The Brief

Thousands of volunteers will spread out across Los Angeles this week to take an official tally of the region’s unhoused population — an effort that carries new urgency after the recent wildfires.

The point-in-time Homeless Count, led by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, was originally scheduled for last month but was delayed due to the wildfires that tore through Los Angeles County. The annual event is a crucial metric for understanding the scope of L.A.'s homelessness crisis and the effectiveness of local policies.

But the fires this year have made the effort more complicated by displacing thousands of residents, polluting the region with toxic smoke and ash, and potentially upending the normal routines of homeless Angelenos.

Homeless service providers and advocates also say they fear the focus on wildfire recovery is already diverting public attention and resources away from homelessness. They say the data gathered in this year’s count is key to keeping the issue on the public’s radar.

“Not only do we get a snapshot of what's happening here in L. A. County — of what's working and what's not working – we also get to compare that against other parts of the country,” said Rowan Vansleve, president of Hope the Mission in the San Fernando Valley.

“And that is so important right now.”

Delayed count

The count had been scheduled for late January but was postponed over concerns that evacuations of both housed and unhoused residents and disruptions to homeless services providers would compromise the accuracy of the data gathered.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, was also worried about sending volunteers into burn areas where their health or safety could be jeopardized.

Because of the risks, LAHSA is expected to deploy teams of its own outreach workers, instead of volunteers, to count unhoused people within census tracts that sustained fire damage. Those teams will work with first responders to access the areas safely, officials said.

Despite the challenges, the agency says its volunteer recruitment efforts are on pace with last year’s numbers. As of Friday, more than 4,000 volunteers had registered. Last year, about 6,000 volunteers participated, LAHSA said.

The agency has requested nearly 8,000 volunteers for this year, but the agency said only about 2,600 are required in order to conduct an accurate count.

The annual point-in-time count of the unhoused population is required by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Government agencies, including LAHSA, use the data to decide how to allocate funding and resources.

“This is an opportunity for us to unite and participate in a project that will help people living on our streets,” said LAHSA spokesperson Chris Yee. “The Homeless Count helps us gain a clearer picture of homelessness in our community.”

LAHSA typically publishes the results of the count in late spring or early summer, but the agency hasn’t said how the postponement will affect this year’s release.

Volunteers arrive for the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in 2022. LAHSA has made updates to the volunteering process this year to try to make it easier.

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The numbers 

In 2024, LAHSA estimated there were 45,252 unhoused people in the city of L.A. at the time of the January point-in-time count and 75,312 across the county.

In both cases, the numbers were a slight reduction from 2023. They measured a 2% decrease in the city of L.A. and a 0.27% decrease countywide, which is within the count's margin of error.

Still, it was the first time in several years without a spike in the region’s unhoused population. Nationally, the homeless population rose 18% over that same period.

The 2024 Homeless Count also showed a 10% decrease specifically in unsheltered homelessness, as more people moved into shelters and hotels. It’s unclear what those unsheltered numbers will look like this year, or how the wildfires might have shifted the balance.

“Are we gonna see more people unsheltered or, probably more likely, will the shelter numbers be up because people are displaced?” said Ben Henwood, director of USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute. “And then how will we know if it’s the disaster that impacted the numbers or something else?”

Deepening the crisis

The wildfires that ignited in early January destroyed nearly 12,000 homes in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Pasadena and caused more than $100 billion in losses.

They also spurred increases in rent prices, including instances of illegal rent gouging.

Most of the thousands of families who lost their homes in the fires are not expected to show up in next week’s homeless count, which tallies people living outside in tents and vehicles, as well as in homeless shelters. The count doesn’t include people living doubled-up with other families or staying in Airbnbs.

“Most people who are homeless were last housed with someone else. They weren't even renters, they were lodgers in someone else's property,” said Gary Blasi, a law professor at UCLA.

The loss of thousands of single-family homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena doesn’t necessarily mean a shorter supply of housing available to extremely low-income Angelenos, experts say.

But rising housing demand from wildfire victims will worsen L.A.'s existing housing shortage, likely forcing more low-income Angelenos into homelessness in the long-term.

“We've been trying to build ourselves out of this mess for a while,” said Sarah Hunter, director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. “Now there's just going to be more strain on the system.”

How the wildfires will affect this year's Greater L.A. Homeless Count is a big unknown.

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Shifting priorities

Wildfire recovery is expected to remain a top priority for public officials, which could mean less spending on homeless services — especially as the city of L.A. is facing a budget crisis fueled by increased legal payouts and labor costs.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has said she aims to end street homelessness by next year, and homelessness has been at the top of the city’s agenda since she took office.

But UCLA's Blasi said that’s likely to change amid rebuilding efforts after the fires.

“The finite attention span of the government is going to be much more focused on this new problem,” he said, “And that's going to take that attention away from the homeless crisis, even as it exacerbates the homeless crisis.”

Many homeless services providers are nervous about decreases in public dollars and charitable donations forcing them to cut back services.

“Attention has shifted, so we're not seeing the number of volunteers,” said Vansleve. “Nor are we seeing the same amount of giving. That is all going to affect the services we provide.”

Providers also worry that rising housing demand after the fires could force certain housing units for the homeless to close.

“I'm concerned that some of the sites that we work with to house folks may be too expensive to actually bring folks indoors,” said Ryan Smith, CEO of homeless services provider the St. Joseph Center in West L.A.

Volunteering for the count

During last year’s count, some volunteers reported confusion about a cumbersome volunteer registration system, confusing training materials, delays checking in at deployment sites and technical issues with the phone app used to coordinate the count.

In response to those concerns, LAHSA officials say they’ve updated processes this year to improve the volunteer experience.

Volunteers will now use a single website to register and access training, according to LAHSA. The agency said it streamlined the check-in process for volunteers to reduce waiting times, and the Homeless Count app has been updated to provide better navigation and tracking features to keep volunteers in their assigned census tracts.

This year’s count will take place over three days this week, beginning at 8 p.m. each evening.

• Tuesday, Feb. 18: Volunteers will tally the unhoused residents in much of the L.A. metro area, the San Fernando Valley, and the Santa Clarita Valley.
• Wednesday, Feb. 19: Volunteers will spread out throughout East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.
• Thursday, Feb. 20: The count will conclude with a focus on West L.A., South L.A., the Antelope Valley and the South Bay. 

People interested in volunteering can register and learn more at: theycountwillyou.org.

Emergency management officials Tuesday told L.A. County supervisors they're preparing for the worst ahead of this winter’s potentially historic El Niño weather system.

The climate pattern usually brings significant rain and ocean swells to Southern California, elevating the risk of flooding and mudslides.

What we're seeing

Forecasters say El Niño has already formed in the tropical Pacific Ocean and that there is already a 90% chance of a strong El Niño in our region this year.

How the county is getting ready

The county’s Office of Emergency Management said it plans to hold a practice El Niño response exercise on Sept. 13. It will include county departments and community disaster management coordinators.

“ Most importantly, the exercise will allow us to identify gaps and response actions that we can continue to work on throughout the storm season,” said Kevin McGowan, director of L.A. County’s OEM.

Crews with L.A. County Public Works are working to inspect and clear all of the county’s flood control infrastructure, like storm drains and debris catch basins, in advance of any storms. Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said the infrastructure should be fully prepared by Oct. 15.

Pestrella also said his agency is watching the Eaton and Palisades fires’ burn scars, which are particularly susceptible to flooding and mudslides. He also urged homeowners to be aware of older burn scars.

“Look for hillside slopes that come down onto the property, and the vegetation is burned and still scarred, we want them to contact us directly,” Pestrella said.

What you can do

At atmospheric river in February 2025 had residents and firefighters clearing mud in Sierra Madre. Emergency managers are warning Southern Californians could be in for a wet winter, with recent burn scar areas of particular concern.

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Emergency managers are urging at-risk residents — both homeowners and renters — to invest in flood insurance ahead of this winter, as it is not included in standard policies. They also said now is the time to fix leaky roofs and make sure drains are working properly.

During the presentation, officials also talked about their efforts to protect low-lying areas of the coast from flooding driven by both rain and high surf and warned that parts of Pacific Coast Highway are highly vulnerable to erosion.

Another area both emergency managers and county supervisors hope to prioritize is flood planning and emergency shelters for unhoused individuals in flood-prone areas.

At the end of the day, forecasters reminded the board that they can’t predict when rain will come or where it will fall. And emergency managers said they are preparing for the worst, regardless of what El Niño will actually bring this winter.

California legislators passed two bills Monday that would require insurance companies to follow new state rules for testing and cleaning homes contaminated by toxic smoke as the result of fires.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of this month to sign the bills into law.

Assembly Bills 1642 and 1795 would work in tandem to establish what Assemblymember John Harabedian, the author of one of the bills, calls “first-in-the-nation testing and remediation standards based on science.” One change would require insurance companies to keep paying policyholders' additional living expenses until their property has been restored to pre-fire condition and cleared for occupancy.

Harabedian, whose district includes Altadena, said a lack of clear, post-fire cleaning rules has left survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires to battle with their insurers over testing for, and remediation of, harmful contaminants.

If such rules had been in place after last year’s devastating L.A. fires, Harabedian said, “a lot of the survivors now, who are dealing with smoke damage, would be back in their homes.”

He said many of his constituents are now “trying to afford rent, trying to get the remediation and cleanup done to a satisfactory level."

"And, frankly," he added, "they're spending a lot of the money they need to rebuild their lives in litigation and disputes with their insurance companies.”

Their homes survived, but they still haven’t returned

Last year, a group of residents affected by the Eaton Fire released testing results that found many homes still tested positive for lead and asbestos, even after professional remediation.

Dawn Fanning, managing director of Eaton Fire Residents United, said she likely will not be able to return to her home until 2027 because of ongoing disputes with her insurance company.

“The night of the fire was traumatic,” Fanning said. “But what I and thousands of others have had to go through since then is more traumatic — at least for me. Being constantly gaslit and delayed and denied, it’s just an absolute nightmare.”

The legislation calls on the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control to establish those testing and cleaning standards for lead and asbestos by Dec. 31, 2028. The department would need to establish guidance on heavy metals and other contaminants by Dec. 31, 2029.

What will the changes mean for CA’s strained insurance market?

Proponents say the rules will also protect renters seeking answers on when their homes are safe to reoccupy. Some renters who lived near Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones have felt pressured by their landlords to return to homes they believed were not adequately cleaned.

Opponents of the legislation — which included insurance industry groups, the California Association of Realtors and the San Diego Gas and Electric Company — argued the proposals inappropriately strip oversight and regulation from the California Department of Insurance.

“Given the complexity of smoke within insurance claims, CDI convened a Smoke Claims and Remediation Task Force in the Summer of 2025,” the insurance industry groups wrote in a joint letter to state legislators earlier this year.

They added that the legislation “usurps the ongoing work of the CDI and subsequent policy negotiations.”

When asked if imposing new requirements on insurers could raise premiums for homeowners already seeing spikes in home insurance coverage, Harabedian said he felt the change could actually stabilize costs.

“There have been millions, if not billions, of dollars spent in these insurance disputes,” he said. “The rates that we are currently paying are baking those costs in, because it is so inefficient. I think survivors and — I think — insurance companies want certainty.”

After nearly a month of intense closed-door negotiations, California lawmakers on the last day of session killed a compromise bill that failed to insulate utilities when they cause catastrophic wildfires.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the utilities had fought to significantly reduce what utility companies pay when they cause a wildfire. Last week Newsom struck a compromise with Senate and Assembly leaders that would have imposed no limits on fire survivors’ compensation or lawyers’ contingency fees for individuals’ lawsuits. It also would have retained insurance companies’ ability to sue utilities to recoup their costs for claims, and would have barred private equity firms from investing in insurance claims. The utilities’ stocks plunged since the deal was reached. The Assembly did not take up the bill on Tuesday, effectively killing it.

“The proposal before us does not yet deliver the relief, accountability or meaningful reform that Californians deserve,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to “hundreds of hours” spent on the effort in the past few weeks.

'Here until January'

Newsom had hoped the bill would address his concerns over rising electricity rates and the potential for another utility bankruptcy in California in the event of more catastrophic wildfires. He hinted to reporters Monday night at the Capitol that he’s “here until January” and wasn’t done with his effort.

“I know we all hate utilities, so no one wants to defend a utility, but you’ve got to deal with reality," Newsom said. “This thing’s not going to get better on its own.”

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the deal fell apart.

The compromise legislation, Senate Bill 492, was seen as a victory for some Los Angeles County fire survivors, consumer advocacy groups and insurance companies, all of whom urged the governor and lawmakers not to shift utilities’ possible costs to them.

“It’s tragic the way this all played out,” said Jamie Court, president of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “They negotiated a deal, and renege when the utilities didn’t like it.”

“We have invested hundreds of hours to fight back the utility bailout and the attacks on victims’ rights,” said Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivors Network. “If the speaker says his focus is on survivors, then we would expect that those attacks don’t come back in any legislation that comes out of any special session.”

Utility stocks drubbed

The high-profile campaigning in the past few weeks cost the state’s investor-owned utilities dearly. Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison stock plummeted and San Diego Gas & Electric shares fell in the past few days as Wall Street investors digested what some analysts called a “Sacramento strikeout” for utilities.

The chief executives of PG&E and Edison wrote to Senate Pro Tem Monique Limon and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas on Monday, telling them that the utilities had collectively lost $20 billion in market value since Thursday. They warned of possible waning investments and financial risks that “will have cascading impacts” on the state’s economy and climate ambitions.

The utilities did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Lobbyists and some lawmakers likewise lamented Monday that decreased investor confidence in the utilities will lead to higher borrowing costs, which could mean job cuts and less investment in critical energy infrastructure.

“Workers got screwed, ratepayers got screwed, lawyers and insurance companies win,” said Scott Wetch, a lobbyist for the California Coalition of Utility Employees and the State Association of Electrical Workers, at an Assembly Utilities and Energy committee hearing.

“It is a big disaster that we were not able to come up with that structural reform,” said Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, a Democrat representing Thousand Oaks.

'Folks miscalculated'

Some lawmakers pushed back Monday, referring to the limited amount of time they had to work on the bill, which they said centers the interests of fire survivors.

“If you expect to back us into a corner, and then approve something without an opportunity to amend it, to talk to our constituents, to talk to groups that are impacted by it, this is the outcome,” said Assemblymember Chris Rogers, a Ukiah Democrat, at the hearing.

Assemblymember John Harabedian, a Pasadena Democrat, on Monday called the Wall Street reaction “hysteria.”

“The market had false expectations,” he said at the hearing. “Folks miscalculated exactly what could get done” in the last few weeks of the legislative session, he added.

But on Tuesday, Harabedian said the bill does not help survivors and issued the following statement: “This proposal only rearranges the chairs on the deck of the Titanic when all Californians are desperate for meaningful utility reform.”

Yue Stella Yu and Kate Wolffe contributed to this report.

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

Is this the year that Gov. Gavin Newsom allows students without legal status to legally work at California’s public colleges and universities?

A state bill with wide support from Democrats but opposed by Republicans seeks to do just that by adopting an untested legal theory that argues a 1980s federal law banning employment for people without legal status doesn’t apply to state agencies. But university leaders and Newsom worry that acting on the theory could put the state on another collision course with the Trump administration.

The bill easily cleared the Legislature Friday, including a "yes" vote from one Republican. The bill now heads to Newsom’s desk.

Assembly Bill 713 by Assemblymember José Luis Solache, a Democrat from Lakewood, is seemingly straightforward: The University of California, California State University and community colleges cannot disqualify students without legal status from campus employment. If it becomes law, it would kick in Jan. 6.

The systems together enrolled an estimated 60,000 students without legal status in 2023 and most were in the community colleges. Some attend private colleges and wouldn’t be covered by the bill.

Leading the charge for this right to work on campuses are students without legal status, immigration rights groups and legal scholars. Access to safe working conditions for students without legal status is a high priority because they’re ineligible for federal Pell grants — up to $7,400 annually — and federal student loans that come with more borrower protections than ones offered by private lenders. California awards eligible in-state students tuition waivers regardless of immigration status, so many students without legal status can at least attend a public institution tuition-free.

“While California has a longstanding commitment to expanding access, affordability, and student success in higher education, our undocumented students continue to face significant financial and structural barriers,” Solache said at a bill hearing in June.

Newsom vetoed a similar bill in 2024, echoing a chief worry put forward by the University of California: Any effort to employ students without proper status would incur the wrath of the Trump administration, which could attempt to pull some or all of the $17 billion in annual federal support the system gets.

The state’s Department of Finance is recommending a "no" vote on Solache’s bill. The fear of federal litigation and budget cuts are the main reasons why.

The University of California abandoned its own review of employing students without legal status in 2024 for those reasons. Students at the public meeting cried and shouted at the board’s regents when they made the decision.

Some Republicans cited the risk of the Trump administration cutting federal higher education funding as a reason for their opposition to the current bill.

“If we're going to move something forward like this that then threatens 100% of all of the students, I think that's irresponsible for us as legislators,” said Assemblymember David Tangipa, a Republican from Fresno, at a January bill hearing. He voted "no" on the bill Friday.

After Newsom vetoed the 2024 bill, which sailed through the Legislature with minimal opposition, some students sued the University of California. A state appellate court ruled that UC's argument that the federal government might sue the system was an abuse of discretion under the state’s law banning employment and housing discrimination. The court said UC’s policy of not hiring students without legal status was legally indefensible unless it can show that federal law requires the UC to continue its policy of not hiring them. The UC appealed, but the state Supreme Court let the appellate ruling stand. Still, the court ruling was silent on the soundness of the legal theory that the state can hire workers without legal status.

The court ordered UC to pay more than $500,000 in legal fees on behalf of the plaintiffs, a student and a former lecturer.

It’s unclear if Solache’s bill can even force the UC to comply if it becomes law. Since 1879 the state constitution has granted the system a high degree of autonomy.

What is the legal theory being tested?

The bill, like its predecessor that Newsom vetoed, takes its cues from a team of UCLA scholars who advanced a theory in 2022 that a federal law banning employers from hiring workers without legal status doesn’t apply to state employers. The architects of the legal argument say the law in question, 1986’s Immigration Reform and Control Act, never actually listed state agencies as employers covered by the law.

Other laws passed by Congress clearly included states in restrictions that also applied to the private sector or federal employers. The omission, the UCLA scholars say, means Congress never intended to tie the hands of state agencies on whom they can hire. An analyst at the state Senate’s judiciary committee also noted that Congress may be unable to dictate whom states can hire, because that undermines protections for states’ rights.

Student advocates then persuaded the UC Board of Regents to consider adopting that legal theory so students without legal status could obtain campus jobs. But momentum for that policy stalled, culminating with the UC dropping the plan.

Student voice

Some students have found a way to work while enrolled despite the ban on campus jobs.

Working without proper immigration status is not illegal, but employers cannot knowingly employ individuals who lack proper legal status, wrote University of Oklahoma law professor Kit Johnson in a 2022 law article. Employers often take advantage of the legal precarity of immigrants without legal status by paying them less than they’d earn with proper legal status.

A legal workaround, she writes, is for such immigrants to form limited liability companies, or LLCs. That business structure makes them consultants hired for a job, as opposed to employees.

Some students without legal status at the UC did just that, or they formed similarly structured cooperatives. But not every campus student can form an LLC or knows to do that.

Is student data safe from federal inquiry?

Backers of Solache’s bill and the Senate’s judiciary committee analysis say students without legal status employed at a campus aren’t at greater risk of immigration action despite concerns raised by skeptics of the proposed policy to hire them. The judiciary committee wrote that state agencies arguably aren’t required to verify employment eligibility for roles that aren’t funded by the federal government. They also say federal and state laws bar universities from sharing personal student information without that student’s consent.

But public California universities have shared student and personnel information with the federal government under the Trump administration’s investigations into alleged campus antisemitism. Critics say the administration exploited antisemitism accusations to coerce campuses across the country into settlements that align with the conservative values of the White House. The Cal State system settled with staff and faculty unions after they sued over the disclosure of personal information, promising to alert workers before their information is released to federal authorities investigating antisemitism.

Advocates of the bill also argue that the risk of apprehension and deportation is not reason enough to oppose it. Students understand the risk and that doesn’t change if they work legally or not.

Bill addresses questions the appellate court wouldn’t

As a result of the lawsuit students and advocates filed against the UC, the court sided with the plaintiffs because it found that the university’s employment policy discriminated against students based on their immigration status, which state law prohibits. It challenged the UC to provide an argument for why it thinks the federal government would go after the system for establishing this policy. Importantly, the court did not order the UC to begin hiring students without legal status.

“The UC now has to either end the discrimination against undocumented students or defend its decision to do so by reference to federal law, neither of which it has done to date,” wrote Ahilan Arulanantham in an email. Arulanantham is one of the UCLA scholars behind the legal theory and a counsel in the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the University of California.

Omar Rodriguez, a UC spokesperson, wrote in an email that the "UC is evaluating its options in light of the court’s ruling and will take appropriate action when that evaluation has concluded.”

“UC does not have a position on AB 713,” he added.

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