Drug test cups at the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on July 20, 2023. The program uses reward incentives to combat substance abuse and addiction.
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Mark Leong
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CalMatters
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Topline:
Faced with that immense suffering, California will try a new approach to stimulant addiction: Paying people with gift cards to reward them for staying sober.
Among the most difficult addictions to witness at San Francisco General Hospital’s drug clinic is methamphetamine, which leaves users tearing at their skin and unable to eat, sleep or sign up for help.
Why it matters: Clinic workers are largely powerless because unlike opioid addiction, for which doctors prescribe medications such as methadone, there is no medicine for stimulant use disorder.
The backstory: “Contingency management” rewards people with financial incentives each time their drug tests are negative for stimulants. It’s been shown to have success in clinical trials — and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been using it for more than a decade — but it hasn’t taken off in California. Medicaid previously wouldn’t cover it, so there was no funding to expand its use.
Among the most difficult addictions to witness at San Francisco General Hospital’s drug clinic is methamphetamine, which leaves users tearing at their skin and unable to eat, sleep or sign up for help.
The worst part: The clinic workers largely are powerless because unlike with opioid addiction, for which doctors prescribe medications such as methadone, there is no medicine for stimulant use disorder.
“We live day in and day out watching people suffer in a way that’s hard to imagine,” said Dr. Brad Shapiro, medical director of the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “They’re just dying in front of us.”
Faced with that immense suffering, California will try a new approach to stimulant addiction: Paying people with gift cards to reward them for staying sober.
This model, known as “contingency management,” rewards people with financial incentives each time their drug tests are negative for stimulants. It’s been shown to have success in clinical trials — and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been using it for more than a decade — but it hasn’t taken off in California. Medicaid previously wouldn’t cover it, so there was no funding to expand its use.
To Shapiro, that’s inexcusable.
“It’s actually, in my opinion, really quite criminal that we’ve gone decades knowing this is an effective treatment and the powers that be have failed to make a pathway for treatment for people,” he said.
The program is expanding now, thanks to a recent waiver by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that allows the agency to cover its costs. California was the first state in the nation to win approval for a contingency management program under Medicaid. The Golden State is launching pilot programs in 24 counties, including San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Costs for what collectively is called the Recovery Incentives Program will be reimbursed by CalAIM – the state’s recent expansion of Medi-Cal services.
“All of a sudden we have money to provide this incredibly effective intervention,” said Shapiro, whose clinic is launching one of three pilot programs coming to San Francisco. “So it makes a huge difference.”
Fighting meth with gift cards
Shapiro’s clinic focuses primarily on opioid addiction, but more than half of their patients also have a stimulant use disorder, he said.
While the deadly opioid fentanyl gets most of the attention in the drug epidemic in California and across the country, experts say stimulant use is a major — and growing — concern. In 2021, 65% of drug-related deaths in California involved cocaine, methamphetamine or other stimulants — up from 22% in 2011, according to the California Department of Health Care Services. Nationally, there were 15,489 overdose deaths involving stimulants other than cocaine (largely methamphetamine) in 2019, up 180% from 2015, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
And with California in the midst of a dire homelessness crisis, stimulants are wreaking havoc on the state’s unhoused community. Among unhoused residents who use drugs, amphetamines are by far the most common choice, according to a recent study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Nearly one-third of people surveyed reported using amphetamines three or more times a week, compared to just 11% who used opioids with the same frequency. Some people who live on the street reported using stimulants to stay alert at night, when they fear being attacked if they fall asleep.
To combat stimulant addiction among its patients, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital recently launched a six-month contingency management program as part of the statewide pilot. The hospital opened enrollment on July 17, and staff hope ultimately to serve about 50 people. Clinicians will test participants for stimulants once or twice a week. Each time patients test negative, they’ll get a $10 gift card to Walmart or another retailer. The amount of the gift card gradually will increase, for a maximum of $26.50 per test. If they test positive, they get nothing.
Participants can earn a maximum of $599 over the course of the program. That’s because payments of $600 or more must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.
The Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on July 20, 2023.
“We’re all excited to try it and see if it does help retain people in treatment for longer periods of time so they are more successful,” said Tammy Ramsey, program manager for the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System in the county’s behavioral health department.
Contingency management works
Other programs in counties throughout California — including Alameda, Fresno, Nevada, Sacramento and Los Angeles — will follow the same model.
If the trials are successful, Shapiro hopes the state will allow them to expand and serve everyone on Medi-Cal.
The model already has proven effective for the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Dominick DePhilippis, the department’s deputy national mental health director for substance use disorders. The VA started using contingency management in 2011, and as of the beginning of July, the program has treated more than 6,300 veterans. Those veterans have attended about half of their appointments and produced nearly 82,000 urine samples – of which more than 92% were negative for the targeted drug, DePhilippis said.
It’s not just the VA. Of 22 studies testing contingency management’s impact on stimulant addiction, 82% reported “significant increases” in participants’ abstinence, according to a 2021 meta-analysis published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Dr. Brad Shapiro is director of the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
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Mark Leong
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CalMatters
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Shapiro believes the model works because it replaces the reward a patient’s brain craves (the drug) with a different type of prize.
“It’s a little bit like winning something,” Shapiro said. “It triggers that reward place in the brain that otherwise they would be turning to the drug for.”
But Tom Wolf, who has battled addiction and homelessness himself and now advocates for drug policy reform, said he worries using Medi-Cal to fund contingency management will create bureaucratic hurdles to treatment as patients wait for the state to decide if they are eligible. Still, he said, the program is worth a shot.
“At this point I’m willing to try it, basically because we have such a dearth of options for people that are struggling with addictions in California,” he said.
Because of how difficult it is to treat his patients that use stimulants — many of them use methamphetamine every day — Shapiro would be happy if even a quarter of participants significantly reduced or stopped using. There is also concern, as with any type of treatment, that patients will relapse once the program is over, he said. To help prevent that, the hospital will provide six additional months of counseling after the contingency management program ends.
It’s not a perfect solution
Rewarding people for staying sober doesn’t work for everyone. Even before it was covered by Medi-Cal, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital was experimenting with the model in small programs.
One of the participants in those programs, 54-year-old J.W., ended up in the emergency room with heart failure after two decades of methamphetamine use. After his hospital stay, he enrolled in a 12-week program called Heart Plus, which caters to cardiac patients with a history of stimulant use. Every time J.W. did something positive, such as show up to an appointment, take his medication or get a negative drug test, he got to draw a Safeway gift card out of a hat. The cards’ value ranged from $5 to the “elusive” $20, and J.W. — who asked to go by his initials out of fear of being stigmatized for his drug use — estimates he earned about $180 throughout the entire program. He wasn’t working at the time, so the cards helped him get treats such as deli sandwiches and fancy bottles of kombucha.
“It was definitely something to look forward to,” he said. “And it was something fun to spend.”
But it wasn’t enough to get J.W. off drugs. Now that the program has ended, he’s still using methamphetamine — sometimes as often as three times a day — though he says he’s taking smaller doses. And he said he feels much healthier than when he showed up in the emergency room last year, out of breath after the slightest amount of exertion.
J.W. isn’t sure why he didn’t quit using during the program. But methamphetamine has become an entrenched routine in his daily life. He uses upon waking up, in a ritual he compares to having a morning cup of coffee.
“I still kick myself wondering why I didn’t quit altogether,” he said. “There’s no better opportunity.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom outlines his proposed 2025-2026 state budget during a news conference at California State University, Stanislaus, in Turlock on Tuesday.
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Rich Pedroncelli
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AP
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Topline:
In his final year in office, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to go after large investors buying and owning California housing — in the same week that President Donald Trump also took rhetorical aim at Big Landlord.
Regulating big investors: Newsom plans to say during his State of the State address to lawmakers on Thursday that he wants to work with them to regulate the practice of investors buying up large stocks of housing to rent out, forcing California residents to compete with them to afford buying a home, according to the governor’s office. Proposals could include “enhanced state oversight and enforcement and potential changes to the state tax code,” according to the governor’s office.
Newsom and Trump agree: That sounds similar to a proposal President Donald Trump made on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday. The two previously closely aligned on policy related to clearing of homeless encampments. It’s an unlikely meeting of the minds of two political foes who, in a race to head off the electorate's concerns about affordability, have landed upon the same populist message: Blame Wall Street.
In his final year in office, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to go after large investors buying and owning California housing — in the same week that President Donald Trump also took rhetorical aim at Big Landlord.
It’s an unlikely meeting of the minds of two political foes who, in a race to head off the electorate's concerns about affordability, have landed upon the same populist message: Blame Wall Street.
Newsom plans to say during his State of the State address to lawmakers on Thursday that he wants to work with them to regulate the practice of investors buying up large stocks of housing to rent out, forcing California residents to compete with them to afford buying a home, according to the governor’s office.
Proposals could include “enhanced state oversight and enforcement and potential changes to the state tax code,” according to the governor’s office.
“When housing is treated primarily as a corporate investment strategy, Californians feel the impact,” a source in the office said. “Prices go up, rents rise, and fewer people have a chance to buy a home.”
“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes,” the president wrote, sending stock prices of major publicly traded residential investment firms plummeting. He urged Congress to put the proposal into law and promised to unveil additional housing policy proposals at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland later this month.
Newsom is stopping short of calling for an outright ban on institutional investors’ ownership, though the source said he will seek to “curb” it with the goal of making home ownership more affordable for California residents.
He hasn’t yet proposed anything concrete. Whatever Newsom seeks to do, he’ll need the approval of the state Legislature.
Trump, for his part, did not offer any details about his proposal, such as how institutional investors would be defined under the proposed law or why he targeted single-family homes in particular. The White House’s press office did not respond to an email with those questions.
The twin announcements come after years of long-shot efforts by California progressives to address a surge in companies buying up single-family housing stock in the wake of the Great Recession. The issue has been the subject of renewed anxiety in post-fire Los Angeles, where a recent report by RedFin showed investors (loosely defined as any buyer with a name that includes “LLC,” “Inc” or “Corp”) have purchased 27 of 61 burned vacant lots that sold in Altadena — more than 40%.
Asked about that report in an interview on MS Now this week, Newsom said he had signed an executive order last year seeking to protect homeowners who find it too expensive to rebuild from falling for “predatory” lowball offers for their properties. But he acknowledged “the broader market conditions are challenging.”
The proposals mark new territory for Newsom’s housing affordability platform. The governor, now in his final year in office, has spent most of the past seven years focused on boosting construction. It’s a pivot toward populism for the governor, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028.
Blaming deep-pocketed investors for the nation’s housing woes has become an increasingly ideological-spanning exercise in recent years, with politicians as diverse as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vice President J.D. Vance championing the cause.
Shortly after Trump’s post, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, an enthusiastic supporter of the president, promised to introduce legislation in his own post on X.
Is this actually a problem in California?
Many housing industry professionals, economists and policy researchers are skeptical.
“It’s really hard to buy a house right now so people are looking for someone to blame for that, but I think (institutional investors) are more of a symptom of the affordability crisis than they are a perpetuator of it,” said Caitlin Gorback, a University of Texas at Austin economist who has studied investors’ effect on local real estate markets.
Research on the topic is mixed, though most analyses have found that by taking owner-occupied homes and converting them into rentals, these companies tend to increase the supply of rentals. That puts downward pressure on rents, while taking away purchasable homes, leading to higher prices.
Fewer than 3% of all single-family homes in the state are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties.That also takes away opportunities for would-be homeowners to buy a coveted single-family home. But even that comes with an under-appreciated upside, said Gorback: They provide more priced-out renters the opportunity to live in single-family homes — typically in wealthier, whiter and higher-resourced neighborhoods — something historically reserved for those who can afford to buy.
While apartment buildings are commonly owned and managed by large financial companies, single-family rentals weren’t seen as Wall Street-worthy money-making opportunities until the aftermath of the Great Recession. Since then, companies like Invitation Homes, Blackstone, Progress Residential and AMH Homes have typically focused on markets with relatively low prices and rapidly growing populations.
That doesn’t describe California. As a result, larger investors — however defined — make up a relatively small share of single-family landlords in the state. Fewer than 3% of all single-family homes in the state are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties, according to an analysis by the California Research Bureau, which conducts research for state lawmakers. A mere 20,066 are owned by firms with portfolios of 1,000 units or more. The largest of those owners is Invitation Homes, which owns over 11,000 homes in the state and reached a settlement with Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office last year over allegations it price-gouged tenants and illegally raised rents on more than 1,900 properties.
There are more than 16 million rental units across the state, according to Census data.
Though attacking big monied investors for the high cost of housing is a “huge distraction,” it has obvious political appeal, said Stan Oklobdzija, a UC Riverside public policy professor. “Attacking institutional investors is the latest iteration of appearing to do something without actually doing anything. …It's just kind of archetypical cheap talk.”
For nearly a decade, Democrats in the state Legislature have proposed bills to track or ban the practice. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 vetoed a bill to create a registry of institutional investors that own 100 or more single-family homes, noting that “collecting the data would not stop the purchase of these homes by private investors.”
In 2024, lawmakers proposed banning investors that own at least 1,000 single-family homes from buying more houses and renting them out, prohibiting institutional investors from buying single-family homes for any reason and banning developers from selling entire new single-family subdivisions to investors to rent. All three bills died in committees.
Assemblymember Alex Lee, author of the first proposal, revived the bill last year. It passed the Assembly and awaits a hearing in a Senate committee.
Lee, a Democratic Socialist who has long critiqued the role of big money in the state's real estate market, said he was "flabbergasted" to find himself on the same page with Trump, whom he described as a "far-right fascist." Though he expressed doubts that the Trump administration would follow through with the promises the president made in his social media post, he said that "Democrats need to wake up to this populist, but righteous, position."
"We can’t let the far-right capture the housing positions that the people care about," Lee said.
It used to be the “cool kids" were the ones up drinking until 5 a.m., pursuing pleasure no matter the unsavory cost. Today, however, the cool kids are in bed by 9 p.m. so they can be up at 5 a.m., in time to slam down a shot of matcha and head to a day rave where all the attendees are — believe it or not — shockingly, sober. A round-up of daytime revelries in L.A.
Where's it happening? A tea lounge speakeasy in DTLA, a roving daytime bar scene and a regular early morning dance rave somewhere in the city.
Why now: Because as club kids age up, they want to have fun while still being able to function. And Gen Z is just drinking less compared to its older counterparts.
Once upon a time, we lived in a world where the “cool” kids were the ones up drinking until 5 a.m., weekend warriors who relished the pursuit of pleasure no matter the unsavory cost.
In today’s post-COVID world, however, things have gotten a little topsy-turvy. Nowadays, the cool kids are in bed by 9 p.m. so they can be up at 5 a.m., in time to slam down a shot of matcha and head to a day rave where all the attendees are — believe it or not — shockingly, sober.
The thing is, to the undiscerning eye, the crowd at a Daybreaker rave looks exactly the same as its typically drug-fueled nighttime counterpart: buoyant, animated and so very alive with its sea of thrashing bodies, quivering booties and smiling faces.
It’s a testament to a new paradigm shift, one in which adults are increasingly turning away from the hard stuff in favor of celebrating without alcohol. Nurtured by the desire for vitality, the small flame of “Dry January” has taken shape into something much greater — a whole new world of non-alcoholic gatherings.
From coffee raves to tea speakeasies and beyond, the world of adult beverages as we know it is rapidly changing. Whether you’re a social butterfly looking for a new scene or a homebody hoping to finally venture off the couch, we’ve featured three of our favorite non-alcoholic gatherings in L.A. Check ‘em out below in all their glory.
Bar Nuda (pop up locations)
Founded by Morris Ellis, a creative director and branding expert, and Pablo Murillo, a storyteller and entrepreneur, Bar Nuda is a pop up “bar” experience designed for those in mind who want to indulge in the social aspects of the barfly life without any of the lingering regrets the next morning.
“We've been on a mission to redefine a night out,” says Murillo, smiling as he places a drink in front of me. “Our slogan is ‘Drinks to Remember’, because we want you to go out and celebrate life.”
Bar Nuda helps you indulge in the social aspects of the barfly life without any of the lingering regrets
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Janelle Lassalle
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LAist
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It’s a mission that’s more personal than professional — Murillo’s experience of losing his father to alcohol-related illness inspired him to redefine the narrative of what a night out could look like. His goal was a surprisingly simple concept: to create a warm, welcoming community where people could mingle without the standard social lubricant of booze.
“We wanted to really hold space for people like myself, you know?” Murillo continues. “When we started Bar Nuda, I was not sober, but I am now. Bar Nuda got me sober. We wanted to change the narrative for my family, but also be there for others to do the same and to say, hey, look, you can go out and have a really good time without drinking booze.”
Bar Nuda's slogan is “Drinks to Remember"
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Janelle Lassalle
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LAist
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Bar Nuda partners up with local bars, neighborhood coffee shops and other venues around Los Angeles to create unique non-alcoholic based events for patrons; check out their Instagram for the details. Trivia Night, for instance, is a regular staple in their event roster, with most events starting at 7 or 8 p.m. Other events include benefit concerts (to raise money for CHIRLA, The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights), Alcohol Free Game Night and even courses dedicated to making your own non-alcoholic based drinks.
“We do a ton of work with hospitality groups, venues and music festivals who are looking to build out their non-alcoholic programs,” says Brianda Gonzalez, founder of the non-alcoholic shop The New Bar, who partners with Bar Nuda. “Consumers are increasingly looking for other options when they go out and don't want to drink quite as much.”
Ellis and Murillo are certainly doing something right: to walk into one of their events is to feel like you’re, well, inside of a bar, filled with the sounds of warm laughter, buzzing conversations and the inevitable chaotic din of the trivia crowd. Drinks are prepared with a level of craftsmanship that might have you second guessing as to whether or not you’re drinking alcohol. The menu rotates seasonally, with many of the drink ingredients sourced directly from Mexico. The house favorite is the “Rosa Nuda”, made with tantalizingly tangy, fresh bougainvillea sourced by Bar Nuda’s Beverage Director Bryant J. Orozco.
As the guests at the bar form a small crowd, giggling about events to come, I take a sip of the Rosa Nuda before a huge smile spreads across my face.
A recent Daybreaker event in Venice giving good vibes
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Courtesy Daybreaker
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The first time I attended a Daybreaker event was in Portland several years ago. I attended because friends of mine had told me there was a new, sober day rave spreading across town, and I simply didn’t believe them.
How very wrong I was. It may have been 9 a.m., but this crowd seemed just as rowdy, if not rowdier, than its nighttime counterpart. The only difference between the two was this crowd seemed decked out in yoga pants rather than rave gear.
Bubbling with energy at Daybreaker Venice
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Bailey Templeton
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Courtesy Daybreaker
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“I wanted to have fun while still being able to function,” said Nemo, a DJ I met there. “At some point my body was not able to handle the disrupted sleep cycles and booze anymore, but I still wanted to be able to go to events and enjoy myself.”
To my great surprise, I discovered raving sober had its own unique appeal. The lack of alcohol kept me light and energetic rather than clouded in a drunken haze. I was able to dance for much longer than usual, and felt a familiar euphoric high similar to a runner’s high the longer I danced.
Daybreaker throws day raves in a number of different cities: Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York. The next event in L.A. is Saturday Jan. 24 from 9 a.m. - 12 noon, to be held in a secret venue. Given it’s described as “dry January, wet with endorphins”, there’s a good chance it’s in a sauna, where Daybreaker is known to throw dance parties.
Celebrating life at 9am in Venice
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Bailey Templeton
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Courtesy Daybreaker
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“We’re living in a cultural moment where people are craving clarity, connection, and control over their wellbeing — and ultimately belonging,” says Daybreaker founder Radha Agrawal.
“Post-pandemic, there’s been a mass re-evaluation of what we put into our bodies and how we spend our time. Gen Z in particular is leading the charge — they’re drinking nearly 30% less than millennials did at their age — and they’re looking for ways to connect without sacrificing health or mental clarity," he says.
"People want to wake up feeling good, not hungover, and they’re realizing that social connection can actually feel better without alcohol.”
In true speakeasy style, I reached Bu Tea Den through an inconspicuous metal door in a back alley downtown. Once inside, however, the vibe quickly shifted. A curious video was projected onto a wall by the entrance, lit up by colorful, digital Paisley shapes swimming about. Each Paisley had a customer’s name plastered above it, giving the surreal sensation that I was watching some sort of digital city like a god from up above on high. ‘PAISLEY ID’ read across the top of the screen.
Nearby, what I initially thought was an ATM was actually marked "AFTM: automated fortune telling machine". Patrons can take a quiz and receive a spiritual fortune of sorts, printed out neatly onto a slip of paper like an ATM receipt, along with a corresponding Paisley.
(According to the machine, my life path number is seven, my soul age is baby, and my chakral focus is sacral. "Trust what steadies you, even if it changes tomorrow.")
Writer Janelle Lassalle experiencing Bu Tu Den's AFTM — an automated fortune telling machine
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Janelle Lassalle
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LAist
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Inspired by time spent in the Burning Man community, co-founders Severin Sauliere and Natalie Tran created the art installation to help inspire a sense of community at Bu Tea Den.
Sauliere and Tran are husband and wife: Sauliere is an artist/Creative Director, and Tran is Chief Steeping Officer in charge of tea operations. Their goal is to redefine happy hour by giving guests the opportunity to slow down and get social without the thundering din of techno music and flashy cocktails.
"It's not an upsell kind of thing," said Sauliere. "It's based on you chilling with your friends, having some tea together and talking. I'm not against alcohol, but it's everywhere. Having a space that doesn't have it challenges the dynamic a little bit."
Co-founder Natalie Tran, at Bu Tea Den “part tea lounge, part interactive art installation, and part intimate gathering space.”
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Janelle Lassalle
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LAist
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The space is cultivated in the style of a tea lounge, with a number of booths scattered about facing the Paisley display. Guests can enjoy a unique tea experience at the bar in which they’re served several rounds of tea blends, along with snacks like Ube popcorn, Fridays - Sundays 5 - 9 p.m.
Billed as “part tea lounge, part interactive art installation, and part intimate gathering space,” Bu Tea Den isn’t just a place where you can come to enjoy a strong cup of jasmine tea: it’s also gearing up to become a community-oriented event space. Guests can come by for regular events like Mahjong at the Den, a Hong Kong style version of the popular game, or an upcoming "Tea and Tease" burlesque and comedy night on Saturday Jan. 17.
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David Wagner
covers housing in Southern California, a place where the lack of affordable housing contributes to homelessness.
Published January 7, 2026 4:12 PM
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about auto tariffs after signing an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on March 26.
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Jabin Botsford
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many young families, especially in pricey California. President Donald Trump now says he plans to make housing affordable again by cutting deep-pocketed investors out of the single-family home market.
What it could mean for CA: But in California, housing policy experts say Trump’s strategy might not move the needle on affordability very much. That’s because institutional investors aren’t buying many single-family homes in the Golden State to begin with.
The numbers: Statewide, 2.8% of single-family homes are owned by investors who own 10 properties or more. That’s according to the California Research Bureau, which produces nonpartisan policy research for the Governor’s Office and the State Legislature.
Read on … to learn why Trump’s idea overlaps with proposals that have already been forwarded by California Democrats.
Homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many young families, especially in pricey California. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he plans to make housing affordable again by cutting deep-pocketed investors out of the single-family home market.
“I am immediately taking steps to ban large, institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social. “People live in homes, not corporations.”
But in California, housing policy experts say Trump’s strategy might not move the needle on affordability much. That’s because institutional investors aren’t buying many single-family homes in the Golden State to begin with.
“It's kind of a red herring,” said Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. “Institutional ownership of single-family rentals is a very small share of all single-family rentals, let alone all of the housing stock in the United States.”
Less than 3% of CA homes
Trump’s idea is not new. Democratic California lawmakers have also proposed limits on investor home-buying. To inform the legislative process, state researchers have looked into the question of how California homes are getting scooped up by institutional buyers.
The answer: Not many.
Statewide, 2.8% of single-family homes are owned by investors who own 10 properties or more. That’s according to the California Research Bureau, which produces nonpartisan policy research for the Governor’s Office and the state Legislature.
According to the Urban Institute, large investors own a much greater stock of single-family homes in cities including Jacksonville, Charlotte and Atlanta, where institutional investors own nearly 29% of single-family rentals.
Corporate ownership rates are much lower in California. In Los Angeles County, home to more than 10 million people, only about 72,474 homes are owned by large investors, according to the California Research Bureau. That number includes single-family homes as well as condos, townhomes and duplexes.
Would banning corporate owners reduce competition?
Invitation Homes is the largest owner of single-family homes in California, with more than 11,000 properties to its name statewide, including about 3,100 in Los Angeles County. Its business model involves buying single-family homes, updating them and then renting them out to tenants who may not otherwise be able to afford home-ownership.
LAist reached out to Invitation Homes for comment on Trump’s announcement. We were sent a statement from the National Rental Home Council.
“Housing affordability is a critical issue, and we appreciate the administration’s focus on ensuring Americans have access to a diverse mix of housing options,” the statement read.
The statement continued: “Professional single-family housing providers represent a small segment of the overall housing market, and the single-family rental industry remains focused on supporting renters while also supporting pathways to homeownership.”
David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, said getting rid of institutional investors probably wouldn’t do much to bring down home prices for young Californians.
“The vast, vast majority of homes that are purchased are by people who are generally going to live in them,” Garcia said. “So you're not really reducing the main competition for home buyers, which is other home buyers.”
Lack of supply, lots of demand fuel CA’s high prices
Garcia and USC’s Green both said California’s home prices are high because of lack of supply. Steady demand for California homes coupled with low building rates since the Great Recession have produced a market where the wealthiest buyers out-bid everyone else for the few homes coming up for sale.
Trump’s proposal echoes similar policy explorations from the L.A. City Council, which voted in 2021 to consider banning companies like Zillow and Redfin from buying homes within the city.
Details were scant in Trump’s post, but he said more information about his plans would be forthcoming.
In his Truth Social post, he said: “I will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks.”
Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published January 7, 2026 4:07 PM
The Ronald Reagan Federal Building & US Courthouse building in Santa Ana.
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Robyn Beck
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Getty Images
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Topline:
An Orange County judge is resigning, his lawyer says, as part of a plea deal for his role in defrauding California’s workers compensation fund.
Who’s the judge? Israel Claustro, a longtime prosecutor who won election to Orange County Superior Court in 2022.
What did he do? While working as an O.C. prosecutor, Claustro also owned a company that billed the state for medical evaluations of injured workers. That was illegal because, in California, you have to be licensed to practice medicine to own a medical corporation.
Anyone else involved? Claustro’s partner in the business was a doctor who had previously been suspended for health care fraud, and therefore was prohibited from being involved in workers’ comp claims. Claustro knew this, and paid him anyway, according to court filings from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
What’s in the plea deal? The deal requires Claustro to resign as a judge and plead guilty to one count of mail fraud. He could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office is recommending probation instead, as part of the deal.
In an email to LAist, Claustro’s lawyer, Paul Meyer, said his client “deeply regrets” his wrongful participation in the business venture, and was resigning as judge “in good faith, with sadness.”
What’s next: Claustro is expected to make his initial appearance Jan. 12 in United States District Court in Santa Ana.