The Brief

A few months after voters approved higher taxes to combat homelessness, Los Angeles County officials have proposed cutting $62 million from the homeless services budget by slashing several programs.

The spending proposal from the L.A. County Homeless Initiative recommends major cuts to a job training program and one that helps qualified applicants clear their criminal records, according to budget documents. The Homeless Initiative is also recommending eliminating county funding for homelessness prevention programs administered by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA.

County officials said the proposal reflects a projected budget deficit of $35 million for fiscal year 2025-26 and another $27 million in cost increases.

“We have been forced to make some really difficult recommendations,” said Cheri Todoroff, executive director of the Homeless Initiative. “We prioritized the services that are directly touching people — so, the outreach, the beds and the permanent housing.”

The elimination of county homelessness prevention funding for LAHSA reflects a shift in how the county plans to do prevention work under Measure A, approved by voters in November.

Instead of LAHSA primarily overseeing efforts to provide short-term rental assistance and legal help to keep people in their homes, homelessness prevention could be led by a brand new county affordable housing agency funded by the sales tax, according to Measure A proponents.

“When voters approved Measure A, they were not just approving critical local dollars,” said Tommy Newman, vice president of United Way of Greater Los Angeles. “They were also approving a whole new approach to preventing homelessness, to making housing more affordable.”

As L.A. County works to finalize its $637 million homeless services budget, it’s inviting the public to weigh in on the spending plan.

How Measure A splits the money

Measure A will essentially double L.A. County's revenue for homelessness by replacing a quarter-cent sales tax with a half-cent sales tax. Starting April 1, this new tax is expected to generate more than $1 billion annually, which will be split two ways:

• L.A. County will receive 60% (about $600 million a year) for comprehensive homeless services like outreach, shelter beds and permanent supportive housing.

• The new L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency will receive about 36% (roughly $400 million a year) to create affordable housing, preserve existing low-rent housing and prevent homelessness through rent assistance and other programs.

This split explains why officials remain optimistic in light of the proposed budget cuts to some homeless services. Some of the reduced or eliminated programs would have their functions taken over by the affordable housing agency.

"I would look at this budget as very much a transition year budget," said Newman. "So that's why when I see some of these curtailments, I sort of put an asterisk on them, because we've got a whole lot of other stuff going on here."

A woman pushes her belongings past a row of tents on the streets of Skid Row.

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Frederic J. Brown

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AFP via Getty Images

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Why a deficit?

Despite the influx of Measure A dollars, county authorities said the L.A. County Homeless Initiative had to make about $62 million in reductions to its budget for homeless services for the coming year.

“It is very, very hard, and I’m not saying that we’re going to be able to do everything we’ve done before with less funding,” Todoroff said. “Some things will be impacted.”

That’s partially because consumer spending slowed over the last year across L.A. County, leading to slightly less sales tax revenue, county officials said. It’s also because the county boosted funding for services for about 2,000 additional people moving into newly-constructed supportive housing between the current budget year and the upcoming one — an additional cost of about $27 million.

The county is responsible for funding services at permanent supportive housing units.

“That's a good thing because that means that we've been building supportive housing across the county, and it's coming online,” Newman said.

More than 80% of L.A. County’s traditional homelessness funding will go toward housing during the next fiscal year, according to the Homeless Initiative’s funding proposal. That includes interim housing, permanent supportive housing and housing acquisition.

Cuts to workforce and legal services

The L.A. County Homeless Initiative recommended slashing funding for the LA:RISE program — which helps homeless Angelenos get and keep jobs, from $8.4 million in fiscal year 2024-25 to about $1.8 million in the coming fiscal year that starts in July.

Administrators of that workforce development program said they were “deeply alarmed and disheartened by the budget recommendations.”

“Following the landmark passage of the Measure A ballot initiative and an increase in revenue for the county, it is shocking that less than 0.3% of Homeless Initiative funding is allocated toward employment and workforce development,” said Greg Ericksen, director of Government Partnerships & Policy at REDF. (The venture philanthropy organization formerly known as the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund is the lead program manager for LA:RISE.)

Ericksen said the proposed cuts will have a devastating impact on program participants as well as the social enterprises they partner with — including Downtown Women’s Center, Homeboy Industries and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

The county also recommended cutting $1.5 million from a $3.5 million L.A. County Public Defender’s Office program that does mobile legal clinics to help unhoused Angelenos expunge criminal records.

Last year, the program participated in more than 200 outreach events across L.A. County, filed nearly 3,500 expungement petitions and provided direct support to more than 1,400 people who were unhoused or housing insecure, according to the Public Defender’s Office.

As a result of the proposed budget cuts, the program’s outreach staff will be downsized by one-third, according to assistant public defender Thomas Moore.

“We will continue our community engagement, but the staff reduction will result in less participation at community events and resource fairs,” Moore said.

As a result of the county’s recommendations, Moore also said the Public Defender’s partnership with the city of Los Angeles — to help clients clear tickets and misdemeanors — will be eliminated.

LAHSA workers observe LA city sanitation workers removing a houseless encampment during “CARE+” sweep of the houseless encampment on Venice Blvd. in Venice Beach.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Cuts to coordination and prevention

The Homelessness Initiative’s draft budget pulls $10 million in funding for LAHSA’s case management system, which helps hundreds of providers work together to match thousands of unhoused Angelenos with services and housing.

But that doesn’t mean coordination will go away, Newman said.

“This is not fully defunding coordination, but it is acknowledging that we need to keep doing a better job of understanding what's the most effective way to coordinate,” he said.

The county’s proposed $20 million cut to prevention programs administered by LAHSA means the agency will drastically scale back efforts to provide short-term rental assistance and legal assistance to help keep people in their homes.

But county officials say that’s where new investments in the new L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency come in. The new agency is required to spend 30% of its resources (about $100 million in the coming year) on prevention, including eviction legal services, rental assistance and relocation assistance.

“There's going to be a really significant increase in homelessness prevention funding from [the L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency], and so it makes sense that there's a little bit of a rebalancing going on,” Newman said.

A LAHSA spokesperson did not comment on the county’s specific funding recommendations but said the agency is keeping a close eye on the budget process.

What's next

The Homeless Initiative is expected to present its funding plan to the county Board of Supervisors in March.

The Homeless Initiative will consider feedback on its proposed budget in the coming days. The window for public comment is open until Tuesday, Feb. 4, at this link.

The detailed spending recommendations are available for review here.

“If there’s something that is not included in the funding recommendations that should be elevated above things that are, we want to hear about that,” Todoroff said. “We are all collectively impacted by what is funded and what is not funded, and so we want to hear from as many of you as possible.”

Tommy Lefroy is the brainchild of singer-songwriters Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel, who are putting a literary spin on soft rock. They’re getting ready to release their first album, The Precariat, this month and have been teasing fans along the way, with their latest single, “Vacuum” out Friday.

The name Tommy Lefroy is a reference to the man who is often said to have inspired Jane Austen’s character Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Bethel said they wanted to “subvert and embody the muse or the 'heartbreaker.'”

Their first album, The Precariat, draws inspiration from the works of economists and social activists. Mouzourakis cites Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism as inspiration for the album because the book talks about people in power capitalizing on disaster.

“We’re seeing that now, although we’re kind of in a state of constant crisis,” Mouzourakis said. (Fun fact, the band even hosts book swaps at their shows.)

Then there’s British economist Guy Standing, who wrote The Precariat in 2011, about a new socioeconomic class facing financial insecurity and instability. Their new album focuses on that feeling of instability they experienced firsthand, such as when Mouzourakis moved to L.A. around the time of the January 2025 fires, which also delayed recording their album.

Bethel is originally from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mouzourakis hails from Vancouver, British Columbia. The two met in Nashville in 2017 in songwriting circles and started creating music together during the pandemic.

The time they spent together writing their first EP Flightrisk in London inspired their latest single, “Vacuum.” Bethel said when she moved to London, she didn’t know anyone except for Mouzourakis.

“We were kind of referencing this sense of us having no community besides each other, the band becoming this focus and this thing that was tying us together,” said Mouzourakis. Bethel adds, "It was a gut feeling that led me to ask Tessa to start a band, and in this song, we're kind of equating that to sort of blind faith of following someone into the dark."

Songs like “Slush Puppy,” the first single off The Precariat, reference the book The Coming Insurrection written by The Invisible Committee and touch on the surveillance state.

“Things feel sometimes futureless, or it feels so heavy, it feels unbearable,” Mouzourakis said. “We tried to offer sort of glimmers of hope in community and friendship and the people around you and talking to each other, sharing in this experience, because it is incredibly isolating.”

The Precariat comes out Oct. 23, and they play at El Cid, 4212 W Sunset Blvd, on Nov. 4. Tickets are around $27.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law that requires large companies to disclose if they or their predecessors profited from chattel slavery.

The Truth in Disclosure Act will require major companies operating in the state to disclose these historical and financial ties to enslavement-related transactions. 2

The bill was a top priority for the California Legislative Black Caucus this year. No other state requires corporations to account for their historical role in the slave economy, according to advocates.

Authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City, the law applies to companies with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million. Assembly Bill 2599 also requires relevant records and disclosures to be made publicly available through a searchable digital to be established by the state’s Civil Rights Department.

The sworn filings will be subject to the penalty of perjury. The first affidavits are due by Jan. 15, 2029.

Supporters say the database could be a useful tool for academics, journalists and advocates to examine the connections between current corporate wealth and historical participation in the slave economy.

An example of a type of company that would likely have to make such disclosures in California is JP Morgan Chase. According to the California Reparations Task Force report, in 2005, the banking giant wrote a formal apology because two banks that it had taken ownership of had taken 13,000 enslaved people as security for loans in Louisiana. When enslavers could not pay back the loans, the banks took ownership of 1,200 people.

The law only applies to companies that existed or whose predecessor company existed on or before December 1964.

“I’m thinking agriculture. I’m thinking banking, insurance. I’m thinking anything in the financial sector,” Bryan said about the types of companies he expects may have to file disclosures.

“Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it,” he added.

Several insurance companies opposed the measure as it moved through the Legislature. They said they already disclosed their connections to slavery through a 2000 California law that resulted in a publicly available report.

The newest law is the latest in a slow, uneven effort to act on the findings of the state’s reparations task force.

Newsom created the task force in 2020. After two years of study, it released a 2023 report detailing California's history of enslavement and discriminatory policies and made more than 100 recommendations. Economists estimated the state owes Black residents at least $800 billion for harms in policing, housing, and health.

Lawmakers have since taken small steps. In 2024, Newsom signed six of the Legislative Black Caucus' 14 priority bills that drew from the task force report, including a formal state apology. That year, the caucus declined to advance two ambitious reparations bills, opening a painful split with grassroots advocates.

The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth applauded Newsom and Bryan for the new law.

“California has long been a state that prides itself on justice and equity and AB 2599 moves the needle closer to the transparency that is necessary to recognize and rectify these historical injustices and understand the roots of modern economic disparities,” said CAIR-CA Chief Executive Hussam Ayloush in a written statement.

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.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has been investigating the Lineage warehouse fire since the first week of July, contradicting Mayor Karen Bass’ recent statement that the elected attorney had chosen not to.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto had not publicly disclosed the investigation, and it’s unclear whether Bass knew about it when she told student journalists at The LA Local that she had asked Feldstein Soto and state officials to investigate the fire but was met with inaction.

The rare public admission of the nearly three-month old investigation came a week after The LA Local reported that the two candidates vying to replace Feldstein Soto said her office could do more to help Angelenos in the wake of the fire. The City Council asked the city attorney to report in closed session on what legal options are available to them. But that report has not yet been completed and may not reach the public when it is.

Bass had previously declined to comment on possible legal action related to the fire despite residents’ demand for help. On Wednesday, student journalist Edgar Vasquez asked if she would request the city attorney open a corporate accountability investigation.

“I asked [Feldstein Soto] to open one quite a while ago,” Bass responded. “I also asked Attorney General Bonta to open one. I am not in charge of them. They are independent elected officials. They can choose to do it or not. So far, they have not chosen to do it.”

Karen Richardson, the city attorney’s communications director, told The LA Local that Bass may have “misspoke” and defended Feldstein Soto’s decision to keep the investigation from the public and presumably from other elected officials in the city.

“We do not comment on pending investigations or litigations but in this instance our office will confirm that we have had an open investigation since the first week of July and that investigation is ongoing and active,” Richardson said by email. “The City Attorney, in her capacity as Chief Prosecutor for the City, investigates and brings actions without prompting or reporting to City Officials or the press. As a prosecutor, the client of the Office is the People of the State of California, not the City of Los Angeles.”

Richardson did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the nature and scope of the investigation or if those impacted by the fire will be told of its findings.

Bass’ office also did not immediately respond to questions after the city attorney’s team told The LA Local about the months-old investigation.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for this story.

Marissa Roy and John McKinney, one of whom will become the next city attorney, previously told The LA Local that the city attorney’s office should have acted publicly sooner. Both said they would be more transparent and would launch a corporate accountability investigation of the fire if elected. Depending on how long the current investigation takes to complete, the next city attorney could inherit it.

Past L.A. city attorneys have pursued such investigations and won settlements for people harmed by corporate misconduct. Roy has worked on similar lawsuits for the California Department of Justice, contributing to a landmark settlement against the tech company Meta. 

Community advocacy groups, meanwhile, have asked the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation of the fire. That agency declined to comment for this story. 

McKinney, who currently is a deputy district attorney, said if the investigation found criminal activity, he would pursue filing charges. 

Bass told the student journalists that the fire department’s investigation “was a preliminary one” and that more can be expected. 

“There’s other investigations coming, and by the way, I really want those investigations because you know I’m blocking them from rebuilding,” Bass said Wednesday.

Bass and the City Council established a temporary suspension of the permit to rebuild Lineage’s damaged facility. 

Lineage’s CEO has said that the company has not decided yet if it will rebuild the damaged facility. Bass conceded that the company has a legal path to rebuild if it chooses to. But after several public disputes about blown cleanup deadlines and other matters, Bass said she does not support the company rebuilding.

“I know it’s your right, but you lost your right by the harm you inflicted on this community,” Bass said. “Then if they don’t rebuild. Then the community has to ask itself: then what?”