increasingly precarious as the federal administration last year sought policy changes that would shift how they are structured.