Volunteers prepare for sleeping arrangements at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on June 26, 2023. The community kitchen sleeps on average 200 clients.
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Chris Stokes
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CalMatters
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Topline:
It’s a common question as one walks past the sprawling tent camps that line the streets of so many neighborhoods in California: Why can’t we build a place for all these people to go?
The backstory: Haven for Hope, a 22-acre, 1,600-person shelter in San Antonio addresses the homelessness crisis at a scale that’s unheard of in California. The facility serves 85% of the city’s total homeless population. It virtually guarantees that anybody who wants to sleep indoors, can, while accessing a plethora of on-site social services.
Why it matters: The model has fans in California. They say it can be recreated here to ease the suffering of people who have no other option but to sleep on the street – and to lessen the burden large homeless camps place on surrounding communities.
Possible issues:
Haven for Hope’s most robust program requires participants to be sober, for example, contradicting the prevailing belief in California that everyone should be offered housing before addressing their addictions and other issues.
Conditions at the San Antonio shelter are crowded, too, with 80 bunk beds in a room, or a few hundred mats inches apart on the floor. California has plenty of those types of shelters, too. But increasingly, officials and nonprofits here are using hotels, tiny homes and other facilities that hold fewer people but give residents a private space with a locking door.
The San Antonio shelter comes from conservative roots.
Should officials prioritize emergency shelters that get people out of dismal encampments quickly, or long-term housing that takes years and piles of money to build?
It’s a common question as one walks past the sprawling tent camps that line the streets of so many neighborhoods in California: Why can’t we build a place for all these people to go?
Haven for Hope, a 22-acre, 1,600-person shelter in San Antonio addresses the homelessness crisis at a scale that’s unheard of in California. The facility serves 85% of the city’s total homeless population. It virtually guarantees that anybody who wants to sleep indoors, can, while accessing a plethora of on-site social services.
The model has fans in California. They say it can be recreated here to ease the suffering of people who have no other option but to sleep on the street – and to lessen the burden large homeless camps place on surrounding communities.
Residential buildings on the campus of Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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“Haven for Hope has not solved homelessness in San Antonio,” said Sacramento County Supervisor Rich Desmond, who visited the campus in 2021 and tried to incorporate parts of the model into programs in his own district. “But they have certainly done a much better job, I think, than most places in California.”
Scrambling for new solutions to a seemingly intractable problem, a handful of California politicians and nonprofit groups support replicating Haven for Hope (or at least copying pieces of it) here. A Placer County group recently pushed for a San Antonio-inspired project outside of Rocklin in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and a grassroots Sacramento group is trying to rally support and funding for a similar concept.
But some homelessness experts throughout the country are critical of the San Antonio model. In several ways, it would mark a shift away from some of California’s widely accepted best practices. Haven for Hope’s most robust program requires participants to be sober, for example, contradicting the prevailing belief in California that everyone should be offered housing before addressing their addictions and other issues.
Conditions at the San Antonio shelter are crowded, too, with 80 bunk beds in a room, or a few hundred mats inches apart on the floor. California has plenty of those types of shelters, too. But increasingly, officials and nonprofits here are using hotels, tiny homes and other facilities that hold fewer people but give residents a private space with a locking door.
Another red flag for Californians: The San Antonio shelter comes from conservative roots. It originally was bankrolled by Bill Greehey, founding CEO of Valero Energy Corporation and financial supporter of former President Donald Trump. Its first CEO, Robert Marbut Jr., went on to head Trump’s U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Under Marbut, clients had to start off sleeping on mats in an open-air courtyard and could be rewarded with beds, better food and access to more services if they showed good behavior.
Marbut left Haven for Hope more than a decade ago, and the shelter’s current leadership says the program has changed “night and day” since then – there is no more open-air sleeping, for example. But Marbut’s policies created lasting impressions that shape how other homeless providers view the site.
Left: Mattresses provided each night to folks experiencing homelessness are cleaned and stored during the day at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023. Right: People experiencing homelessness eat lunch in the dining hall at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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“Taking this kind of judgemental, punitive, paternalistic approach doesn’t actually make sense or work for a lot of people,” Eric Tars, legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center, said of Haven for Hope.
Haven for Hope also poses a fundamental question for California and every other state struggling with homelessness: Should officials prioritize emergency shelters that get people out of dismal encampments quickly, or long-term housing that takes years and piles of money to build?
The trade-offs are clear. Haven for Hope succeeds in pulling many people off the streets, but it hasn’t done as well when it comes to connecting those people with permanent housing.
Of the more than 7,000 people Haven for Hope served last year, just 15% moved into permanent housing.
One-stop shop at homeless shelter
An aerial view of the Haven for Hope campus in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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Aside from its sheer size, what draws Californians to Haven for Hope is the shelter’s all-inclusive model. The campus has medical, dental and eye-care clinics, a hair salon, a free clothing store, childcare and counseling services, as well as offices with staff who can help clients get a new ID, find housing, get a job or secure disability benefits, and more.
The idea is to make the labor-intensive, bureaucratic process of getting back on their feet as smooth as possible. Instead of trekking all over town to appointments at various departments – a challenging task for someone without a car – clients can do everything in one place.
For people who need extra help, there’s a facility with mental health crisis, detox and addiction recovery beds across the street.
Paul Anthony, 51, has been staying at the San Antonio shelter off-and-on for five months, sleeping on a top bunk in a dorm with 20 men. Before that, Anthony, who’d had trouble landing a job after a stint in jail for a felony charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, had slept in the woods, in a storage unit and on a piece of cardboard downtown. Since moving into Haven for Hope, the facility’s strict rules helped him stay sober, he said, and he’s landed two jobs – working in a factory and delivering pizza for Domino’s.
“One of the things I’m most grateful for is it does take you off the street,” he said. “It gives you a safe place to think through what it is you want to do.”
Free haircuts are provided to folks experiencing homelessness at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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David Hanna, a 52-year-old Navy veteran, slept on a mat on the floor of Haven before moving to a bunk bed in a room shared with 80 men.
“At least I’m safe in there, for the most part,” he said. “It’s a place to sleep.”
When interviewed by a reporter in May, he finally had landed a one-bedroom apartment he could afford with his disability payments, and was set to move in later that week.
‘Not fit for a dog’
Haven prides itself on accepting everyone – even sleeping people in its offices and chapel when other spaces get full – but the large campus model has its drawbacks. The shelter operates far above its intended capacity. While some people get bunk beds, hundreds also sleep on mats on the floor of the cafeteria. The mats are so close together, that one man said he rolled into his neighbor in the middle of the night, nearly causing a fight. Another man said he woke up to find someone vomiting on him.
James Killen, a 68-year-old retired truck driver and Army veteran, said he can’t stand being there. But he has nowhere else to go.
“It’s not fit for a dog in here,” said Killen, who had been sleeping at Haven for Hope for three weeks. His identification was recently stolen, which led to a delay accessing his Social Security payments and meant he couldn’t pay the rent on his apartment. “This place is dirty. It’s filthy. It’s nasty. They treat you like cattle.”
David Huete, Vice President of Transformational Services at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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Sleeping conditions can be “very close and cramped,” admitted David Huete, Haven for Hope’s vice president of transformational services. “But the alternative,” he said, “is that people who are vulnerable – people who are mentally vulnerable, people who are physically vulnerable, aged populations – those individuals would be sleeping on the street and would be preyed upon.”
Not everyone sleeps on the floor. Haven has two programs with different amenities and requirements.
One accepts anyone, regardless of their substance use. It includes 200 bunk beds and nearly 500 floor mats.
HOMELESSNESS FAQ
How did we get here? Who’s in charge of what? And where can people get help?
The other, called the “transformational campus,” provides bunk beds to those lucky enough to get a spot, and requires clients to submit to regular drug and breathalyzer tests, and work with staff on a plan to get permanent housing and an income.
Huete said Haven for Hope requires sobriety because children and recovering addicts live in that part of campus. But critics say that setup flies in the face of the “housing first” model – which advocates eliminating barriers to housing – that is widely adopted throughout California and at the federal level. The notion is so ubiquitous in California, that programs that don’t follow it cannot receive state funding.
“Everyone’s deserving of that dignity and access to services and assistance,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “and adding unnecessary requirements and thresholds for people to meet just adds bureaucracy and stumbling blocks and makes it harder for us to move people out of homelessness.”
But Nick Golling, director of homeless services for the city of Sacramento, thinks a lot of aspects of Haven for Hope work well. For one, he supports giving people a sober-living option.
“If you see (drug use) and cannot get away from that, it can be difficult to maintain that type of sobriety if that’s where you’re at in your journey,” he said. “I do see that as a gap in services as far as I’m concerned.”
Could Haven for Hope take off in California?
Haven for Hope provides a wide range of services to folks experiencing homelessness in San Antonio, Texas. Free childcare services are provided by the YMCA to residents of Haven for Hope.
“It’s such a fabulous, fabulous program,” said Hope for Sacramento board member Nola Boyer, a retired physical education teacher who visited the San Antonio site last year. “And we just see it as such a translatable project here in California.”
The group holds information sessions to teach the local community about Haven, meets with politicians and woos donors. But so far, they’ve managed to raise only a few thousand dollars.
The idea made it a little further in Placer County last year, where nonprofit The Gathering Inn found a 17-acre site for its proposed “Campus of Hope.” The project on the outskirts of Rocklin would have included 50 no-barrier shelter beds, about 175 shelter beds with a sobriety requirement and 240 units of permanent housing made out of shipping containers. Combined with the area’s existing resources, it would have been enough to shelter all of the county’s 750 homeless residents, said Keith Diederich, president and CEO of The Gathering Inn.
Paul Anthony, age 51, prepares for an upcoming job interview by receiving a free haircut at Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas on May 10, 2023.
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Jordan Vonderhaar
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CalMatters
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But the project ran into pushback from neighbors and couldn’t get the buy-in it needed from county supervisors. It didn’t even make it to a vote, Diederich said.
“When it comes to actually siting a program,” he said, “a lot of times people who want to do something about homelessness don’t want it near them.”
The painting, “Grandmother’s House,” from Leo Politi’s book, "Bunker Hill: Reminiscences of Bygone Days".
Topline:
A family whose Bunker Hill home was razed to make way for redevelopment of downtown L.A. in the 1950s and 1960s recently saw drawings of their home painted by Caldecott-winning artist Leo Politi.
The backstory: In the 1960s, Politi painted the historic Bunker Hill neighborhood. Thousands of people were forced by eminent domain to relocate for the modernization plan known as the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project.
What happened: The Bruce family was among the displaced. The family knew about the drawings from their cherished copy of a book by Politi. But they never saw the paintings in person, which are housed in the Central Library's Special Collections.
Read on ... to learn about their experience of seeing these drawings recently at the library.
Vicki Gonzalez and her family gathered at Central Library in downtown Los Angeles in September — blocks from where they lived more than half a century ago — to see their lives on Bunker Hill portrayed by a famous painter they called “Mr. Politi.”
In the 1960s, Caldecott-winning artist Leo Politi painted the historic Bunker Hill neighborhood. Thousands of people were forced by eminent domain to relocate for the modernization plan known as the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project. Politi, who had once lived there himself, took it upon himself to sketch, then paint, some of the houses that were soon to be demolished.
“I saw these beautiful mansions being torn down,” Politi told an interviewer at KCET in 1987, “and I says, ‘I just got to start drawing them and recording them,’ so I did a lot of studies up there, and when I finished, I did the book.”
"The Veranda" by Leo Politi in "Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days". The drawing features Ruby and Julie.
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A scan from the book.
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In 1964, he published a selection of what he captured in a book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days. The beloved childhood home of Vicki and her family was featured in those paintings.
Watching Mr. Politi at work
Vicki, her sister Ruby Besing, and their cousin Julie Lendt remember playing outside the house they all lived in at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue and watching Politi sketch.
They didn’t know then that the friendly man with an easel and paints was a lauded artist. When they saw the finished product, they were thrilled to find that Politi called them “the last children on Bunker Hill.”
Photo taken in 1960 of 221 S. Bunker Hill Ave., where the Bruce family lived.
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Historic American Buildings Survey
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Courtesy Library of Congress
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How Politi's art ended up at the library
In 1965, after displaying some of Politi’s paintings from the book, Central Library acquired 44 of his sketches and drawings for $3,000. Though collecting art isn’t typically part of the library’s mandate, librarians deemed the pictures of the now-leveled neighborhood to be of important historical value.
Vicki and her family — who relocated to Echo Park after being forced to move — learned a few years ago that several of the artworks had been put on display in the library’s children’s section.
But the picture of their family home at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue wasn’t one of them. It was housed in the library’s Special Collections.
The Bruce family has had a copy of Leo Politi's book on Bunker Hill for decades.
A copy of Politi’s book signed to Vicki and Ruby’s family is a prized possession.
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Courtesy Ruby Besing
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How the Bruce family came to Bunker Hill
Though Politi refers to the house in the book as belonging to their grandmother, it actually belonged to Vicki’s parents, Byron and Vaden Bruce, who’d grown up poor in Kentucky and moved west in the mid-1940s to Los Angeles in search of a better life.
Byron’s aunt, a preacher named Stasia Mobley who ran a mission on Skid Row, married the couple in May 1946. They celebrated their wedding with a dinner at Clifton’s Cafeteria, a special treat that they indulged in on their anniversary each year after.
Vaden and Byron Bruce on their wedding day at Clifton’s Cafeteria in May 1946.
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Courtesy Ruby Besing
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Byron Bruce was a musician whose sight was limited. Since he couldn’t drive, Bunker Hill was the perfect launch point from which he could walk to the many bars and clubs that dotted the downtown landscape. He was also a smart businessperson who cobbled together the money to buy a few homes around the neighborhood, sliced into apartments, which he maintained for his tenants. Vaden worked for over 30 years in the administrative office at the Sears in Boyle Heights.
Vicki, Ruby and Julie all walked down the hill each day and through the 2nd Street tunnel to Fremont Elementary School.
Leaving Bunker Hill
As they played in the streets while Politi worked to capture them, they had no idea about the yearslong battle to level their neighborhood. The Bruces never troubled their children with the unfolding drama over its purchase by eminent domain. (Those who didn’t own their home — the majority of the people evicted from Bunker Hill — were forced out without any assistance.)
When they finally had to leave in the summer of 1963, their childhood on the hill became a cherished memory.
Vicki Rodriguez, Ruby Besing and Julie Lendt pose with a sketch they’d never seen from the Leo Politi Collection at Central Library
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Lisa Napoli
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LAist
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For 30 years now, Vicki, who lives with her husband in Tujunga, has been a longtime secretary of my neighbor on the modern Bunker Hill — directly across the street from where the Bruce family once lived.
When he told me about Vicki’s roots in the neighborhood, I helped her connect with the library.
What the family found in the library's collection
Ruby Besing, librarian Ani Boyadjian, Julie Lendt and Vicki Rodriguez.
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Lisa Napoli
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LAist
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In September, Vicki, Betsy, Julie, and Vicki’s son, Jeffrey, huddled around boxes of art as librarian Ani Boyadjian carefully opened the first. The very first piece she pulled out was one depicting their Bunker Hill Avenue home. But it wasn’t the picture Politi used in the book — it was another one that the family hadn’t known about.
Looking at paintings and sketches they didn’t know existed, these last children on Bunker Hill, now in their 60s and 70s, found themselves transported back in time to their beloved neighborhood — and flabbergasted to see how much attention Politi had paid them, even Ruby’s beloved childhood pet cat, Poncho.
“To our knowledge, there were only the two paintings in the book. And then at the library, we see there are something like 15 sketches and paintings, renderings of the house we’d never seen before,” Vicki said after the visit. “It blew me away. Seeing this artwork was a dream come true.”
The story continues
A few days after their visit, Vicki, Ruby and Julie returned to the library so that librarian Boyadjian could record their oral histories. Listen to what they told her here.
To learn how to access the Library’s special collections, visit this link.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published October 10, 2026 5:00 AM
The "Liu Nai" screening at Sh—ty Movie Club held at Clifton's.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Topline:
There's a new film club in town. Think burlesque, with a dose of Mystery Science Theater 3000, wrapped in a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight-screening vibe — and you’ve got Sh—ty Movie Club.
The backstory: Founder Shadie Elnashai calls his epic hangs “movie parties.” In Los Angeles, ticketed events started in late August at different venues like Clifton’s — all in celebration of films with a certain flavor.
Why now: Recently, the club held a screening of the viral Chinese animated film Liu Lai, a low-budget labor-of-love that grossed more than $90 million in China. Pre-show programming included a cow striptease.
Read on ... to get a feel of what these screenings are all about.
There's a new film club in town. Think burlesque, with a dose of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the vibe of a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening — and you’ve got Sh—ty Movie Club.
Kinda.
Founder Shadie Elnashai calls his epic hangs “movie parties.” They began as get-togethers among friends in 2019, where drinking games or movie bingo are part of the experience. Since then, screenings have been held in Cairo, Tokyo and Sydney. In Los Angeles, ticketed events started in late August at venues like Clifton’s — all in celebration of films with a certain flavor.
"Sh—ty movie to me is awesome. It's entertaining, it's earnest, it's genuine."
— Shadie Elnashai, club founder
Gems like The Apple, the over-the-top sci-fi biblical musical from 1980 where an evil music label controls the world — in the futuristic year 1994.
Or Ninja Terminator, a Hong Kong martial arts flick that its director stitched together using original footage and those from another existing film. No one at his screening, Elnashai said, was any the wiser, until he stopped the movie midway and told them.
"We actually don't use the word 'bad'. Sh—ty movie to me is awesome. It's entertaining, it's earnest, it's genuine," said Elnashai, who studied film in college. "Some people still hate it, don't get me wrong. "
Audience members showing off their "Niu Lai"-inspired outfits.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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What a Sh—ty Movie Club screening is like
I got a taste of that joy and reverence, along with some 200 people at Clifton’s in downtown L.A., at a recent screening of the viral Chinese animated film Liu Nai.
The coming-of-age tale of a baby cow was made by a mother and son with zero film or animation experience — and it looked it. Those very bush-league qualities helped it go viral. The film went on to gross $9 million at the Chinese box office against a budget of under $200.
A hand-drawn poster advertising the film "Niu Lai", which translates to "Here Comes the Cow", is seen at a cinema in Beijing on August 21, 2026.
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PEDRO PARDO
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Getty Images
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Before the movie: Posters, jokes and a cow striptease
I had read about the movie, but was never curious enough to try and see it, until I saw a social post for the screening.
At Sh—ty Movie Club, the film is the main course, with a full menu built around it. First comes a preshow that features a show-and-tell of homemade film posters by audience members (a nod to what happened in China), a call-out for bovine jokes, and, between gags, cow-related video clips (including a McDonald’s infomercial from Hong Kong) Elnashai compiled runs in the background. The indisputable climax belongs to the long, slow striptease by a woman dressed in a full cow costume.
“Each screening's a little different,” said Elnashai, whose day job is curating entertainment for private and corporate events, adding that he typically readies a few dozens assets — clips, jokes, gags — for each club screening. “There’s so much prep that goes into it.”
Founder Shadie Elnashai designed a drinking game specifically for the screening of the viral Chinese cow movie "Niu Lai."
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Talking back to the screen is encouraged
The Chinese viral cow movie itself is screened from a bootleg probably taped inside a movie theater (the film isn't in U.S. theaters or on streamers) — with jagged angles and a Chinese QR code that ricochets across to boot. Somehow, it all feels very on point.
Audiences are encouraged to talk at the movie, to chant “rewind” for an instant replay, and to abandon themselves to the film — odd but uniquely singular in its aesthetics — in the good-natured company of so many others.
“There's no rule book,” Elnashai said of many of the films screened at the club. “Each one is completely, beautifully different. Experiencing that all together is so fun for me to watch.”
Sh—ty Movie Clubscreenings Where: Clifton's DTLA, 648 S. Broadway, Los Angeles
Niu Lai Mandarin with English subtitles When: Sunday, Oct. 11, starting at 1 p.m. Free, but purchase of a drink token is required for entry
Halloween Horror with Diana Prince When: Thursday, Oct. 15; doors open at 7 p.m. $15, fees included
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Slim on details: The office said the plan includes adding a protected left-turn lane and protected bike lanes to the one-mile stretch of Forest Lawn Drive and maintains the roadway's four existing lanes. The mayor’s office did not respond to additional questions from LAist, including whether L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ plan will reduce speeding on the road, whether there’s a timeline for implementation and how soon the community will be informed about specifics.
What we know: A city official who spoke to LAist on the condition they not be named because they weren't authorized to speak on the record confirmed that the safety design approved by the mayor includes widening portions of the road.
Why it matters: The plan comes after years of controversy over how to make the one-mile stretch of the road near Griffith Park safer. Bass halted a plan to reduce lanes on the road earlier this year.
Read on ... for more about how the city is approaching safety on the busy road.
In a statement Friday to LAist, the mayor’s office said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ plan for the busy road near Griffith Park will “improve traffic, cycling and pedestrian safety, and keep traffic flowing."
The office said the plan includes adding a protected left-turn lane and protected bike lanes to the 1-mile stretch of Forest Lawn Drive and maintains the roadway's four existing lanes.
The mayor’s office did not respond to additional questions from LAist, including whether Bass’ plan will reduce speeding on the road, whether there’s a timeline for implementation and how soon the community will be informed about specifics.
A city official who spoke to LAist on condition they not be named because they weren't authorized to speak on the record confirmed that the safety design approved by the mayor includes widening portions of the road. Road widening was first proposed by a consultant for Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mortuaries.
Forest Lawn Memorial Parks operates a chain of cemeteries, including one in the Hollywood Hills that can only be accessed along Forest Lawn Drive. The company was a longtime opponent of a prior proposal to reduce lanes on the roadway that Bass halted in May.
Forest Lawn Memorial Parks worked to block that plan due to concerns that it would increase traffic congestion and impede access to its Hollywood Hills cemetery.
The exact price tag for Bass’ latest plan announced Friday is unclear.
City transportation department records obtained by LAist show a proposal to widen the road developed by a consultant for Forest Lawn Memorial Parks would cost nearly five times more than the plan to reduce lanes on Forest Lawn Drive.
City transportation staff said in an analysis that the consultant’s road widening plan would have “low” potential to slow speeding cars, according to the public records.
The L.A. Department of Transportation said in a statement that it is “coordinating with the Bureau of Engineering on advancing the Mayor's direction.”
The main goal of the Forest Lawn Drive Safety and Mobility project is to slow speeding cars on the road, and it also aims to protect bike lanes with plastic posts.
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Kavish Harjai / LAist
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Details of the original plan Bass halted in May
The proposal that almost went ahead before Bass halted it would have cut the number of lanes from four to three, transforming the road into two through-lanes and one center turn lane. The bumpy, cracked, pothole-ridden road would also have been resurfaced.
The goal was to slow cars and address the nearly 100 traffic collisions, including four deadly ones, the road has seen since 2013.
Brian Taylor, a research professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, told LAist that research on how so-called road diets improve safety is “unequivocal,” adding that there is a significant reduction in crashes and injuries when lanes are reduced.
The plan to reduce lanes came with a $618,000 price tag that would have covered the costs of repainting new lanes on the road and installing plastic posts to fortify the bike lanes. Those costs would have been covered through the city’s existing resources for road improvements,according to the city’s transportation department.
The road has become an issue in L.A.’s tight mayoral race
The future of Forest Lawn Drive has become a touchpoint in the L.A. mayor’s race, where Bass is facing L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district includes this portion of Forest Lawn Drive and whose office initiated the project in 2022.
At an August campaign event about Forest Lawn Drive, following a fatal collision on the road, Raman said one reason she’s running for mayor is so “lifesaving street safety improvements are not stymied and are not politicized.”
The road is the sole point of entry to two major cemeteries, the Hollywood Hills locations of Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mount Sinai Memorial Parks.
The cemeteries, neighborhood groups and state legislators opposed the lane reduction plan, citing concerns about traffic congestion, especially during funeral processions, and ease of access.
In a joint statement to LAist in August, the cemeteries praised Bass’ decision to find a new approach for the road, saying it “demonstrated responsive leadership and a willingness to get this right.” The cemeteries did not respond to LAist’s requests for a follow-up.
After the mayor paused the lane-reduction plan, the city delayed resurfacing Forest Lawn Drive.
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Kavish Harjai / LAist
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The one-mile stretch of road is covered with cracks, potholes and bumps.
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Kavish Harjai / LAist
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The state’s involvement
State legislators representing L.A. had pressed the mayor in a letter in April about the project, saying traffic lane reductions would be “disastrous to the operation of key cemeteries” in the area and calling for more review of alternatives.
In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that makes it more difficult to reduce lanes on Forest Lawn Drive.
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Streets for All, which has advocated for reducing Forest Lawn Drive from four lanes to three, said that the original plan for the road could still move forward if Raman becomes L.A.’s next mayor.
“We will get the extra bureaucratic hurdles done and get the project in the ground anyway under Mayor [Raman],” the transportation advocacy group said in September in an Instagram post, referring to the additional steps the state legislation signed by Newsom requires.
In September, Streets for All announced its political action committee is contributing $1.2 million to get Raman elected.
Ian Choudri, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, speaks during a special board meeting at the California Natural Resources Agency in Sacramento on Oct. 9, 2026
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Fred Greaves
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CalMatters
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Topline:
The board that oversees the California High-Speed Rail Authority voted Friday to rein in Chief Executive Ian Choudri's contracting authority following a state investigation that showed consultants billed the agency $600,000 in questionable travel expenses.
Why it matters: The board on Friday voted 7-2 to strip Choudri of his sole authority to sign and manage contracts under $25 million and to require the agency’s in-house attorneys to approve or change any new or existing contracts. The board already has to vote to award any contracts over that amount.
Why now: Investigators looked at travel expenses submitted by four consulting firms over a two-year period and found that most of the trips were unauthorized, poorly justified — at times at the agency’s top executives’ request — and that agency staff failed to sufficiently vet the requests before approving them. In some cases, agency staff didn’t even know about the trips until they received invoices.
What's next: In response to the investigation, the authority paused all travel payments to the four consulting firms in question and has started reviewing their claims and training staff, executives and consultants on travel policies, said the authority’s Chief Financial Officer Jamey Matalka.
The board that oversees the California High-Speed Rail Authority voted Friday to rein in Chief Executive Ian Choudri's contracting authority following a state investigation that showed consultants billed the agency $600,000 in questionable travel expenses.
The investigation by the office of inspector general for the high-speed rail project found that some consultants flew first class, hailed luxury rides and traveled to a night club, a cigar lounge and numerous restaurants, bars and residences, sometimes after hours, on taxpayers’ dime.
Investigators looked at travel expenses submitted by four consulting firms over a two-year period and found that most of the trips were unauthorized, poorly justified — at times at the agency’s top executives’ request — and that agency staff failed to sufficiently vet the requests before approving them. In some cases, agency staff didn’t even know about the trips until they received invoices.
The board on Friday voted 7-2 to strip Choudri of his sole authority to sign and manage contracts under $25 million and to require the agency’s in-house attorneys to approve or change any new or existing contracts. The board already has to vote to award any contracts over that amount.
Board chair Steve Kawa told reporters afterward that the decision “adds additional eyes and ears and authority” over issues exposed by the investigation.
“We are not just gonna sit back and ignore that we had this travel issue,” he said. “Not one dollar of California taxpayer dollars should be misused.”
“I am outraged that we would be treated like a piggy bank for these kinds of expenditures.”
Several board members slammed the consultants for the travel expenses. Lynn Schenk, who has served on the board since 2003, said the spending suggests a troubling pattern and deserves a deeper dive.
“I am outraged that we would be treated like a piggy bank for these kinds of expenditures,” she said during the board meeting. “And it says to me that there are other expenditures that are being treated this way.”
Board member Henry Perea suggested the travel payments are so egregious that the state should end its contract with the firms right away, something Gov. Gavin Newsom has also floated. However, Perea said he worried that doing so could set back the long-delayed rail project even further.
“I’d terminate these four [contracts] tomorrow or today, but I understand there’s a question of operational needs that we have with these folks,” he said.
But the board did not grill the authority’s top executives for failing to catch the behavior, even though the probe revealed that consultants told agency staff many times that they were traveling at the request of the agency’s top officers, including Choudri.
In response to the investigation, the authority paused all travel payments to the four consulting firms in question and has started reviewing their claims and training staff, executives and consultants on travel policies, said the authority’s Chief Financial Officer Jamey Matalka.
One legal consultant was paid $40,800 in travel reimbursements and an additional $86,500 in “travel time” for 30 trips between Denver and Sacramento in a year. When questioned about whether he needed to attend the meetings in person, he said Choudri had requested his presence so he did not need to justify it and that it would not be appropriate for him to question Choudri’s direction, “as other consultants in other Authority offices are learning the hard way.”
In response to the investigation, the authority paused all travel payments to the four consulting firms in question and has started reviewing their claims and training staff, executives and consultants on travel policies, said the authority’s Chief Financial Officer Jamey Matalka. The firms are: KPMG LLP, a global financial consulting firm; Nossaman LLP, a national law firm; AECOM-Fluor Joint Venture, which manages and coordinates the authority’s projects, and SYSTRA/TYPSA Joint Venture, which provides tracks and systems design.
The agency is seeking to recoup all questionable travel payments, he said Friday.
“We remain committed [and] we take full responsibility and accountability to fix if there was something broken in the system,” Choudri told the board.
Choudri also told board members that the agency has taken “disciplinary actions” against some consultants but did not clarify what they were. Choudri did not speak to reporters following the meeting.
Assembly Minority Leader Alexandra Macedo, a Visilia Republican, called for Choudri’s firing in a Thursday letter to the board. She accused him of demonstrating a “pattern of misuse of taxpayer dollars and abuse of public trust.”
“At a time when California families face unbearable financial pressures to cover essential household needs including rent, utilities and transportation, the routine approval of improper consultant expenses represents a severe breach of fiduciary responsibility,” she wrote.
‘They should all be here’
Of the four consulting firms investigated, only one sent representatives Friday.
Veronica Siranosian, an executive at AECOM-Fluor Joint Venture, told the board the company reviewed its travel invoices and found “no substantive departures from the established public processes.”
The inspector general’s investigation found nearly $380,000 in travel expenses by the company’s consultants that were not allowed under state regulations or the company’s contract with the state.
Nevertheless, another AECOM executive, Mike Burns, said the company has identified only about $1,000 in expenses it overbilled the state, including for an Uber ride, parking in a garage that charged a higher rate than surrounding buildings and a flight that was on an international carrier instead of an American airline.
Steve Kawa, chair of the board of directors of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, speaks during a special board meeting at the California Natural Resources Agency in Sacramento on Oct. 9, 2026
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Fred Greaves
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CalMatters
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In some cases, Burns stressed, the dollar difference was small. He said the company’s consultants once took an $86 Uber ride in an electric vehicle whereas the standard policy would require an $84 Uber X instead. “It was a $2 differentiation,” he said. “There’s some nominal incidences like that.”
Schenk gasped.
“Surely you are not saying that we are sitting here for these hours going through this … for a $2 difference,” she said. “And surely you will at least acknowledge that these instances show a disregard at the very least for state and high-speed rail requirements.”
“It’s gonna take a lot of $2 differences in Uber rides to get to the $380,000 that you guys billed the state of California,” said Vice Chair Anthony Williams.
Board member Emily Cohen slammed the consulting firms that did not appear Friday.
“They should all be here. Unbelievable.”
Authority to step up training, improve policy
Matalka said the authority would implement all the fixes the inspector general’s office recommended. He said the authority would, by the end of the year, create a new travel approval form requiring more details.
By the end of March, he said, it would establish a “consistent, uniform process” for advance travel approvals, ramp up training, create a list of approved office locations for consultants, recoup misspent state funding and use AI to flag travel requests that potentially violate policies.
But much of the steps seems like “basic oversight,” Schenk said. “Why weren’t we doing this at the outset?” she asked. “What is the root cause?”
Matalka said some questionable travel requests slipped through the cracks because staff did not review them deep enough.
“Training needs to be done so that we make sure you are not just looking at the labor hours, you are not just looking at the lodging rate,” he said. “You need to actually Google the address, look at the timestamp, look at some of the very small print on the fare class.”
The authority frequently approved expenses with vague justifications, such as “typical M-F week” trips, and approved travel at the request of executives without asking why. One consultant flew to California from Denver 20 times during the two-year period to “meet with the executive team” or attend executive meetings, without explaining why the meetings couldn’t have been remote, the investigation says.
The high-speed rail project is already long delayed and over its projected budget: In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to build a high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020 for an estimated $45 billion. The project is now estimated to cost between $126 billion and $231 billion, with a full buildout expected by 2040, according to the authority’s latest business plan. Current plans call for building a first leg linking Merced to Bakersfield.
