The Brief

A USC study has found that paying $750 a month to individuals within a small group of unhoused people in Los Angeles and the Bay Area didn't significantly reduce homelessness rates among them, according to results released this week.

But the study also found recipients spent nearly all the money on basic needs like food and transportation, countering a narrative that many unhoused people would likely spend it on drugs or alcohol.

"The results demonstrate that concerns about this population’s use of unrestricted money were unfounded and that the cash plus approach can be considered a viable policy option to address homelessness,” said Ben Henwood at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work, who led the study.

The Miracle Money: California study was conducted in partnership with San Francisco-based Miracle Messages, a nonprofit that provides social support for unhoused people, including a “phone buddy” program.

It was among the first randomized controlled trials tracking basic income for unhoused people in the U.S., according to USC.

Nearly $1 million in cash assistance was distributed to 103 participants between 2022 and 2024, with each getting $750 a month for one year.

The study found that the payments did not result in statistically significant improvements in housing, loneliness, employment or substance use, but they did provide recipients stability and help them manage unexpected crises.

According to researchers, 48% of cash recipients eventually exited homelessness during the study period, but that percentage wasn't statistically different from control groups.

The report acknowledges that the monthly payments were not enough to cover the high cost of rental housing in California.

Spending patterns 

The USC study expands on a previous informal pilot program conducted by Miracle Messages in 2021. It was funded by Google’s philanthropic arm, the Wayfarer Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Hilton Foundation and others.

It tracked three groups of people over time: those receiving basic income and social support through Miracle Messages’ phone buddy program, those receiving social support only, and a control group who were waitlisted.

That program pairs unhoused individuals with volunteers for weekly calls and text messages to foster social connection.

People who received the $750 each month spent most of that cash on food (26%), housing costs (24%) and transportation (13%), according to the study. Less than 5% of funds went towards alcohol, cigarettes or drugs, what researchers call “temptation goods.”

“Overwhelmingly, people used the funds to meet their essential needs, creating stability, hope and dignity,” Miracle Messages CEO Mary Carl said in a statement.

“We have started to shift the hearts and minds of the community,” she added. “Direct cash assistance plus love is a simple and profound act of trust and humanity.”

The study also found no increase in self-reported substance use over time among those who received cash. Rates of drug and alcohol use remained similar across all groups, including those who received no cash payments.

Social supports

Employment rates also stayed steady among cash recipients, countering another common concern that cash payments would discourage people from seeking work.

The study is the first randomized controlled trial of basic income in the country to specifically test the role of social support, researchers said. It tracked whether pairing recipients with volunteer phone buddies would reduce loneliness.

Results showed that while participants valued the relationships provided through the Miracle Messages program, self-reported loneliness remained high across all groups.

To pull people out of homelessness, the report recommends combining cash assistance with social support and direct pathways to permanent housing.

“While providing funding that cannot cover high housing costs will not necessarily reduce rates of homelessness, the flexibility of cash, when paired with relational supports that affirm dignity and agency, can restore a sense of control and connection,” the report concludes.

In L.A. County, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment tops $2,000, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

UCLA is launching the nation’s first digital humanities department and bachelor’s degree this fall. The new discipline combines classical humanities with technical know-how to examine a digitized and increasingly AI-enhanced world.

The major fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities subjects like history, literature and global cultures. It’s a multidisciplinary approach to education that capitalizes on employers’ growing desire for recent graduates to think critically while also being able to harness new technology. And the major requires a great deal of teamwork among students, another skill hiring managers seek.

Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically while also understanding how easily it can produce misleading content.

Todd Presner is a UCLA professor of European languages and transcultural studies, and co-led the effort to create the digital humanities department. He said contemporary culture has witnessed a rift between computational subjects and the traditional humanities, and both are enhanced by merging the two.

“It's actually at our own peril when scientists are not speaking to folks in the humanities with historical knowledge, ethical knowledge, cultural knowledge, right?” he said. “And at the same time, I'd say when the humanities are not understanding the technologies in the world today, they also could be seen as irrelevant.”

Presner has taught a course showing students how to get under the hood of large language models, which store the reading material generative AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT use to spit out answers. “Students can essentially upload their own training data to some of these smaller models and see how easily they can be manipulated,” he said.

New major, old discipline

UCLA students will be able to declare digital humanities as a major this year, but campus professors have taught courses in the discipline for more than two decades. It’s the second most popular minor at UCLA, which was one reason the school decided to transform it into a major, said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA College Division of Humanities where digital humanities is based. Last academic year 750 UCLA undergraduate students took a course in digital humanities. Stern expects 50 to 100 students to eventually declare the major, and would be thrilled if 40 signed up this year.

The department will launch with 23 faculty, including lecturers, plus four staff members. Stern eventually wants a few more faculty, but UCLA’s currently under a hiring freeze. No academic unit at the university was cut to make way for the new digital humanities. Faculty hail from multiple humanities fields as well as information studies and data science, so classes will occur across several campus buildings.

She said at least one museum will provide internship opportunities. Based in the Los Angeles area, the Wende Museum specializes in collecting artifacts and oral histories of refugees as well as other dissident groups and digitizing them — a key aspect of digital humanities training. She aims to secure similar arrangements with other museums so students can further apply what they learn in professional settings.

The major’s introductory courses are clustered around data networks, such as statistical reasoning, and courses on culture, such as the symbolic history of Jerusalem or film depictions of antiquity. Upper division courses can center on how contemporary technology is shaped by political, cultural, and social forces or a class on social media data analysis.

One student’s experience

Kedaar Sridhar, 26, graduated from UCLA in 2022 with a computer science major and a minor in digital humanities.

The social media data analysis course was his favorite in the minor. For a class project, he and a team of students analyzed the hashtag “facemask” on social media while much of the world was still in the throes of COVID-19. He relied on the coding language Python as well as sentiment analysis tools to classify how different countries felt about face masks in public based on the social media posts featuring that hashtag.

If he could do college all over, he’d major in the new digital humanities program because it combines the application of contemporary data software with the probing analytical questions that the humanities embody.

“I think computer science is the what, digital humanities is the how and the why, and how do you actually apply it, and why is it important to be applied,” he said.

Sridhar credits the minor with landing him an internship at Microsoft. All the applicants knew computer science, but digital humanities distinguished him, he said. An interviewer asked what the minor entailed, and he said “it’s human-centered data storytelling, working with groups, working in projects, getting a tangible outcome.”

The interviewer said that’s what they’re looking for.

In the past year he co-founded his own company, Grantlytics, an AI-based platform focused on helping nonprofits fundraise by writing proposals, finding funding opportunities and identifying promising donors.

As an employer, he’s looking for much of what the digital humanities major offers. Without it, Sridhar would prefer a candidate with a humanities and coding or math background. But digital humanities “automatically is that interdisciplinary nature because it combines those two worlds together.”

What employers want

Sridhar’s preference for someone who is well-rounded appears to be backed by recent survey data.

Hiring managers who recruit recent college graduates indicated this year that these workers are mostly employable, but with caveats. The annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that the skills recent graduates are most proficient in aren’t what employers prioritize most.

For example, 99% of hiring managers say oral and written communication and persuasion skills are important. But the same hiring managers indicated that just 55% of recent college graduates score well in communication skills. The same goes for critical thinking: Around 94% of hiring managers rate this competency highly but they report that just half of recent graduates are able to gather data from diverse sources and draw conclusions or work well in a fast-paced setting.

Where recent graduates do better is in technology, but hiring managers care slightly less about those. About 75% of employers place high importance on adapting to new technology or using tech to achieve company goals; they say that about 65% of recent grads are competent in that skillset.

Stern, the dean, is careful not to overstate the promise of digital humanities to halt the freefall of the broader humanities as a major students want. The share of U.S. college students majoring in fields such as literature, history, philosophy and foreign languages is at a historic nadir — just 8% of degrees conferred were in the humanities, down from nearly 15% nearly two decades ago. The trend at UCLA is similar.

She knows things are tough for humanities departments, but “an art history grad is more likely to get a job these days than a computer science grad,” she said, citing data tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “There are ebbs and flows across time” with which degrees lead to jobs and that students gravitate toward.

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

It’s been a busy week with the Trump administration’s legal battle over mail in ballots.

The Supreme Court weighed in and fresh court documents were filed as preparations for the November general election are well underway.

Confused about where things stand? You’re not alone.

One Southern California county tells LAist nothing has happened that changes how it runs elections since last time around in the June primary. And an election law expert says that as of now, people should plan to vote as you normally would.

“If there is some interference with mail in ballots, there are lots of voting centers and other ways that people can cast ballots,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA professor of law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project. “But I don't think it's going to come to that.”

As the Nov. 3 general election approaches, local officials are encouraging voters to turn in their ballots early.

Here’s what we know.

Counties deep in election prep

As the legal battle plays out, local election officials are already gearing up for the November general election.

Bob Page, Orange County Registrar of Voters, told LAist his office starts working on an election up to nine months ahead of time, with the first November ballots being printed for overseas and military voters at the end of next week.

County election officials in California will start mailing ballots to all voters by Oct. 5. Page said O.C. will start printing ballots for the 1.9 million local voters the week of Labor Day.

“Those deadlines are set. You can't mess with them,” Page said in a briefing from the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions Wednesday.

A woman casts her ballot at an official Orange County ballot drop box in Santa Ana in October 2020.

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Frederic J. Brown

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AFP via Getty Images

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Hasen told LAist elections take a really long time to put in place, and something as mundane as envelopes are bought by the millions in counties such as L.A. and Orange. The design of mail in ballot envelopes are part of the new government requirements being challenged in court.

“In California, we now mail ballots to every single voter, so it would be incredibly expensive and difficult to try to change what that mailing would look like,” Hasen said.

In Orange County, for example, ballot envelopes are already in the works. Page noted the U.S. Postal Service approved of the design last month.

What does it mean for local voters?

O.C. will be handling the November election like it did with the June primary, following existing state and federal law, Page said.

“We have to keep track of what's going on in the different courts … But for right now, there's nothing that's happened that changes how we would conduct this election,” he said in an interview.

He also noted that he will make sure O.C. voters get a ballot, “however that gets to them.”

Hasen shared a similar message for voters.

“As of now, nothing has changed,” he said. “And let's wait and see where things are in a week.”

Get your ballots in early

Local election officials, including Page, are encouraging voters to turn in their ballots before Election Day. Ballots can start being processed as soon as they’re returned, so the more people vote early, the more ballots can be included in the first round of results released on election night.

“If there's concerns about the speed at which ballots get counted or processed, the best way to address that for voters … is to vote early,” Page said.

An election clerk holds “I voted” stickers at Beverly Hills City Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.

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Carlin Stiehl

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LAist

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Hasen agreed, adding that it’s much better for election administration and voter confidence if more ballots are returned and processed earlier.

O.C. voters will be able return their ballots by mail, to 128 drop boxes and to more than 190 vote centers, according to Page. L.A. County has started to send outreach postcards with early election reminders to most of its more than 5.8 million registered voters as of last week.

What’s going on with the legal battle?

In March, President Donald Trump issued another executive order on voting that he said was to reduce “the risk of fraud.” Trump has claimed for years that there's widespread voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence.

The order, among other things, instructs federal officials to create lists of eligible U.S. citizen voters in each state, directs USPS to only send mail in ballots to people on those lists and have USPS review the design of ballot envelopes.

Parts of the order were blocked in June by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston. The Supreme Court paused that ruling earlier this week, giving what’s been described as an interim win to Trump. The administration saw another win on Wednesday when Talwani lifted her nationwide ruling that blocked USPS from moving forward with the executive order.

“The court cases are coming fast and furious right now after the Supreme Court's ruling,” said Aaron Blacksberg, lead legal analyst on federal policy for the Institute for Responsive Government, during a virtual briefing earlier this week.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and nearly two dozen other attorneys general filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a USPS final rule stemming from the executive order that was released last week.

Bonta argued its “President Trump's latest unlawful attempt to take control of mail voting.” Bonta vowed in a news conference to “fight this every step of the way,” adding that he expected to see other lawsuits from Democratic party leadership and the League of Women Voters.

USPS did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

In as little as a year, lowering your electricity bill could be as simple as buying a kit with a few solar panels and accessories, completing a quick online registration form, and plugging it into a standard outlet.

California lawmakers passed a bill on Wednesday night to formally legalize plug-in, or balcony, solar: small, portable and relatively inexpensive systems that do not require rewiring or the costly installation fees that often come with rooftop solar.

The legislation, SB 868, sailed through the state assembly and senate with bipartisan support. The bill now moves to the governor’s desk for signature.

The devices can be tented in a backyard, hung off a balcony or placed on a roof. Models range from as low as $300 to $2200, depending on size. The bill would open the solar market to people who were previously left out: renters, people with unsuitable roofs, and those lacking the capital to build out a rooftop system, which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

“There’s no question SB 868 is the most exciting clean energy and energy affordability bill right now up for consideration in California,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that co-sponsored the bill. “You never get to pass a big controversial bill in one year. We’re poised to do that. It is a huge win.”

A wave of state legislation over the past 18 months is making balcony solar — a nascent technology in the U.S. — within reach of everyday Americans. Utah pioneered a law passed in March 2025, and others quickly followed.

Eight states now have bills on the books that allow a relatively straightforward process for purchasing and setting up balcony solar systems, including Colorado, Virginia and Maine. Bills in New York and New Jersey are awaiting the governors’ signatures, like California.

Advocates believe California’s market has massive potential. They’re motivated by Germany, where millions of solar panels dot balconies across the country.

Some of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, however, opposed the legislation, citing safety and a concern that the systems would shift energy costs to people without solar power.

PG&E initially said it supported the bill if it were amended, but opposed the final version. Spokesperson Paul Doherty said the utility is concerned that certain safety and certification requirements on some systems would not be enforced until 2030.

But he said that the company “supports plug-in solar and the opportunities it could create for customers, particularly renters and others who have not had easy access to traditional rooftop solar.”

San Diego Gas & Electric also opposed the legislation, citing concerns that even if balcony solar is designed to prevent feeding power back to the grid, systems may malfunction and endanger workers or customers.

Southern California Edison originally opposed the bill but later took a neutral stance after bill authors updated safety standards and how people notify their utility of their systems, spokesperson David Eisenhauer said.

Notably, labor unions representing firefighters and PG&E employees dropped their opposition and took a neutral stance on the bill after lawmakers amended it to explicitly comply with state and national electrical codes.

If signed into law by Newsom, the legislation would exempt plug-in solar devices from what critics say is a cumbersome and expensive interconnection application process, and replace registration with a free and straightforward online form.

Some Californians have already installed plug-in solar panels, but utilities ask them to complete an interconnection agreement, citing state rules. If done through PG&E, for example, representatives from the utility said that process would cost roughly $100 to $800 and take about an hour. Typically, the approval comes through in three days, PG&E staff said.

But plug-in solar advocates argued that the interconnection process defeats the plug-and-play nature of the technology, and could double or triple its cost.

Their goal is to make the panels as ubiquitous and easy to install as any off-the-shelf appliance dotting the racks of a Home Depot or Costco.

The newly passed bill outlines several device requirements. The balcony solar systems must be capped at generating 1,200 watts per home, plug into a standard outlet, offset a customer’s onsite electricity use and meet state and national electrical codes. They also must be certified by an outside safety organization like Underwriters Laboratories and have a feature that would prevent electricity from feeding back into the grid if there’s a power outage.

Current plug-in solar models do not yet meet the outlined requirements, and customers therefore must still register their systems as though they are rooftop solar. Del Chiaro said there are already a few companies developing devices that will meet the standards in the new California legislation.

The bill is meant to help reduce the cost of power for Californians and “eliminates red tape, so that people in California can actually use plug-in solar right now,” bill author and state Sen. Scott Wiener said during an Assembly hearing in June.

Del Chiaro estimated that just one 400-watt solar panel would cover about 14% of a typical renter’s apartment’s annual electricity bill and translate to energy-bill savings of roughly $250 a year. That system would provide enough juice to run a refrigerator, modem and Wi-Fi. A larger, 1,200-watt system would generate enough energy to power a window air conditioning unit, “enabling families, especially in our hotter regions, to afford to cool their home on increasingly hot days,” Del Chiaro said.

Dozens of environmental and community groups and a few cities supported the bill.

Plug-in solar advocacy group and nonprofit Bright Saver tentatively celebrated the action.

“It’s a clear statement that the biggest state in the union wants this,” said Cora Stryker, the group’s co-founder, although she said she was not happy with an amendment sunsetting the legislation in 2030 and other provisions that could slow down the market for balcony solar.

“The devil in the details makes it not a home run. It makes it a fight that continues,” she said.

Fiscal analysis of the bill estimates implementation will cost the state between $200,000 and $500,000 annually to fund program administrator positions.

If Newsom signs, staff in Wiener’s office estimated that people would be able to buy compatible plug-in solar kits in the spring of 2027.

From KQED’s Climate desk, “Flipping the Switch” documents California’s transition to clean energy and what it means for you. What works? What doesn’t? How much does it cost? Help us find these answers and more by donating today.

A judge on Wednesday suspended criminal charges against a former U.S. Marine arrested at President Donald Trump’s Los Angeles-area golf course with ammunition and a gun in his vehicle. He is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

Los Angeles County Judge John Lonergan Jr. sent Jeanine John Taele, 38, to a mental health court in Hollywood based on statements he made in a pretrial evaluation indicating he wasn’t mentally fit to stand trial. In the evaluation, Taele falsely insisted he had been a State Department official for 14 years.

When Taele was arrested earlier this month, he was seen wearing an earpiece and taking pictures of the golf course where Trump was scheduled to attend a Republican National Committee dinner. The event was at Trump National Golf Course Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, just south of L.A.

A search of his pickup truck in the golf course parking lot at the time turned up a loaded 9 mm pistol, binoculars and a badge that read “security protection agent,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Lonergan expressed particular concern over the 200 pages of Taele’s writings that investigators found following his arrest. The writings included schedules for first lady Melania Trump and members of the president’s Secret Service, as well as detailed lists for surviving “off the grid.” The judge did not say whether the writings included any specific political motives or ideologies.

“This case itself is alarming in this day and age with the violence that is creeping into our everyday lives, especially with our partisanship in the political environment” ahead of the midterms, Lonergan said.

The judge also cited a previous arrest in November 2025 at an AT&T store where Taele accused an employee of spying on him with Meta Glasses, stole the glasses, and was found muttering to himself in the parking lot. He was charged with second-degree robbery following that incident.

Taele was charged with several felonies including possession of a short-barreled rifle or shotgun and receiving a large-capacity magazine. He was also charged with carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle, a misdemeanor.

Taele appeared in the Torrance, California, courtroom Wednesday, weeks after his Aug. 5 arrest, wearing a vest designed to prevent self-harm or suicide attempts. Nearly a dozen family members and friends tearfully watched from the courtroom.

Lonergan declined to set bail for Taele, who will remain in jail until a Sept. 9 hearing at the Hollywood Mental Health Court.

Taele’s attorney, public defender A.J. Bayne, said it was too early to tell whether Taele’s mental health would play a role in his legal defense.

“He’s a veteran, he served our country, and I don’t know enough right now, but he has a family that loves him, that has huge support for him,” Bayne said, adding that “people assume too much” about Taele’s motives on the day he was arrested at the golf course.

Taele is a decorated U.S. Marine who served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2008 and 2016, according to a Marine Corps spokesperson. He was a corporal who received countless accolades, including two Marine Corps Good Conduct Medals, a Navy Unit Commendation, a National Defense Service Medal, and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.