The Brief

This year’s Greater L.A. Homeless Count, which kicks off Tuesday, will give us the most concrete data we have yet to understand whether the region is making progress on reducing homelessness. There are big stakes — in particular for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who took office in late 2022 on a pledge to make reducing homelessness her top priority.

Whatever the official results are, the policies pursued in the future — and the people we put in charge to implement them — will also depend heavily on how Angelenos feel about the way things are going.

We wanted to take a temperature check on where those feelings stand. So last year, we distributed a survey.

Among the questions we asked: Do you feel like homelessness across L.A. has improved or gotten worse since Mayor Bass took office?

More than two-thirds of respondents told us it’s stayed the same or gotten worse.

An important note: This is by no means a scientific survey and nowhere near representative of a city of 4 million. That said, we heard from about 500 respondents. The answers help us get a better sense of whether Angelenos are seeing any changes and what they think of the direction the city is taking.

Here’s a breakdown with some insights from the wide range of answers we received. For transparency, we’ve included a map at the bottom of the story showing where these responses came from.

How has homelessness changed in your neighborhood?

First, the official data: Last year’s homeless count, conducted in January 2024, showed a 10% drop in the number of people sleeping outdoors across the city compared with the year before. There was a nearly 18% increase in sheltered homelessness, reflecting a shift in people moving from the streets to being indoors. The overall number of people experiencing homelessness in L.A. city, and across L.A. County, essentially remained flat.

But the degree to which you might notice any difference depends on where you are. The visibility and experience of homelessness varies across neighborhoods and even street to street.

So it’s no surprise that most of the survey responses we got were extremely mixed, even from within the same neighborhood. However, some trends did stick out.

Downtown L.A.

In downtown L.A., the vast majority of respondents said they felt homelessness had either stayed the same or increased.

Here’s what some of our readers said when asked for more detail:

• “As camps have closed in other areas, we have seen an increase in homeless and drug trafficking in DTLA. Specifically, the area surrounding the 7th Street Metro station entrances on Fig, Flower and Hope.” — Ralph P.
• “I used to pass two encampments when walking west on 3rd Street between Central Avenue and Main Street for years. They are now gone. Even in Skid Row, there are less tents blocking sidewalks. The bridge on Los Angeles in Chinatown passing over the 101 [Freeway] is now clear on both sides. ... Although there are still many people living on the street completely unsheltered (not even tents) and tented, downtown neighborhoods have improved significantly.” — Catherine Z.
• “It's heartbreaking, and it seems that no matter how much we spend or how many programs launch, nobody ever comes to help these souls.” — Ryan H.

Mar Vista

In Mar Vista, a handful of our readers said homelessness had noticeably decreased.

• “Many of the larger encampments have had their members housed temporarily in motels and hotels, and thus the local parks, sidewalks and freeway underpasses are no longer populated by our homeless community members. There are still encampments reoccurring in previously [cleared] sites, and areas with RVs and tents remain in some sites. Some homeless are now housed and seeking employment, and gaining medical and mental health services.” — Richard H.
• “We now have a few older homeless people, by themselves, on Venice Blvd. and adjacent blocks. We used to have several encampments (with 10-20 people), on Venice and just off Venice Blvd. ... These are gone.” — Kristin K.

Hollywood

In Hollywood, responses were almost exactly evenly split.

• “Same encampments all over Hollywood Blvd., from the 101 all the way to Gower.” — Patrick O.
  
• “Hollywood has had several successful Inside Safe operations — in specific spots where there were encampments, there are now none. They received housing. Of course, there are still many unhoused people in Hollywood — but this represents a tremendous win.” — Marian B.

• “I live in central Hollywood. I don’t just see our unhoused neighbors, I know their faces. I talk to them. I walk, don’t drive, and take the Red Line subway. Dramatically fewer folks are on streets or in parks in July ‘24 vs March ‘24, versus any point in 2023, and then in 2022/2021 similarly. Dramatically fewer.” — Rob

Below are some highlights from other neighborhoods.

Most respondents don’t think we’re making progress overall

While our readers had varying thoughts on how homelessness is affecting specific neighborhoods across L.A., a majority of the survey respondents agreed that, citywide, homelessness was about the same or worse from when Bass came into office. Here’s the breakdown of responses we received.

We asked respondents to elaborate and categorized those responses into a couple of themes. Among those who thought things were improving, most attributed it to personally seeing a decrease in homelessness in their neighborhoods. Others expressed confidence in the city’s approach and policies and said things were generally going in the right direction.

• “Well, I'm both appreciative and wary. The drop in encampments has legitimately improved our quality of life. We had two encampments that cut off our pedestrian access to Hollywood. I couldn't send my teens down to the farmers market on Saturday without supervision, and now I feel better doing so. But can it last?” — Gabrielle P., Hollywood
• “Mayor Bass' Inside Safe program is instrumental in bringing people indoors. Direct outreach to encampments is absolutely necessary to make contact with people in the encampments. Medical services, mental health services are necessary to keep those individuals from becoming more ill. The program is not perfect because social services are stretched thin, but it is a program on the right track.” — Jane D., Eagle Rock

Among those who thought things had not changed or were getting worse, most said their answer was based on not having seen any real signs of progress, be it long-term housing solutions or a decrease in visible homelessness. Others said government officials needed to focus more on other aspects of the crisis, like housing affordability, mental health and drug treatment.

• “I see no increase in the quality of life for homeless or those who share their communities with homeless.” — Daniel D., West L.A.
• “Unhoused people seem to be dislocated, but that just means they move to another location, and on and on. While I notice fewer people in my neighborhood, I haven't seen that translate to significant changes in the citywide landscape, as moving a person from one neighborhood just means they go to another.” — Amanda C., Echo Park
• “I don't think this is necessarily Mayor Bass' sole fault — our systems to address homelessness in LA City and County are highly dysfunctional. But the main reason is that we have not built enough housing in this city.” — Shikha B., Westlake

Who responded to the survey?

The survey received a total of 521 responses. Sixty-five of them came from outside the city of L.A., so Mayor Bass does not govern their neighborhoods. Here’s a map of where the responses came from. The survey opened on June 27, 2024, and remains open. The results reflect responses submitted between June and November 2024.

Take the survey yourself

If you read through these results and want to chime in with your own thoughts, we’re still collecting responses.

Fill in your answers below and we’ll have a fresh update on these results after the 2025 Homeless Count numbers are released.

Updated November 14, 2026 at 13:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON— Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.

Tens of thousands of passengers across the U.S. are still stranded Saturday after the rare ground stop. Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator who joined Duffy at Saturday's media briefing, said schedule problems should be resolved by Sunday evening.

Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed, and over 9,000 were cancelled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The disruption seeped into Saturday morning with more than 4,000 cancellations recorded, which is 18% of flights departing the U.S., according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said.

He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.

"It's pretty straightforward work that we were doing yesterday at, again, a very remote location. So what we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installator error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?"

L3Harris did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

These updates have been happening in American institutions for decades, Duffy said.

"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital," Duffy said. "Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made, but this is not complicated."

Bedford said there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening or any AI-related issues.

Since his time in office, Duffy said he's been asking Congress for money to make more upgrades. In July 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system.

With that money, 70% of copper communications have been replaced to high-speed fiber, Bedford said. Duffy called the innovations and the need for more a "bipartisan moment."

"This is the moment, if we don't start to switch out our systems, when, how long are we going to wait, America, and Congress?" Duffy asked.

Thousands of passengers miss flights

Passengers wait at boarding gates at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC on November 13, 2026.

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Zina Desmazes

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AFP via Getty Images

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For about four hours on Friday, thousands of flights at U.S. airports were grounded in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The aviation system is back online and slowly returning to normal Saturday morning, but delays and cancellations will continue, Duffy said. Bedford said all passengers will be put on new flights or they'll get a full refund, but that people should reach out to their airlines directly.

Flight boards at airports across the country Saturday morning continued to be riddled with red cancelled marks. At Tampa International Airport in Florida, people in the main terminal area before security curled up in chairs to grab a wink of sleep.

On Friday night, a flight board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. showed dozens of flights delayed into the early morning hours or cancelled.

Passengers Erin and Jake Britt spent half the day at the airport in D.C. on Friday. Their plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. boarded at 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., they were getting off the plane — but they were still in D.C.

"Overall, our plane was definitely annoyed, but reasonable," Erin Britt said, as the couple left the airport at 8 p.m. "People being upset and asking like, 'Well, how are you not prepared for this?' And it was like, 'Well, no one was prepared.'"

She said neither the pilot nor flight attendants had any more information than passengers."They seem just as in the dark," she said.

The pair decided to cancel their weekend trip, but the night didn't end there. They spent over nine hours overnight waiting on the JetBlue customer service call line to be reimbursed. "I was setting alarms in 20 minute intervals in case I fell asleep," Erin Britt said.

For people who had events or plans over the weekend – the delay added an extra layer of stress. Joe Romano and Maddie Cabana had a cruise leaving Orlando, Fla. Saturday afternoon.

"It was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I'm constantly dealing with flight delays," Romano said. "When this happened, I was just like, 'Of course, it always happens to me.'"

"Just rather inconvenient and frustrating," Cabana added, as the pair contemplated checking their bags or going home. They even thought about driving to Florida. "Hopefully, everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does."

And it did— eventually. After their JetBlue flight was ultimately cancelled, they quickly booked another one on Southwest Airlines and made it early Saturday morning.

Others, like Suze DiPietro decided flying wasn't worth it anymore. Her husband drove about four hours down from Ocean City, New Jersey to pick her up in D.C. Luckily, they had friends in the area where they spent the night.

"My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me," DiPietro said.

Other alternatives included people switching to Amtrak trains as they struggled to get to their destination. Although, even Amtrak's system had a brief outage Friday night.

This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.

That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.

The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.

"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.

Ava Pukatch contributed to reporting.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.

"We are excited to share that some of the olive ridley sea turtle eggs from Seal Beach successfully hatched after a 58-day incubation period," said the Aquarium of the Pacific in a social media post.

The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 olive ridley sea turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September. A second set of eggs found on Huntington Beach is still incubating

The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early Saturday morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.

Baby turtles, the aquarium said, go through a “frenzy period” after hatching, where they swim nonstop for up to two days

The eggs came from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast. Scientists say unusually warming water tied to El Niño likely drew the rare turtles to the Southern California coast.

If you happen to see 600 people snaking down 14.3 miles of Santa Monica Boulevard (and then some) on Saturday, Nov. 21 — their sole purpose is just to … walk.

“For years people were asking us, ‘What are you doing?’” said Michael Schneider, founder of the Great Los Angeles Walk.

These strolls are maximalist in nature, usually covering the entire length of a given thoroughfare. Sunset Boulevard. Melrose Avenue. Ventura Boulevard.

The inaugural Great L.A. Walk in 2006 along Wilshire Boulevard.

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How the walk began 

The pre-Thanksgiving tradition started in 2006 with Wilshire Boulevard. Schneider, who had reached the milestone of living in L.A. for a decade, was inspired by a book about the street’s history to walk its entire 15.8 miles on foot. He asked others to join on his blog Franklin Avenue.

About two dozen people showed up. That day, they popped into storefronts, stopped by restaurants, sneaked into the Park Plaza Hotel near MacArthur Park and shot up to the roof. “That kind of unearthed a whole new side of Los Angeles as we walked down Wilshire,” he said.

By the time the trek reached the ocean, folks were asking Schneider about next year. Now, it's always on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

“I inadvertently turned it into an annual tradition,” he said.

The 2016 edition of Great L.A. Walk along Pico Boulevard.

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Courtesy Great Los Angeles Walk

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The 2007 installment was Pico Boulevard — with restaurant recommendations along the route handpicked by the late Pulitzer-winning food critic Jonathan Gold.

Eventually, Schneider included themed walks. March of Los Pobladores — which retraces the final leg of the 1781 journey taken by the original founders of L.A. — from the San Gabriel Mission to downtown. And USC to UCLA when the rivals faced off on game day.

This year’s route: Route 66 

This year's theme is Route 66.

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Google map screengrab

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This year’s focus is Route 66, marking the centennial of the iconic road. Saturday's walk will start in Echo Park, then go the whole way down Santa Monica Boulevard and end at the pier, totaling about 16 miles.

“You see so many different versions of Los Angeles,” he said.

Michael Schneider, founder of the Great L.A. Walk, at last year's trot along Wilshire Boulevard.

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Courtesy Great Los Angeles Walk

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Celebrity sightings and a marquee shout-out 

One year, he said, the group walked by Magic Johnson.

“He waved at us," Schneider said. "Probably was wondering why [there were] hundreds of people walking past where he was."

As many as 600 people now join the walk, he said. As the number grows, so too has its legend.

“Now we find a lot of people who know who we are,” he said. “You hear people say, ‘Hey, it's the Great L.A. Walk.”

A couple of decades ago, a friend in New York told me about something happening that was kinda underground and just getting traction. It was called “The Moth.” People took turns telling a true, personal story, with no notes, named after the Southern tradition of sitting on front porches and sharing spellbinding tales — with moths flying mesmerized around the porchlight.

It sounded amazing. And terrifying. I filed it under the same list as bungee jumping — no doubt exhilarating but something I’d never do — and got on with my life. Over the years, as it grew bigger and bigger, I went to several Moth events in different cities, and was always so impressed with the storytellers — and equally adamant I’d never do it.

Cut to this September, when a message went out to all the staff at LAist. We’re a media sponsor of The Moth, and an event, a open mike StorySLAM, was coming up in Silver Lake. There were a few tickets available. Did anyone want one? The theme was "Divas." Sure, I thought. I’d go watch. It's always fun.

Nagging thought

As the days went by, the same thought kept nagging at me. How about getting on stage yourself? No, I thought. Too risky. But this time there was another thought, even more vehement. Why are you being held hostage by fear? Life is too short. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. And this opportunity has just fallen into your lap.

So when the day came, I went to the event, and put my name in the hat. Would I be picked? I sat there with sweaty palms as the show started and people came up tell their own funny, moving, poignant stories.

Finally, near the end of the show, my name was called out. Gulp. I walked on stage to the mic, and began telling my story.

“Some years ago I was a BBC radio producer. A show host and I were at Albuquerque airport, on our way to Los Alamos to do interviews about the Manhattan project. But when we got to the gate, it was closed. They’d boarded the plane 15 minutes early. We couldn't believe it. There was only one plane per day and we'd flown in from London and were on a tight schedule. What should we do?”

Holding their breath

It was a strange experience, simultaneously storytelling while looking at the audience and scanning for their reactions. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.... and were holding their breath, waiting to see what came next.

“I could see the plane on the tarmac, one of those regional planes with propellers, on the other side of an alarmed emergency exit door. So I decided, in the heat of the moment, to push it open, and started dashing across the tarmac, yelling for the host to follow me. Security men began running towards me from every direction as the alarm blared loudly.”

The audience was laughing with delight and disbelief, and I was laughing, too, at the recollection. What on earth had made me do that? Ah, my young, impulsive, determined self. Just as well it wasn’t today, post 9/11. I’d be dead.

“As I reached the plane, the security men were shouting 'What are you doing? You can’t run onto the tarmac!' That’s when the diva part came in. I drew myself up to my full 5’ 2” and said, determinedly, 'No, YOU were the ones who boarded the plane early. We did everything right! We have our tickets, we have interviews to do and we are going to get on this plane.'"

The security men looked at each other, unsure what to do. Maybe it was the British accent, or not being used to a woman giving them a dressing down. But one of them shrugged, moved out of the way, and they let us get on the plane. "Hurray! And we made it to Los Alamos, in time to do our interviews. Thank you.”

The audience went crazy, clapping and whooping. I was standing there grinning stupidly. I couldn’t believe I’d done it.

Yes, the story went down well. And the audience hadn't eaten me alive. But there was something bigger, something even more satisfying in my reaction. I’d had made myself do something I was scared of. I'd faced my demons.... and survived.

A lesson for us all.