The Brief

Los Angeles officials cheered a small but significant victory recently: a 10% drop in the number of unhoused people sleeping outdoors in the city of L.A. Overall, the count in the city shows total homelessness dropped 2%, though officials said that’s within the margin of error.

This result from Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s annual point-in-time count, released on June 28, came after historic investment by the city in temporary shelters, long-term housing, and other services.

But while a positive step, it’s a very small one. As LAist has reported, local homelessness has, in fact, reached a plateau: As more people enter permanent housing, others continue to lose theirs.

For the region’s largest and fastest-growing unhoused population, little has changed. Latinos represent 43% of the unhoused population in the Los Angeles Continuum of Care (an integrated system of care that guides and tracks homelessness). It includes most of L.A. County save for Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach. While LAHSA used different methodology to count Latinos this year, their share remains effectively the same as a year ago.

Homeless service providers and experts say there are unique challenges, especially for Latinos who are immigrants, and particularly for those who lack legal status. These include wage theft, a lack of available resources for undocumented immigrants, and reluctance to seek assistance.

At the same time, local shelters have been stretched this past year as newly arrived asylum seekers, some bused to Los Angeles and other cities from Texas as political pawns, have also landed on the street.

A shelter ‘greatly impacted’ as new migrants arrived

In Boyle Heights, Proyecto Pastoral’s Guadalupe Homeless Project operates two shelters that serve Spanish speakers, a 41-bed shelter for men at the Dolores Mission church, and a smaller women’s shelter a few blocks away.

At one point earlier this year, at least 90% of the residents at the men’s shelter were new asylum seekers from countries like Venezuela, Honduras and Nicaragua. Some had arrived in L.A. with nowhere to go; others had temporary housing arrangements that fell through.

“Our shelter was greatly impacted,” said Raquel Roman, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral. “But the reality is that we need to use the services we have available to serve that population, because they are in an emergency state of being unhoused. And so we can't separate the numbers.”

Staff at Proyecto Pastoral's Guadalupe Homeless Project men's shelter at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights serve dinner to residents.

(

Noé Montes

/

LAist

)

Roman said for now, the new-migrant population at the men’s shelter has dropped to about half, but that could change, depending on circumstances at the border.

A short distance away, the 15-bed women’s shelter primarily houses a different demographic — older women, including longtime immigrants. One resident is Rosa, 67 and undocumented. Her story exemplifies the kinds of challenges immigrants struggle with in staying housed in L.A.

Job loss, wage theft, and homelessness

At the end of 2022, as Rosa relates, she was working in a small women’s clothing shop in “los callejones,” by downtown L.A.’s Santee Alley. LAist is not using Rosa’s last name due to her immigration status.

One day at work, around the holidays, she was lifting a heavy box when she felt a painful sensation.

Rosa, a resident of the Proyecto Pastoral women's shelter, says she lost her job at a clothing shop due to an injury. She went through her small savings and wound up unhoused.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

“I felt something pulling from my waist to my shoulder,” Rosa said, speaking in Spanish. An emergency room visit confirmed that she’d injured her back. She would need physical therapy and time off work — which she took, she believed, with her employer’s blessing.

But when Rosa returned to work within a couple of weeks, she received bad news: “They told me that I no longer had my job,” she said.

As a senior without legal status, Rosa faced poor work prospects. She moved from a one-bedroom unit she shared with two other people, paying $500 a month for the bedroom, to an $85-a-day motel.

She went back to her employer to ask if she could at least receive unpaid overtime she had racked up, but said she was told that if she came back again, “you’ll be met by immigration.”

Rosa had soon blown through her small savings and could no longer pay for housing. At least she had one advantage: Rosa had wound up unhoused before, several years earlier, under similar circumstances.

Back then, someone had steered her to Proyecto Pastoral, where she stayed until she could get back on her feet.

So this time, she knew where to go. She arrived at the shelter about 14 months ago.

Challenges, vulnerability

Experiences like Rosa’s are not unusual, said Roman. Undocumented immigrants are subject to wage theft and other workplace exploitation.

“That means they may not get a living wage,” Roman said, which puts these workers at risk as rent prices become untenable.

These same workers don’t qualify for affordable housing programs, Roman added. “You need a Social Security (number) and proof of income to get housing, Section 8 housing,” she said. “The housing and the work is really difficult for folks.”

Roman said in the past, she’s also encountered undocumented immigrants who’ve had trouble accessing homeless services because they’ve lacked a Social Security number. And even getting to that point can be a struggle.

Rosa and Maria, both residents of Proyecto Pastoral's women's shelter in Boyle Heights.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

“There’s a shame to being unhoused, and so a lot of times, people do not want to seek the help that they need,” Roman said. “They stay in a car, they stay in a park, they stay on a couch … and sometimes living in places that are not suitable.”

A common housing fallback in Latino communities is “doubling up” with other renters in a single unit — what Rosa was doing at the time she became injured. This was prevalent even before the economic sting of the pandemic: A UCLA study released late last year concluded that between 2016 and 2020 in L.A. County, Latinos made up 76% of those who self-identified as experiencing doubled-up homelessness.

These precarious housing situations can themselves lead to homelessness; studies have suggested that doubled-up renters who are not on the lease are more likely to become unhoused.

Takeaways from community ‘listening sessions’

Since taking office in December 2022, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has pledged to get more Angelenos off the street, with the city investing more than $1 billion to combat homelessness.

And as the number of Latinos experiencing homelessness locally has jumped dramatically, rising by 26% just between 2020 and 2022, local officials have paid more attention.

In recent months, a new Task Force on Latinx People Experiencing Homelessness that includes LAHSA staff, service providers, and public officials has sought community input, hosting bilingual “listening sessions” in communities around the L.A. area.

The goal is to present recommendations to county officials in October, said Patricia Lally, the facilitator and consultant leading the sessions.

Lally worked with community groups in places like Lancaster, Bellflower, and downtown L.A. to draw participation from local Latino communities. While some sessions were better attended than others, people who showed up talked about feeling deeply at risk.

“They said things like this: ‘My annual rent increases at a rate that I just … can't keep up with it much longer.’ And ‘I'm going to have to live with my daughter’ or ‘I'm going to have to find something else …’” Lally said.

She said some people related having to choose between housing and sending money home to relatives out of the country: “‘I can't afford to pay rent and then also to take care of my family … I'm homeless, even though I'm working, because … I can't afford rent.”

Lally said while the task force’s recommendations aren’t ready to share, figuring out ways for people who can’t access housing resources to do so will be high on the list.

“I know the task force is going to be recommending that L.A. County and L.A. City get very clear about unrestricted resources, and that how can we funnel unrestricted resources to undocumented immigrants that might not be able to avail themselves of other housing resources,” Lally said.

Keys to housing

It’s access to housing resources that, in the end, will be leading Rosa out of the Proyecto Pastoral shelter and into a small apartment.

At the Proyecto Pastoral women's shelter, Rosa displays the keys to her future housing unit.

(

Leslie Berestein Rojas

/

LAist

)

With help from shelter staff, Rosa was able to qualify for a county program that provides housing for people with health problems who frequently use county health services — and for which her immigration status was not an obstacle.

One recent afternoon at the shelter, Rosa jingled her new keys proudly in the sun. She had just returned from seeing her future home, a studio unit downtown.

“I just received my keys!” she beamed. “They gave me my housing, furnished. They brought in furniture. I’m very happy. And I’m very grateful.”

If voters were confused about who to support in California’s wide-open race for governor, Rep. Eric Swalwell’s exit amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct may leave them as mystified as ever.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday evening and resigned from Congress Monday afternoon — a swift fall from power for one of the state’s leading candidates for governor.

He said he would “fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”

In theory, one fewer Democratic candidate in the race should help liberal voters consolidate the field. But in a race that was already anyone’s to win, Swalwell’s exit has only “caused more confusion,” said political strategist Marva Diaz, who primarily works with Democrats but is not involved in any gubernatorial campaign.

“I’ve never seen something so in flux while ballots are about to drop,” she said.

Where things stand

Because Swalwell dropped out after a statutory deadline to formally withdraw from an election, his name will still appear on the June 2 primary election ballot. That makes it possible he’ll still get some votes, but his rivals are already seeking to scoop up as many of his supporters as possible.

Both billionaire climate advocate Tom Steyer and law professor and former Rep. Katie Porter circulated polls indicating they could both pick up a sizable portion of Swalwell’s potential voters. Pollsters with the Public Policy Institute of California and UC Berkeley both agreed Steyer and Porter were the most likely to benefit from prior Swalwell supporters.

But they may not be the only ones, and it’s not clear that either one of them will immediately surge into the lead. An independent campaign committee supporting San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pulled in $12 million million in new and previously committed contributions from wealthy donors since Friday, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said, indicating his backers see an opening.

They’re launching $4.5 million worth of TV and digital ads Tuesday. Mahan is one of the race’s lower-polling candidates, getting 3% of likely voters’ support in a poll commissioned last week by the state Democratic Party.

Until the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN last Friday published stories with explosive sexual misconduct allegations from four women, including a former staff member, Swalwell had consistently polled ahead of most other Democrats in the race for governor. He was often in a three-way tie for lead Democrat alongside Porter and Steyer, with each of them getting between 10% and 15% of voters polled, tied with or trailing the two leading Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.

What happens to his endorsments?

And though Swalwell counted among his supporters a sizable share of the Democratic establishment — his colleagues in Congress, major labor unions and other Sacramento interest groups — it was by no means a consensus. Now, after those groups have scrambled through emergency weekend meetings to pull their endorsements, they’ll have to slog through their internal procedures if they want to back another candidate for governor.

That gives voters fewer pointers on which candidate to back, Diaz said. Some organizations, she added, may be hesitant to endorse another candidate out of concern they, too, could have damaging backgrounds.

“Most people look to labor for guidance, especially on the Democratic side,” Diaz said. “When labor organizations are not working in tandem, it causes a lot of confusion.”

Swalwell was one of four Democrats the California Labor Federation jointly endorsed for governor, along with Porter, Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The federation, which could not reach consensus on any individual candidate, likely won’t be revisiting its other endorsements with Swalwell gone, president Lorena Gonzalez said.

But the Service Employees International Union, California Teachers Association and other heavyweights in Democratic politics which had endorsed Swalwell and then withdrew their support may not have time to go back to the drawing board to pick a new candidate. The teachers’ union’s endorsement process, for example, required a vote among hundreds of members from across the state; the union’s next such meeting isn’t scheduled until after the June 2 primary.

Representatives of both unions said they did not have any campaign updates Monday. A spokesperson for the California Professional Firefighters, another major Swalwell supporter, did not respond to inquiries.

Where his backers may throw their support

The effects of Swalwell’s exit on public polling of the race may not be seen for weeks. Donors often look to such measures of a candidate’s performance to decide who to back.

In the last survey UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies conducted of the governor’s race, in March, Swalwell’s supporters leaned more liberal and progressive, said institute co-director Eric Schickler. Swalwell also did better than other candidates among older voters and white voters.

Those voters cut a similar profile to Porter’s supporters, Schickler said, lending credence to the idea that his supporters would start following her.

“On the other hand, Porter has had trouble, for a visible politician, has had trouble winning over a lot of Democratic establishment figures in her own right,” he said. “If you look at the support, it’s a little more similar, but not so striking to say these supporters automatically go there.”

What about Swalwell's seat in Congress?

As for Swalwell’s congressional seat, it’s not clear when he’s stepping down. But he said he would work with his congressional staff to ensure they are able to meet the needs of his San Francisco East Bay district, where he was first elected in 2013.

Swalwell’s resignation Monday leaves the call for a special election to finish his term entirely at Newsom’s discretion, since the candidate filing deadline for the June primary has passed, according to the state election code.

Newsom’s office would not say Monday whether the governor will do so.

But if he calls for the election, the earliest date it could be held would be in mid-August, since state law requires it to take place between 126 and 140 days after the proclamation. If Newsom declines to call a special election, Swalwell’s seat will remain vacant until mid-January 2027, dealing a blow to the U.S. House Democrats who are already outnumbered by the Republican majority.

Because Swalwell opted to run for governor instead of retaining his seat in Congress, there are already seven candidates in the running to replace Swalwell in the 14th Congressional District.

CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu contributed to this story.

New data from the Port of L.A. for March released on Monday shows a 7% increase in exports compared to the same month last year, with 132,000 containers leaving the port despite the turmoil in the Middle East.

“That's the highest output number for the export containers that we've seen in nearly two years,” Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of L.A. “While encouraging, we have much more work to do to develop a consistent upward trend."

The overall percentage change in container traffic in and out of the port in March is in the single digits, a 3% drop compared to the same month last year. Seroka said that’s because uncertainty over tariffs a year ago led companies to scramble to get their products through ports.

The longstanding trade deficit continues

However, while there’s an upward trend in exports, the data confirms something that’s been true for years: the U.S. is in a trade deficit. In March, overseas companies sent about three times more goods to consumers here than were sent out of the port by American companies. Last month, the port processed over 380,000 incoming containers, mostly from China, Vietnam and Japan.

That trans-Pacific commerce is insulating the Port of L.A. container volume from one of the most consequential geopolitical conflicts in recent memory — the war with Iran.

“So far, it's a concern, but it's not a worry,” Seroka said.

An electric top handler moves cargo off of semi-trucks at the Port of Los Angeles.

(

Joel Angel Juarez

/

CalMatters

)

Foreign shipping companies that do business with the Port of L.A., as well as ports in the Middle East, are doing what they can to protect their trade with the U.S., Seroka said.

“The transpacific business is the most lucrative of any east west [trade] for the service providers and shipping lines… they'll go to great lengths to make sure those supply chains remain intact,” he said.

The port is the busiest in the Western hemisphere, generating more than $300 billion in trade last year, making it an important regional and national economic engine.

But the war is affecting shipping companies and consumers in other ways. The price of gasoline has gone up, as well as cargo ship fuel, which will likely be passed on to consumers.

The directors of a beloved Los Angeles puppetry institution said Monday their theater is here to stay now that they’ve worked out a plan to buy their building.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater has been delighting L.A. kids — and kids at heart — since 1963. But in 2019, a landlord’s redevelopment plans forced the theater to move from its original location near downtown L.A. to its current venue in Highland Park.

Co-executive director Mary Fagot said discussions to purchase the building began in 2024. Those talks have culminated in a deal to buy the building for $5 million from its owner, Capstone Equities.

Once the sale is complete, Bob Baker will be able to redirect rent money to new programming, field trips and special events, Fagot said.

“Buying the building means that we won't be subject to rent increases or even another displacement in the future,” she said. “We'll be able to go on presenting our special brand of magic, creativity and imagination, here in this location, forever.”

How puppetry lovers can help secure the deal

The theater said it has already raised $4.5 million for the purchase from organizations such as the Perenchio Foundation, the Kohl Family Foundation and the Ahmanson Foundation, as well as philanthropists and celebrities, including Wallis Annenberg, Jack Black and Tanya Haden.

Now the theater is asking the public for help raising the last $500,000, so it can close the deal without carrying debt into the future.

The news comes as new audiences have been getting to see White Cat, Skateboarding Clown, Gorgeous and all of the theater’s other distinctive puppets in action.

Bob Baker puppeteers brought their talents to Coachella last weekend. They’ll be there again this weekend, adding a dash of whimsy to a lineup that includes headliners Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G.

What’s next?

The theater is also prepping to debut its first new show in 40 years, an hour-long train-themed adventure called Choo Choo Revue.

Fagot said L.A. families are always bringing new generations of kids to their regular shows in Highland Park.

“To be able to say with certainty that this theater will be here for my kids and my kids' kids, and really for the cultural landscape of Los Angeles for generations to come — it feels like a really big deal, not just for us, but for L.A.,” Fagot said.