The Brief

Despite concerns about growing costs at the cash register, a majority of voters in Los Angeles County have opted to increase a sales tax that funds homelessness response efforts.

The Yes on Measure A claimed victory Wednesday afternoon with with nearly 56% of the vote. The initiative will turn a current quarter-cent sales tax in L.A. County into a half-cent tax, raising an estimated $1.1 billion per year for homeless services and affordable housing development.

Elise Buik, president of the United Way of Greater L.A., said in a written statement: “L.A. County voters have clearly said they want to go forward, not backwards, and the way to do that is to increase investment in homelessness prevention and housing affordability."

L.A. voters have continuously ranked homelessness as a top concern in recent elections. Advocates for the unhoused have seen boosted funding under Measure A as crucial for helping county elected leaders and city officials like L.A. Mayor Karen Bass in their efforts to reduce homelessness.

The measure needed a simple majority (50% + 1) to pass.

A critical vote for homeless service system

For local homeless services providers, Measure A's passage will keep funds flowing to get unhoused Angelenos into shelters and connect them with help finding permanent housing. Proponents also said the measure will put more money toward preventing homelessness through rent relief programs and eviction defense aid, as well as subsidizing new low-income housing developments.

In the lead up to election day, county officials said the existing quarter-cent sales tax helped place more than 42,000 people into permanent housing, and more than 80,000 into interim housing. But that tax had a built-in sunset date of 2027.

If L.A. voters had rejected Measure A, homeless service providers said, an estimated 57,000 people would have lost housing subsidies and services.

Opponents pledge to track increased spending 

Opponents of Measure A argued the county couldn’t be trusted to effectively spend more homelessness funds after L.A.’s unhoused population rose 37% since voters first established the quarter-cent sales tax with Measure H in 2017.

Paul Webster, executive director of the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, endorsed a no vote on Measure A due to what he sees as a lack of accountability on local spending. But he said he wasn’t surprised to see L.A. voters favoring increased funding.

“I totally understand how this could pass, because of the desperation on the streets of residents and businesses and even people experiencing homelessness,” Webster said. “Everybody wants to see the same solutions, but we know that there are just real challenges to how these solutions get brought out, and how effective some of these programs are.”

The L.A. Alliance won a legal settlement with the city and county of L.A. to provide more shelter and treatment beds for unhoused people. The case has also led to an ongoing audit of local government spending on homelessness. With Measure A's passage, Webster said, his organization will continue its focus on holding L.A.’s homeless services system accountable for results from the boost in funding.

A week after a damaged tank of toxic chemicals in Garden Grove forced nearly 50,000 evacuations, the immediate emergency is over. But residents who returned home have questions about what's next.

Officials lifted all evacuation orders Tuesday after averting what could have been a catastrophic explosion at GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove, which manufactures windows for military and civilian aircraft.

Now, many in Orange County are demanding answers about what went wrong, what cleanup will look like and how to make sure it never happens again. (And here's how you can find out if there is a facility like the Garden Grove chemical tank near you.)

Clamoring for accountability

At a tense public meeting in Garden Grove this week, residents raised concerns about emergency communication breakdowns, disaster price-gouging and the potential ongoing dangers of living near the GKN facility and those like it.

Dozens of plaintiffs have already filed at least seven lawsuits against GKN Aerospace over the debacle, the Orange County Register reported.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office has launched an investigation into the incident and set up an anonymous tip line.

Meanwhile, several left-wing activist groups are demanding the permanent shutdown of GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove. The activists, including representatives from Palestinian Youth Movement and Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice, cite the recent disaster alongside the company’s role as a subcontractor manufacturing parts for fighter jets.

The city of Garden Grove has reported at least $728,000 in preliminary costs to the Orange County Fire Authority related to the GKN incident, Garden Grove public information officer Jonathan Garcia told LAist.

That doesn’t include the cost of water used at the incident scene, vehicle- and equipment-related expenses, or materials and supplies purchases, he said.

The city is also seeking a declaration from the federal government to help small businesses impacted by the incident get disaster loans.

Water is sprayed on the tanks at a GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove in a bid to reduce the heat and pressure building up inside.

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Kayla Bartkowski

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How we got here

Late last week, an industrial tank containing a flammable toxic substance called methyl methacrylate overheated at the aerospace facility and began leaking dangerous vapors.

The leak was caused by a failed cooling valve on the tank, authorities said. That triggered the tank’s pressure-relief value and spiked the chemical’s temperature to dangerous levels.

An Orange County Fire Authority spokesperson told LAist that the first word of something amiss came from GKN, which notified authorities of the lead at 3:22 p.m. May 21. The next day, authorities announced it was a near certainty the damaged tank would either explode or crack and spill thousands of gallons of pollutants into the area.

This led to immediate evacuation orders, blocked-off streets and traffic jams.

A week later, authorities say they’d avoided disaster by injecting a neutralizing or inhibiting agent into a crack in the tank, turning the volatile liquid into a stable gel.

The temperature in the tank remains stable around 90 degrees, authorities said Thursday. There is no chemical leak, threat of fire or risk to the public, authorities said. OC Fire reduced the “safety zone” around the tank to 150 feet this morning.

Now, the Orange County Health Care Agency hazardous materials team, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and GKN Aerospace are responsible for any removal and cleanup plans.

Next steps

Orange County Health and South Coast AQMD did not immediately respond to questions about next steps but said any plan will be developed along with GKN Aerospace and that more details would be available soon.

The company did not respond Thursday but told LAist in a statement last week it would “continue working alongside them and community partners as recovery efforts move forward.”

Water and air monitors have not detected any dangerous levels of pollutants around the site, according to local and federal authorities.

A spokesperson for the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency told LAist on Thursday it is working closely with South Coast AQMD on a "cleanup and removal" plan and will provide technical advisory support as needed.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Boxing has never just been about throwing punches for Daysi Garcia.

“When people say boxing saves lives, we don’t mean that superficially,” Garcia said, a Pico Union native and boxing coach at gang intervention programs across Los Angeles. “We literally see boxing save people’s lives.”

That belief has become visible in young people like Elijah Rivera. The teen’s father Daniel Lopez said his son was able to avoid returning to juvenile hall after Garcia advocated for him in court and connected him to her boxing program.

“She showed up on his behalf as a third-party program,” Lopez said. “That ultimately helped him with his case. She really does dive deep into these kids and gets real personal with them. She cares about all aspects of their lives. It’s not just in boxing.”

Lopez said his son, now 17, was able to complete probation while participating in the program.

“It was a real good diversion for him to be able to focus on boxing instead of the streets,” Lopez said. “He was able to ultimately turn his life around.”

For Garcia, stories like Elijah’s reflect the kind of impact she hoped she could have through boxing. Over the last several years, Garcia has helped young people across Lincoln Heights and Echo Park build confidence through boxing and mentorship in gang intervention programs. And now she’s also back in Pico Union coaching at the Graff Lab, in the same gym where she once trained herself.

“If my neighborhood didn’t invest in me, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” Garcia said. “So being able to pay it forward is a big deal for me.”

The 35-year-old started the program because she saw firsthand the impact boxing had on her own life.

Born and raised in Pico Union to Mexican immigrant parents, Garcia said she first discovered boxing around age 20 through a gang intervention program connected to the University of Southern California boxing team. At the time, she said she was struggling to find direction in her life.

“It worked for me,” Garcia said. “Training in a neighborhood gym alongside collegiate boxers helped put me on a pathway back to college.”

Six months later, Garcia said she found herself in college. She eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount Saint Mary’s University and years later enrolled at Southwestern Law School, where she completed her first year of law school before taking time off during the pandemic.

It was during that break that Garcia began working at PUC Excel Charter Academy, a charter school in Lincoln Heights, where students were barred from playing traditional sports because of COVID-19 restrictions. Garcia proposed creating a boxing fundamentals program as a way to keep students engaged after school and off the streets.

Within the first week, between 20 and 30 students signed up.

“Five, six years later, those students are still with me training,” Garcia said.

Garcia first launched the boxing program in Lincoln Heights during the height of the pandemic. The program later expanded to El Centro del Pueblo in Echo Park and eventually it will also be held at the Graff Lab in Pico Union. 

For Silvia Martinez, an 18-year-old immigrant from Michoacán, Mexico, joining the boxing program in Echo Park was a way to build discipline.

“I’m working on that because in the future I want to go into the army,” Martinez said in Spanish. “The first few times I started boxing, I was scared of getting hit, but now it feels normal to me. I like it because Daysi and the other coaches make you feel safe and supported.”

Garcia’s programs now offer mentorship, literacy support through a boxing-themed book club, court support for young people involved in the juvenile justice system, college guidance, emotional support and conversations around the school-to-prison pipeline and students’ rights.

Garcia said she and members of the boxing team often show up to court hearings to advocate for students like Rivera and demonstrate to judges that they have community support systems behind them.

“I started my boxing program to help students get off the streets and get students out of juvenile hall,” Garcia said. “I really want to finish my law degree because I’m passionate about juvenile justice.”

Garcia was recognized for her work this week at Los Angeles City Hall by Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, an honor she said felt emotional because many of her students were standing beside her during the recognition.

“When people celebrate me, it’s not just me,” Garcia said. “I want my students to know they deserve to be celebrated this way too.”

Garcia also played a role in the creation of the inaugural World Boxing Council collegiate amateur belt with the USC boxing team. Now collegiate boxers can compete for a WBC-recognized title. Garcia also said students in the program have received scholarships through the Los Angeles Collegiate Boxing Scholarship initiative she created.

For grandparents like Marcela Sanchez, even though her grandchildren aren’t competing in boxing, she’s also seen how the program has affected them positively. 

Sanchez said she saw changes in two of her grandchildren after they joined Garcia’s boxing classes and other youth activities connected to the program, including art, sewing and tutoring programs.

“They talk more, they understand more, they listen more. Their behavior is way different now from the beginning,” Sanchez said.

Garcia said one of the biggest misconceptions about her work is that the hardest part is dealing with students or the courts. In reality, she said, the biggest challenges are often securing funding, transportation and safe spaces for youth.

Still, Garcia said she continues to push students with a disciplined but trauma-informed coaching style that she believes helps them build resilience.

“We’re all in this together, we want to see our students succeed,” she said. “And we want to see more boxing gyms in L.A.”

Brad Thomas has been up since 6 a.m. on a Sunday — farmer's market first, then prep. By 2 p.m., he's back at the craftsman on 7th and Cherry, the home of his business partner, Clay Wood. The tablecloths go down. The gold cutlery comes out. By 6 p.m., the first of two seatings will fill the living room and front yard — 32 people across the night, all for a six-course dinner at $69 a head: hanger steak, crispy frites, a rotating dessert spread, much of it prepared over open flame in the backyard of the old craftsman.

This is Steak Freaks, and it is exactly the kind of food business that Long Beach just made legal.

Earlier this month, Long Beach became the 19th jurisdiction in California to authorize Micro-Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations — or MEHKOs — joining Riverside County and L.A. County and a growing statewide movement reshaping who can afford to start a food business.

What makes Long Beach different is that it's allowing renters to run these businesses from their homes. (Wood's house, for example, is a rental). In a city where 60% of residents rent and more than half of those renters are cost-burdened, these home kitchens aren't just a creative outlet. For many, they're an economic lifeline. And for those who find success, the program's own limits may push them toward the next step faster than they planned.

Guests dig into the hanger steak frites course during a Sunday dinner at Steak Freaks in Long Beach. The supper club seats 32 people across two seatings and has sold out every dinner since opening.

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Who's behind them

Prior to AB 626, the informal economy long existed in immigrant communities where neighbors sold plates, fed the block and cooked for whoever showed up. That changed in 2018 when the bill passed and gave it a legal pathway and a social media following.

A screenshot from CookConnect, the COOK Alliance's map of permitted MEHKO operators across California, shows the concentration of home kitchen businesses across Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

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According to the COOK Alliance, the nonprofit at the forefront of MEHKO adoption statewide, 79% of operators are people of color and 70% are women. The home-based model removes barriers that have historically kept certain communities out of the food business — no need for a commercial kitchen, massive upfront capital, or to be in two places at once.

Geraldine Gonzales works the wok at Lomo Fuego, where lomo saltado is cooked over an open flame in the backyard.

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It’s worked for Heidi Randolph, who didn't set out to run a restaurant. A couple of years ago, she was selling plates of Peruvian food to soccer players at Lakewood parks on weekends.

I visited Lomo Fuego in March and found families pulling up chairs, her brother working the wok over open flame and her mother pitching in between shifts at her day job. It's started with a handwritten chalkboard and a MEHKO permit posted to a bulletin board that Randolph had to find herself after the city told her it was impossible. What's changed since then tells you everything about both the promise and the limits of the program.

The hanger steak frites at Steak Freaks are finished tableside with a kitchen torch. The six-course dinner runs $69 a head out of a rental home in Long Beach.

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Brad Thomas of Steak Freaks came to it differently. A pastry chef who spent years alongside teams trained by Thomas Keller, Nancy Silverton, and Josiah Citrin, he moved to Long Beach from Texas three years ago and started leaving anonymous pastry deliveries on doorsteps across the city — Lover Boy Provisions, with a flirty note attached.

That's how he met Clay Wood, who owns Clayonfirst pottery studio in the East Village Arts District. When Long Beach passed its MEHKO ordinance, Steak Freaks was born. Every dinner has sold out.

The Steak Freaks menu and a welcome note from collaborating poet Vic Hurtado of Vessel Poetics, set out before service at the Long Beach supper club.

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LAist

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The landlord question

The council's vote this past April came down to one sticking point: should operators who rent be required to notify their landlord? Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, who pushed the motion forward, believed that notification should be voluntary. The COOK Alliance's Roya Bagheri backed that position for a practical reason — even informal landlord approval can evaporate once paperwork gets involved.

Wood's situation says it plainly: his landlord is a former neighbor who follows Steak Freaks on Instagram. No formal conversation has happened. "I make pottery here," Wood said, "and the stuff I do for my pottery business is way crazier than a couple of steaks in the backyard."

The ceiling

When I revisited Lomo Fuego recently, a sign outside announced scaled-back hours — two days a week, down from four. After a neighbor complained, the county health inspector paid a visit and told Randolph she was approaching the annual revenue cap of $110,442 in gross annual sales (a figure adjusted every year for inflation by the California Department of Public Health).

To stay under the cap, she’s opening only on weekends for the near future.

Heidi Randolph with her mother Fritz and brother Luis at Lomo Fuego, the Peruvian restaurant she runs out of her Lakewood home. Randolph is now scouting restaurant locations and pursuing an additional permit to sell at farmers markets.

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LAist

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Randolph took the health department visit as a sign to move forward. She's actively scouting restaurant locations, and her daughter left her job at a local restaurant to cook alongside her full-time.

Randolph didn't see any of this coming — from the park to the backyard to her daughter cooking beside her, her mother finally getting a day off. The program did exactly what it was supposed to do. She just needs a bigger kitchen now.

"I hope in the future," she said, "people can say — this still tastes like food from home."