The Brief

Nearly six months into their labor union dispute against Southern California Kaiser Permanente, eight mental health care workers banded together last week in an organized five-day hunger strike to highlight their cause.

“Kaiser’s trying to starve us out, that’s clear — so, give them what they want,” said Adriana Webb, a member of the National Union of Healthcare Workers who chose to subsist solely on water and electrolytes from Monday morning through Friday evening. “I feel hungry for equity. I feel hungry for change. How is this any different?”

Now engaged in the longest mental health strike in U.S. history, the Southern California workers have been seeking a new union contract that would include:

• more mandated time between therapy sessions for patient follow up
• restoration of pension benefits that were removed from new employee contracts in 2015
• cost-of-living wage adjustments

After a long list of Democratic members of the state Assembly and Senate wrote Kaiser in December urging it to accept the union’s “reasonable contract proposals” — and after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Feb. 6 written request for both sides “to prioritize the common good that have allowed Californians to rise above our difficulties and resolve our differences” — state Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly and former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg have agreed to mediate.

Kaiser executives threw their hands up and walked out of mediation talks on March 11 when the union continued pressing its three major contract issues. Today bargaining talks are scheduled to resume.

Steinberg mediated a similar open-ended strike for Northern California Kaiser mental health care workers in 2022, which lasted 10 weeks and resulted in Kaiser meeting most of the union’s demands.

“We know Kaiser can provide all these things if they wanted to,” said Webb, a medical social worker in the infectious disease unit who stood on the picket line in front of Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center on Sunset Boulevard. “They already provide it to our Northern California counterparts, and all we’re asking for is the same thing. Kaiser still can’t explain why we deserve less or our patients deserve less.”

In a written response to CalMatters questions, Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Terry Kanakri discussed Kaiser’s overall commitment to work with more than 40 unions that represent 80% of its employees.

“Every one of the 80 contracts is different, and each reflects the differences in operational needs, local market economics and wages, professional classifications of the employees in each local, and a host of other factors,” said Kanakri.

“Our goal is and has always been to reach an agreement that makes Kaiser Permanente the best place to give and receive care. We have made — and repeatedly improved — our proposals during bargaining in an effort to reach an agreement. However, in nearly nine months of bargaining, NUHW has made very little movement on the key bargaining issues.”

Although not aware of any specific details of the 2022 NorCal strike or the current SoCal strikes, University of Southern California professor of healthcare finances and economics Glenn Melnick gave his overview on today’s health care labor climate.

“Northern California has the highest wage index in the country,” he said. “I think it’s 20 points higher than L.A. — maybe 25%. So there’s economic reasons why there’s differences. An economist would say, ‘Mental health care worker, you want these benefits? Move to San Francisco.’

“And many employers are cutting back pension benefits these days. Ten or 15 years ago, pension benefits were much more generous across the board. Kaiser could easily afford to give them these benefits and not think twice, but it’s bigger than just these workers. It’s the ripple effect, right?”

Melnick also speculated that health care workers’ negotiating power has waned as the COVID pandemic, which drove demand for their services, has somewhat subsided.

From April 8 through 12, the hunger strikers spent eight-hour days alongside their picketing fellow union members and each night together fasting at a West Hollywood church. Sleeping in a community space barely big enough for eight air mattresses huddled beside the piano against a back wall, they shared a bathroom and took turns showering in a motel room next door.

Medically cleared beforehand, they received daily wellness checks from volunteer union nurses.

“Right now, I feel like I could go another month,” said Zhane Sandoval, propped up on an elbow from their mattress on the morning of April 11, day four of the hunger strike. “So test me, Kaiser!

“Kaiser says that it’s a union employer, but all we’re seeing is union busting. All we’re seeing is separation, trying to divide. But their efforts just lead us to unite.”

Union organizer Rachel Forgash, who stayed overnight with the hunger strikers at the church, expressed frustration over the protracted standoff.

“Kaiser has exceeded all of our expectations in their unwillingness to bargain in good faith and drag this out as long as possible,” she said. “In Southern California, they’re about to start bargaining with the Alliance, which is a huge group of unions at Kaiser, and I think they’re afraid that — when we win — it’s going to set a precedent for other unions to fight just as hard.”

Aida Valvidia, a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser’s Sylmar facility, and Melissa Chavez, a medical social worker at Riverside, both started working for Kaiser before the 2015 contract negotiations reached a settlement, so they each have pension benefits that 70% of their fellow mental health care union members do not. Yet both chose to participate in the hunger strike.

“For the people who don’t have pensions, I think it’s unfair,” said Valvidia. “Why do I have a pension and you don’t? Because you started later? That makes no sense to me. We’re equals.”

Chavez and her husband have been on strike together since Oct. 21. “Kaiser members deserve equity and access to timely quality care,” she said. “Workers are experiencing high caseloads, inadequate and unsafe staffing, lack of time, lack of tools.”

The hunger strike week started with iconic labor leader and activist Dolores Huerta visiting the picketers on April 8, two days before her 95th birthday. “I know that you’re not just doing this on your own behalf,” said Huerta, surrounded by cheering union members in their red union T-shirts. “You’re actually doing this on behalf of all the patients at Kaiser that are not getting the mental health services that they deserve.”

The union cites a recent 88-page report from the state Department of Managed Health Care, which notes that Kaiser’s failures to remedy 19 of the 20 violations in 2022 led to $200 million in state fines. The union has also filed its own complaints alleging Kaiser mismanages patient triage and appointment scheduling, by hiring unlicensed clerical staff and using algorithmic programming.

“Despite the persistent efforts of NUHW to mislead the public, the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has not identified new deficiencies in our mental health care,” said Kanakri’s statement. It went on to say that Kaiser met with the state department “last week in our first quarterly review and demonstrated the extraordinary progress we have made on all the deficiencies outlined in the Corrective Action Work Plan.”

“We’re in disbelief,” said hunger striker Nick Nunez, a therapist in Kaiser’s Virtual Medical Center, which lends support to any patients in need across Southern California. “They take out ads in the paper saying everything’s fine — that they’re providing adequate care to their patients and everything is top-notch. It’s so bizarre and unbelievable.”

Andrew Kane worked as an associate clinical social worker at the Los Angeles Medical Center he now pickets and fasted at. “It’s a little odd, a little surreal,” he said, noting that he happened to see a patient in the world outside of Kaiser. “Fortunately — or unfortunately — he didn’t notice me, so we didn’t have to have that interaction.”

Kane started in June 2024, so he’s been on strike longer than he’s received a Kaiser salary.

As the strike persisted without end in sight since October, many workers have returned to Kaiser due to financial concerns. But some communicate the problems they see internally while back at work.

“They’re actually the ones documenting all the things going wrong,” said hunger striker Kassaundra Gutierrez-Thompson, a psychiatric social worker in Kaiser’s ADAPT virtual online treatment program. “We have DMHC investigators talking to a lot of our returned back staff. Unfortunately, a lot of our managers are combatting them.

“And so, a lot of our members are kind of scared, having to advocate for our patients.They’re fighting a different kind of battle inside.”

Rage Against the Machine guitarist and political labor activist Tom Morello joined the Kaiser picketers on April 9 to perform a short acoustic set, and U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo visited the strikers April 11.

Hours later, they broke their fast with religious leaders passing around a ceremonial bread loaf.
“We can’t just be treated like numbers,” said hunger striker Ana Vargas Garcia, who also saw members remotely through the ADAPT program. “Patients can’t be treated like numbers. There’s real lives behind everyone that we see, behind every worker at Kaiser. That’s a big part of why we’re doing this.”

A news helicopter crashed in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing at least three people near the scene of where an SUV had slammed into a city bus, officials said.

The helicopter crashed around 7 p.m. near a one-story commercial building in the neighborhood of Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, as news crews were covering the bus crash that left at least two people dead and six others injured, according the Los Angeles Fire Department.

An NBC4 Los Angeles anchor at the station confirmed during a live broadcast that its chopper went down just before 7 p.m.

At least one person killed in the helicopter crash was outside in the parking lot next to the commercial building, Capt. Branden Silverman, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said during a news conference. It was unclear if the other two who were killed were on the ground or inside the aircraft.

The scene of a deadly helicopter crash in Chatsworth broadcast be CBSLA.

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Courtesy CBSLA

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One person was taken to the hospital, but their condition was not immediately clear.

“We’re trying to determine how many patients were inside the helicopter,” said Silverman, who described the helicopter as “pretty well destroyed” and adding that officials would be sorting through the rubble to see how many victims were on board.

At least four cars and two storage containers on the ground burned after the helicopter caught fire, which was quickly put out, according to officials. More than 50 firefighters responded to the helicopter crash, according to the fire department.null

Police and LA Metro investigate the scene of a crash between an SUV and a LA Metro Bus that left three people dead on Tuesday in Chatsworth.

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Ronaldo Bolanos

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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About two hours before the crash, an SUV slammed into the middle of a city bus, killing at least two people and injuring six others. Photos and videos online showed half of the SUV lodged into the side of an MTA bus.

The helicopter crashed about a mile and a half from the bus crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said it will be investigating the cause of the helicopter crash.

This is a developing story.

The Los Angeles region’s lead homelessness agency is effectively forfeiting the federal administrative roles it has held for decades, including applying for millions of dollars in funding for the region and leading the annual homeless count, the agency announced Tuesday.

The decision comes as the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority faces mounting criticism from both the Trump administration and local leaders who accuse the agency of mismanaging homeless services.

It reverses a monthslong legal battle LAHSA had been waging with the federal government to continue in these duties.

The city of Los Angeles, L.A. County and other entities and organizations are now applying to take them over.

At a county meeting Tuesday, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath called it “a fundamental change that reflects the significant performance, contracting and financial concerns that have plagued LAHSA for too long.”

“ Officials avoiding accountability will no longer have LAHSA to hide behind, and the county and city must be accountable to each other and to our entire Los Angeles region,” Horvath continued.

LAHSA's decision

In June, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended LAHSA from conducting its federal duties, including applying for or receiving grants, putting $241 million in anticipated funding and LAHSA’s future in limbo.

LAHSA sued.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter paused LAHSA’s suspension on Aug. 13, but also instructed a regional planning body known as the L.A. Continuum of Care Board to solicit applications from other entities to replace LAHSA in those key roles.

The Continuum of Care Board opened its application process online last week, inviting qualified organizations to take on one or more of LAHSA’s current administrative roles.

LAHSA’s governing commission voted unanimously Tuesday to not apply, effectively forfeiting the federal roles that comprise most of its remaining responsibilities.

The city of L.A. and L.A. County are both applying, according to LAHSA.

“With both the City and County preparing their own applications, competing against our founding partners would only fracture regional collaboration during an already complex time,” the LAHSA Commission and the agency's leadership said in a statement.

“This decision reflects the shared judgment of LAHSA’s Commission and executive leadership,” the statement continued.

Federal roles

LAHSA will forfeit the following federal homelessness roles:

1. Coordinating and submitting annual federal homeless assistance funding applications to HUD on behalf of the entire L.A. region — about $240 million in the coming year.

2. Planning, executing and reporting the region’s annual point-in-time homeless count.

3. Operating and administering a HUD-mandated database that tracks who's being served and whether they're moving into housing.

4. Managing and operating a HUD-mandated system to match unhoused people to available housing and services based on need.

How we got here

After Carter paused LAHSA’s suspension, the federal housing agency appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, the appeals court issued a temporary stay on Carter's order.

LAHSA said that ruling created more uncertainty about whether the agency was eligible to apply for the federal roles it has held for the past three decades.

“Stepping aside now supports alignment with the direction the City and County are heading with their applications, and focuses public resources where they belong: on the people who depend on the rehousing system every day,” the LAHSA statement said.

LAHSA is a joint powers authority between the city and county, created three decades ago to manage the region’s response to homelessness.

City and county officials are collectively responsible for LAHSA, which has administered federal, state, county and city homelessness funding across the region.

Citing LAHSA’s management problems, L.A. County pulled more than $300 million annual homelessness funding from the agency starting this year, choosing instead to administer the funds through a new county homelessness department.

The city of L.A. is considering a similar move away from LAHSA. Mayor Karen Bass and her election rival Councilmember Nithya Raman both say the city needs its own independent homeless system.

In the current budget year, 73% of LAHSA’s nearly $500 million budget comes from the city of L.A., 20% from the federal government and 4% from L.A. County.

What’s next? 

LAHSA said it will continue to fulfill its ongoing federal responsibilities “until those duties transition to a new entity or entities.”

The agency has agreements with the city of L.A. to manage programs and contracts through June 30, 2027.

The county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing is applying to take over all four of LAHSA’s federal responsibilities, according to county officials. The city of L.A. is currently applying for at least two of those roles, putting the city and county in competition with each other.

“Moving forward, another entity will be leading the [Continuum of Care], which I believe should be the county, given our ability to most effectively administer contracts for our region,” Horvath said Tuesday.

Other organizations have also expressed interest. Better Angels, a homelessness nonprofit led by former L.A. mayoral candidate Adam Miller, contacted the court seeking to apply.

Applicants looking to take over LAHSA’s federal roles have until Sept. 25 to submit applications, but had to communicate their intent to apply by Sept. 15.

The applicants selected by L.A.’s regional Continuum of Care Board will have to be reviewed by HUD and the federal court.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s falling enrollment and budget challenges are fueling conversations planned for later this year about potential school closures and consolidation.

“Our goal is not simply to have fewer schools; our goal is to have stronger schools, schools that are better resourced, schools that offer more programs for our students,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said during a school board meeting Tuesday. The superintendent shared a similar message in a video sent to families Monday.

LAUSD is spending more money than it brings in and has relied on reserves to fill the gap in recent years. In Tuesday’s meeting, district leaders presented an updated snapshot of LAUSD’s finances that shows steeper enrollment declines and lower state revenue and reserves than projected early this summer.

“That deficit spending is only possible while we have reserves and the very significant challenge that we’re facing as a district is that those reserves are being depleted very quickly,” said Saman Bravo-Karimi, the district's chief financial officer. “They’re eventually going to go negative and we can’t have negative balances as a school district.”

How is enrollment changing? 

Almost 4% fewer students are attending LAUSD schools this academic year compared to last year, according to preliminary data — nearly a percentage point lower than expected.

Bravo-Karimi said that each 1% drop in enrollment is a loss of about $20 million a year for the next three years because California funds schools based on how many students show up to class each day.

Fewer students have attended LAUSD schools over the last two decades, in part because of falling birth rates and the region’s high cost of living, but those declines were steeper than anticipated in recent years.

Board member Kelly Gonez said the schools in East San Fernando Valley communities targeted by federal agents have double the enrollment declines of other campuses.

“That increase in enrollment decline last school year was not a coincidence,” Gonez said. “Something changed … that is the presence of a federal administration that is attacking our immigrant communities.”

How is LAUSD approaching school closures?

The district pulled a scheduled vote Monday night on a $960,000 contract with a school closure consultant.

The district planned to work with Alvarez and Marsal to develop a framework for possible school closures, mergers or reconfigurations.

The firm’s priorities, as described on their website, include “maximizing investment value in education” and reshaping how institutions operate.

Alvarez and Marsal are also associated with several controversial decisions, including closing more than a dozen campuses during an overhaul of St. Louis schools in 2003 and faltering when contracted to restructure New York City schools' bus routes in 2007.

Several members of the public and a leader in the district’s teachers union spoke out against the contract and any similar future consultants.

“It’s hard for us to seriously work with this district to fight for more state funding when you squander limited funds you have on contracts with vultures and privatizers like the Alvarez company,” said Julie Van Winkle, United Teachers Los Angeles vice president.

Chait said the decision to remove the contract from consideration was in response to messages from school, community and district stakeholders over the weekend.

“One of the core leadership principles that I’ve always really tried to live by is to listen to folks, especially when they disagree,” Chait said.

Chait said the district needs external support to convene community meetings and compile and analyze data.

“This is arguably the most complex, the most difficult endeavor we will ever take on,” Chait said of school consolidations. “It will reset the footprint of our district for years to come.”

Chait said the district will begin holding community conversations related to school closures in the next few weeks and will share more details during a Sept. 22 meeting.

How did LAUSD’s budget become so strained?

The district’s current $20.6 billion budget projects a $2 billion deficit.

LAUSD approved raises for teachers, principals and support staff earlier this year at the cost of an additional $1 billion this school year. LAUSD, like other districts in the state, also faces increased costs for employee health care, settlements for decades-old sexual assault claims and services for students with disabilities,

L.A. County education officials approved the district’s most recent budget Tuesday on the condition that LAUSD provide additional information about how it is implementing cuts this school year.

However, L.A. County Superintendent Debra Duardo also called out the district's “unsustainable” use of reserves.

“The district’s fiscal status necessitates continued monitoring for both immediate and future corrective actions,” Duardo wrote in a letter to district leadership, referencing the July appointment of a fiscal expert to advise the district.

LAUSD’s board has approved a series of plans to reduce spending and increase revenue. For example, the district eliminated hundreds of jobs, primarily in its administrative offices, earlier this year.

The district’s most recent fiscal stabilization plan includes furlough days for all employees, the elimination of thousands of jobs and cuts to programs that help high-needs schools pay for counselors, tutors and other student supports.

Most of these cuts aren’t scheduled to go into effect until the 2027-28 and 2028-29 school years.

The leader of a congressional panel warned Tuesday he would use “every tool” to get Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to testify after she skipped a hearing that put L.A.’s homeless services system in the hot seat.

It came as multiple audits, reviews and court rulings have found L.A. has failed to ensure proper tracking of large-scale spending on homeless services — particularly through the joint city-county L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. Much of the money is federal dollars authorized by Congress.

Bass had declined to testify at Tuesday’s hearing, saying she was unavailable and that it would be a “politically motivated” attack. Her public schedule showed she planned to attend a groundbreaking of a shopping and community center in the Pacific Palisades two hours after the hearing was set to start.

Rep. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee's DOGE subcommittee, said she won't get off that easily.

Bass "seems intent on evading accountability, but she knows we will not let her off the hook," Burchett said at the hearing. He added that he and the Oversight Committee’s chair would "use every tool at our disposal to secure her appearance if she does not cooperate.”

House committees and subcommittees can issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify or provide documents.

Just before the hearing got underway, Bass called it "the latest attack on Los Angeles by the Trump Administration and his allies in Congress.”

"I don't run LAHSA," she said, adding that she was the first mayor to sit on its board and that street homelessness has dropped since she took office. The latest official count for the city showed a 8% year to year jump in street homelessness.

Bass stepped off LAHSA’s governing commission last week, after LAist reported she had missed most of its meetings since she appointed herself to it in 2023. The mayor cited “time and all” as her reason for stepping down. She continues to appoint — and has the power to remove — half the commission’s members, including its current chair.

What happened at the hearing

Much of the hour-and-a-half hearing focused on Republican members’ criticism that Democrat-led cities distribute drug paraphernalia and don’t require unhoused people with addictions to get treatment as a condition of living in publicly funded housing.

Some proposals raised Tuesday would change how money reaches Los Angeles.

Burchett said he will introduce the Recovery First Housing Act, to require federally funded housing to offer substance abuse treatment. He has also introduced a bill restricting federal housing dollars to only support U.S. citizens.

LA's fights on a national stage

Burchett noted LAHSA’s audit committee chair, Justin Szlasa — who was proactive in rooting out wasteful spending — was demoted by Stephanie Graves, a Bass appointee who has declined to give her reason for doing so. The move was first reported by LAist.

Burchett also made claims that don’t hold up. He said 50,000 people are homeless in the city with "another 75,000" in the surrounding county. The latest official count found a total of 73,000 unhoused people across L.A. County — a figure that includes the city.

Burchett also said, “ LAHSA recently doled out funds to an L.A.-area nonprofit whose CEO had just been indicted for fraud.” LAist recently investigated LAHSA’s awarding of funds to that nonprofit, Abundant Blessings, and found no indication that LAHSA awarded it any funds after the fraud indictment. However, the review did find that long before the indictment, LAHSA kept awarding millions in contracts to the group even after it was flagged internally as high-risk for failing to do its job.

Burchett, however, was correct in saying “a court-ordered independent assessment of LAHSA's finances found alarming financial control weaknesses that leave the door open to rampant fraud.”