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.”
Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published September 17, 2026 7:05 PM
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman appear separately at a mayoral forum held Sept. 3, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.
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LAist
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Topline:
Incumbent Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman laid out competing plans for fixing L.A.'s homelessness crisis at separate mayoral candidate forums this week ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Why it matters: More than 29,000 people sleep outside in the city, a nearly 8% jump from last year. The two candidates are both promising to solve L.A.'s homelessness crisis, but they have slightly different approaches. Voters decide between the two on Nov. 3.
Breaking from LAHSA: Both candidates now support the city eventually leaving LAHSA, the joint city-county homelessness authority. Bass wants to move now, proposing an independent system within about two years. "The county filed for divorce. Now we file, too," Bass said.
The Inside Safe fight: Bass's signature program, which moves people from encampments into motels, is the sharpest divide. Raman calls it too costly — and wants cheaper rental subsidies instead.
More than 29,000 people sleep outside in L.A., according to official estimates — a nearly 8% increase over last year.
Two candidates for mayor are promising to change that, but they have different ideas about how.
Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman appeared separately at homelessness forums hosted this week by Hope The Mission, a large homeless shelter operator.
The events were held amid a national spotlight on L.A.’s homelessness crisis.
This week, a congressional subcommittee held a hearing on allegations of fraud and mismanagement of homelessness funds — a hearing in which Bass declined to appear. The next day, federal authorities announced charges against three employees at L.A. homelessness nonprofits in a widening federal investigation of homeless services fraud.
Bass cited L.A.’s homelessness crisis as the reason she sought the city’s top job in 2022.
“I ran because I am always compelled to go toward a crisis,” she said Thursday.
She has made clearing homeless encampments and moving people indoors a top priority as mayor, but fell far short of her pledge to end street homelessness by 2026.
Raman has said founding a local homelessness nonprofit inspired her 2020 L.A. City Council run. For years, Raman was chair of the council committee focused on city homelessness policy.
Both candidates have played major roles in shaping L.A.’s homelessness response in recent years, and they told forum moderators this week that the city’s approach has been dysfunctional.
L.A.’s next mayor will face a barrage of challenges related to homelessness.
Here’s how the candidates said they would handle some of the big ones:
How will they deal with the Trump administration?
The Trump administration has been cracking down on the L.A. region’s administration of homeless services to root out potential financial mismanagement, but also to challenge the local policy approach to homelessness and impose policies it prefers.
Federal officials argue that approaches known as “housing first” and “harm reduction” are failing. They favor treatment and enforcement instead.
Bass, a Democrat, skipped a House subcommittee hearing on federal homelessness spending Tuesday, dismissing it as politically motivated.
“ I'm the mayor of the second-largest city in the country, and I don't have time for foolishness,” Bass said Thursday. “And remember, I know these people. It's a dog and pony show to see who's gonna get on Fox that night. I was not going to subject myself to that, and I was not going to subject our city to that.”
Bass said her office is cooperating fully by supplying thousands of pages of documents.
Raman said L.A. should be using the courts much more aggressively to challenge federal overreach and protect funding.
“ We've done that less than I would've liked here in Los Angeles, but other cities have done that and actually kept their federal dollars in place despite the best efforts of the Trump administration.”
She said the city also has to make sure that funding is spent effectively, arguing L.A. currently has no single person tracking every dollar coming in from the federal government, state government and other sources.
“That is wrong,” Raman said at a forum on Wednesday. “If I am mayor — when I am mayor — I will ensure that every single dollar that is being given to us is being used to get as many people indoors into safety and to keep them there as effectively as possible.”
What to do about LAHSA?
Both candidates have said they support the city eventually breaking away from LAHSA, the joint city-county homelessness authority.
"The county filed for divorce. Now we file, too," Bass said on Thursday.
Last year, L.A. County officials voted to remove more than $300 million in annual homelessness funding from LAHSA’s control and to manage those funds itself with a new county department. Bass is now proposing the city create its own, independent “continuum of care,” a process she said could take “a couple of years.”
Bass, who appointed herself to serve on LAHSA’s governing board before stepping down this month, said she’s learned in recent years “how profoundly dysfunctional” the regional homeless services system is.
She argued that because L.A. represents 40% of the county's population and is the epicenter of the crisis, the city must have more control over the system.
“You might remember that expression I started with: locked arms,” Bass said. “And we locked arms as long as we could.”
Raman, in her mayoral platform, also called for the city to prepare to move hundreds of millions of dollars in homelessness contracts away from LAHSA, which she described as "plagued with scandal." But she said the city has to build the capacity to take on the job first.
At Thursday's forum, Raman didn't mention LAHSA by name, instead describing coordination failures between agencies — citing permanent supportive housing units that sat empty for more than a year because departments weren't talking to each other.
As chair of the council's Homelessness Committee, Raman said she created the city's Bureau of Homelessness Oversight to track spending and outcomes, but accused Bass of failing to staff it promptly.
“The mayor did not hire people to staff up that oversight body quickly enough,” Raman said.
LAHSA has served as the lead agency managing homelessness services for the region since 1993, including conducting a yearly homeless count, preparing regional applications for federal funds and managing key databases.
This week, the agency announced it would soon forfeit those roles and allow other agencies or organizations to apply for them instead — including other county or city of L.A. agencies.
What about encampments?
The candidates are also somewhat split on their approach to homelessness encampments. Bass has criticized Raman for voting several times since 2022 against expanding the city’s anti-camping ordinance, which restricts camping in certain public spaces including schools and day cares.
Raman has defended her votes. She argued the law, at best, “would have moved an encampment from one block to the next block.”
“To me, that is not good enough," Raman said. "My imagination for how we address homelessness in L.A. goes beyond just thinking about which block an encampment should be on. It is about how we actually get encampments indoors."
Asked about enforcement approaches, Bass pointed to physical barriers — like cement planters that replaced a major encampment on San Vicente Boulevard — as a more effective deterrent than ticketing or arrests.
“ So sometimes using physical barriers work, but what we have not done is just gone in and arrested homeless people,” Bass said. “That has never happened.”
The sharpest divide between the candidates centers on Bass’ signature program, Inside Safe, which moves people from encampments into motels and interim housing.
Raman said she agreed with the underlying concept — going out to encampments and offering shelter — but that the program is too costly and hasn't evolved since Bass launched it in 2022.
“Her program has not changed or learned or adapted from the lessons that they should have had in place, and to me, that is a major, major issue,” Raman said.
Raman put the cost at roughly $100,000 per person, per year — "not a fiscally sustainable approach to a crisis that is growing in our city," she said — and favors time-limited subsidies, short-term rental vouchers that cost a third as much.
Bass called that framing "fundamentally dishonest," arguing the county reimburses the city for some of the up-front cost.
Bass said she wants to bring costs down by building permanent structures on public land instead of renting motel rooms.
She said she favors moving groups of unhoused people together and bringing services to them, which she said is harder to do with the housing vouchers Raman wants to rely on.
"I would house 30 people at a time, not one by one,” Bass said. "I see it from a people's point of view. She sees it from a numbers point of view. Both are needed."
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published September 17, 2026 4:18 PM
The Darkroom burger, dry-aged beef, and swimming in a light au poivre bath.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Topline:
Chef-owner Zach Scherer's Darkroom sits in an unmarked business park on the Costa Mesa/Santa Ana border — a deliberate choice that's turned the restaurant into a word-of-mouth destination rather than a drive-by discovery.
Tell me more: The menu changes constantly, tracking real-time seasonal shifts — this visit caught the tail end of summer's Jimmy Nardello peppers giving way to fall's first honeynut squash. Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams, and the two also operate Chrysalis, a tasting-menu concept sharing the same space some nights.
Why is it important? Most diners expect flashy fine dining to come with flashy real estate. Scherer, aiming to make Orange County "nationally competitive" with cities like San Francisco and Chicago, is proving serious technique doesn't need a serious address — or a serious attitude.
Step into the darkness: Scherer's next concept, Three Eyed Tiger, is currently in development nearby.
Just off the 405 freeway at the border of Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a block down from IKEA and a couple of business parks over, you'll find Darkroom.
It's the kind of address where you'd expect to find a dentist's office or a logistics company — instead, it's home to some of the most inventive food in Orange County, and arguably beyond, anchored by a formidable wine program featuring small producers.
The location is a deliberate choice by Zach Scherer, Darkroom’s chef-owner, that has turned the restaurant into a growing word-of-mouth destination. For Scherer, hiding in plain sight was never a compromise. It was the plan.
Inside Darkroom
The interior of the restaurant is a completely different story. Its decor matches that of an angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, with an affinity for industrial and goth music, and a bit of new wave mixed in.
Darkroom's interior leans into its irreverent, gallery-meets-Hot Topic aesthetic.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Your eyes might take a minute to adjust to the low light before a friendly server wearing a tattered band T-shirt greets you and escorts you to your table.
Scherer wears his nonconformist attitude with pride — and intention. "If you're a little too serious, Orange County won't love it," he said, and it shows: the room is built to feel like the opposite of a hushed tasting menu.
Chef Zach Scherer (right) and Drew Adams work the pass together — the same partnership they describe as "like a band."
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy DARKROOM
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Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams — a lifelong Orange County resident — who also oversees the pastry program. The two think of Darkroom's identity "like a band," Scherer said: a shared core sound, no matter who's guesting on a given dish. (Their tasting-menu concept, Chrysalis, runs out of the same kitchen some nights — a five-course tasting menu happening in parallel.)
The menu
Start off with the Scotch olives, fried Castelvetrano olives with anchovy and lamb merguez, served over spiced sumac yogurt. Meanwhile, a couple of slices of their zucchini bread with koji butter, topped with silky jamón serrano, provide some comforting bites.
Grilled and marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers — a short-season ingredient the kitchen deliberately doesn't overwork.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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From there, seasonal produce takes center stage, with grilled, marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers served with fennel-pollen labneh and sprinkled with walnut dukkah, hitting equal notes of sweet, spicy, nutty, and fresh. Followed by honeynut squash from Weiser Farms — poached in a light broth known as nage, made with bits of country ham and horseradish, topped with rainbow chard, a dish that reads Southern-meets-European.
The Darkroom burger, cut in two — only 10 are made a night.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Cap things off with The Darkroom burger, cut in half, made with dry-aged beef, molten Comté cheese, and gooey caramelized onions, served between soft, glossy brioche-style buns, swimming in a light au poivre bath. It's a dish that, like the others, exhibits strong technique but still wears its fun on its sleeve — all the makings of a truly memorable meal.
The philosophy
Scherer's goal is to make the Orange County food scene nationally competitive with San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — and the seasonal fluency on display that night, from summer's last Jimmy Nardellos to fall's first honeynut squash, is the technical proof behind that claim.
The fried Scotch olives — Castelvetranos stuffed with anchovy and lamb merguez, set over sumac yogurt.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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The menu's dynamic approach — its ability to oscillate between cuisines — reflects that same nonconformist identity, reinforcing the idea that the food doesn't take itself too seriously, just like the space around it.
Scherer's ambitions don't stop at Darkroom's walls; he's also developing Three Eyed Tiger, a cocktail-forward concept nearby.
"The food we're making now is the food that I'm the most proud of, because it really shows our identity," said Scherer.
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Driver who rammed into bus was under the influence
Destiny Torres
covers all things SoCal, from breaking news to local government.
Published September 17, 2026 3:46 PM
Police and LA Metro investigate the scene of a crash between an SUV and an LA Metro Bus that left two 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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Topline:
The driver connected to the tragic bus crash in Chatsworth on Tuesday night is facing two second-degree murder charges, as well as charges for driving under the influence and reckless driving. Bailee Lynn Rios is expected to be arraigned Friday, according to L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
What possible punishment is she facing? Hochman announced Thursday that his office was seeking the maximum sentence of life in prison for the 36-year-old driver.
What else is there? Drugs were found in her system at the time of the crash, Hochman said. His office did not share what kind of drugs.
Adding to the tragedy, an NBC4 helicopter covering the incident also crashed nearby, killing pilot George Marciniw and reporter Eliana Moreno, as well as a pedestrian, Edy Gutierrez Mejia.
Rios, who is in custody, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Background: Rios sped through a red light and plowed her SUV into a Metro bus, killing two passengers, Daniel Castillo and Gage Weida. Five other passengers were injured, according to prosecutors.
Exterior of Chino Valley Unified School District building
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Chino Valley Unified
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Facebook
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Topline:
A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.
More details: Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.
Why now: The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.
A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.
Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.
The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.
Sachs rejected the request, saying his injunction does not conflict with the Supreme Court’s ruling. During Tuesday’s hearing, he distinguished between the two cases, saying the school policy at issue in the Mirabelli case required school employees to withhold information from parents when asked.
“The school’s policy essentially mandated that staff lie to the parent about their child, and the court did not accept that,” Sachs said of Mirabelli v. Bonta.
The Chino case involves a different question: whether school employees can be required to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents.
“There is no mandatory duty for the school district to voluntarily release information about the student,” Sachs said in court.
Chino Valley Unified was disappointed by the ruling, said Emily Rae, the district’s attorney and president of the California Justice Center, a conservative legal nonprofit focused on protecting individual liberty.
“The main problem is that it puts the burden on parents to know whether they’re having a secret kept from them,” Rae said.
Rae said Sachs’ ruling misinterpreted the Mirabelli opinion, which she said made clear that schools should not withhold information from parents. She said it was too soon to say whether the district would appeal the ruling or make changes to any of its policies.
Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, also criticized the ruling. In an interview with EdSource, she called the proceedings a “kangaroo court” that has caused “so much confusion.”
Shaw said she planned to ask the superintendent whether the district could ask all parents to check a box: “Do you want secrets to be held from you?”
“They shouldn’t have to do that,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s insane we have to go through all these hoops to uphold a parent’s right to know.”
Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the ruling was consistent with the Supreme Court’s order in Mirabelli v. Bonta and other applicable law.
“The court got it right: Blanket policies like Chino Valley USD’s, in which school employees must — in all circumstances — disclose a student’s gender identity to their parents, remain unlawful in California,” Parker said in a statement to EdSource.
Another pending case referenced in Tuesday’s proceedings was the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom, which hinged on a dispute over AB 1955, known as the SAFETY Act. The law, signed by Newsom in 2024, bars school districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents. It went into effect before the injunction in the Chino Valley Unified case.
In the wake of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction for parents in the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom who sued to block enforcement of the SAFETY Act.
