The Brief

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to clear homeless encampments from their properties last summer, holding up the California Department of Transportation as an example of how it should be done.

But in the more than nine months since, cities up and down the state have complained that Caltrans isn’t doing enough. City officials and staff say the state agency is slow, sometimes taking months to respond to their requests to clear an encampment. They complain the agency doesn’t consistently tell them when it plans to clear a camp. In at least one city, officials have no idea if Caltrans is offering services to the homeless people it kicks off its land.

And for the most part, city workers are barred from going onto Caltrans property to do the job themselves.

“The way it’s set up right now isn’t working,” said Jorgel Chavez, mayor of Bell Gardens — a city of nearly 40,000 on the outskirts of Los Angeles. “It’s too long. Folks are frustrated.”

A bill making its way through the Legislature seeks to change that by pushing Caltrans to better collaborate with cities. Senate Bill 569 would require the state agency to hire a liaison to communicate with local governments, and lay out timelines that make it clear when Caltrans should respond after a city asks it to clear an encampment.

The bill also would make it easier for cities to go onto Caltrans property and use their own resources and personnel to remove encampments and offer services. It would allow, but not require, Caltrans to reimburse cities for those efforts.

Caltrans refused an interview request and did not respond to emailed questions about its process for working with cities to clear encampments, or about the Senate bill. The agency hasn’t publicly endorsed or opposed the bill.

The bill comes amid a statewide push to remove homeless camps, and sometimes arrest the people in them, despite a widespread shortage of housing and shelters. Newsom on Monday urged cities and counties to adopt a model ordinance that would make camping in one place for more than three days illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year found that cities can make it illegal to sleep outside in a public place, even if there is nowhere else for someone to go. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have enacted new encampment bans, brought back old bans or made their ordinances more punitive.

As cities push unhoused people off their downtown sidewalks and out of their parks, people often resort to sleeping on Caltrans land — alongside highway on and off ramps, on medians or under overpasses. Sleeping so close to cars whizzing by carries its own risks, but it can buy them time, as Caltrans tends to take longer than cities to clear encampments.

Meanwhile, Caltrans is in the midst of a sometimes fraught transition from an agency tasked with building and maintaining highways to an agency increasingly also burdened with the difficult responsibility of humanely dismantling homeless encampments and helping unhoused residents access scarce shelter. In 2020, the agency agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it illegally destroyed the belongings of homeless people living on its land. Unhoused people and Caltrans workers have complained about cruel treatment and chaotic conditions during sweeps. A homeless woman was struck by machinery and killed during a Caltrans encampment sweep in Modesto in 2018.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council has found encampment sweeps can have adverse effects on the health of displaced residents, put their safety at risk and undermine their efforts to get into housing.

Sen. Catherine Blakespear, the author of the Senate bill and a Democrat from Encinitas, said her goal is not to move unhoused people from one outdoor location to another, and that she recognizes the need to build more temporary and permanent housing — something her bill does not address. But having people living in public spaces, especially next to speeding traffic, is a “true disaster,” she said.

“I just wish Caltrans would handle the problems on their property,” she said. “But that’s not happening.”

‘We just keep swapping back and forth’

In July, Newsom signed an executive order requiring state agencies to adopt policies for clearing encampments on their properties — and held up Caltrans’ efforts as a model of success.

Since then, there has been a steady drumbeat of complaints from city leaders, said Caroline Grinder, community services legislative advocate for the League of California Cities. There’s no universal model for how Caltrans should involve city personnel when clearing a camp, so the process varies widely. Some cities say their relationship with the state agency is great.

“To other cities, it’s a real challenge to get Caltrans to respond, and they have a hard time working with them to address encampments,” Grinder said.

In a recent League of California Cities survey, 40% of cities said coordinating with state agencies was a barrier to addressing encampments. They said it’s the biggest hurdle they face, after a lack of services and a lack of funding.

A homeless encampment at the Figueroa St. Viaduct above Highway 110 in Elysian Valley Park in Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 2022.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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“This is up and down the state, in all different kinds of communities,” Grinder said.

CalMatters requested data from Caltrans on encampment removals in January, which the state agency has yet to provide.

Caltrans has funding for 30 “encampment coordinators” that manage camps along its roadways. Before removing a camp, Caltrans is supposed to warn occupants 48 hours in advance (unless the camp is deemed to pose an imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure), according to the agency’s encampment policy. Once the sweep starts, people remaining at the camp are supposed to get “a reasonable amount of time” to remove their belongings, and Caltrans is supposed to store any personal items left behind. The policy also states that staff should contact service providers to request outreach at the encampment.

In San Diego, the largest, most visible encampments tend to be on Caltrans land, said Franklin Coopersmith, deputy director of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department and head of its Clean SD effort. The city receives more than 300 complaints each month about encampments on Caltrans land. City staff can’t address them, so instead, they tell residents to fill out an online form on Caltrans’ customer service webpage.

In San Jose, it can take weeks or months for Caltrans to remove an encampment. In some extreme cases, camps have lingered for a year or two, said Mayor Matt Mahan. After Caltrans clears a site, people return immediately, because they know the state agency won’t be back for three to six months, he said.

“The longer we allow people to remain encamped along the freeway or along an on and off ramp, the more the encampment becomes established and people come to the location and we get a significant accumulation of waste,” he said. It can cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to remove a long-standing encampment, he said.

San Jose has a staff of 40 outreach workers and experience preventing people from returning to encampments, Mahan said. It would be more efficient for everyone, he said, to let San Jose take over sweeps on Caltrans land and get reimbursed.

San Jose is negotiating an agreement with Caltrans that Mahan hopes will let the city clear certain encampments along on and off ramps in East San Jose.

Los Angeles reached a similar agreement with Caltrans last year.

Blackspear’s bill, which Mahan supports, would make it easier for other California cities to set up similar deals. It would require Caltrans to create a publicly accessible online database of these agreements (called delegated maintenance agreements) that other cities can use as a jumping-off point for negotiations.

Riverside has been trying to negotiate such a deal with Caltrans since September, said Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson. In the meantime, the city and the state agency aren’t always on the same page. Caltrans doesn’t consistently tell the city when it’s going to clear a camp, according to the mayor’s office, and the mayor’s staff doesn’t even know if Caltrans offers people services before forcing them off its property.

As a result, unhoused people bounce from Caltrans property, to city property, and back to Caltrans property without getting off the street, Lock Dawson said.

“We just keep swapping back and forth and it’s really inefficient,” she said.

Riverside has submitted more than 70 requests for encampment removals on Caltrans property so far this year, according to the mayor’s office. It generally takes between two days and two weeks for the state agency to clear those camps.

Caltrans spent more than $51 million addressing encampments in the 2023-24 fiscal year, according to an analysis of Blackspear’s bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

If the bill passes, Caltrans told the committee it would cost about $200,000 per year to hire the “liaison” tasked with overseeing communication between the state agency and local governments. If the agency reimburses cities and counties for clearing encampments, those costs could balloon into the tens of millions of dollars annually, according to the committee’s cost analysis.

The reimbursement proposal has been popular among city officials and staff.

“Outreach is not cheap,” said Coopersmith, of San Diego. His city spends about $675,000 per year on four outreach workers who have permission to go onto Caltrans land and offer shelter (if it’s available) and other services before encampment sweeps.

“Placement is not cheap,” he said. “Police, encampment disposal, all of this costs money. We also need to ensure that if we’re working on any type of state property, we want to make sure that we’re compensated for it.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

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J.W. Hendricks

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The LA Local

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In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.