The Brief

California counties are reporting decreases in homelessness, suggesting the state is finally making progress in solving one of its most difficult and persistent problems.

But even as Gov. Gavin Newsom and local officials are celebrating, the money that made those wins possible is at risk of evaporating.

President Donald Trump’s administration this month tried to block organizations that don’t support its social agenda from accessing federal homeless housing funds — causing experts in the field to worry that politically liberal California could find itself blacklisted from crucial dollars.

Cuts to state homelessness funding are also on the horizon, and some local jurisdictions are pulling back funds as they struggle with their own budget deficits. That has counties, nonprofits and industry experts worried California’s homeless counts will soon go right back up.

“I do think that we’re doing something right,” Sharon Rapport, director of California state policy for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, said of the recent decreases. “That all may come to a crashing end with a lot of concerns with what’s happening at the federal level, federal policy changing and funding cuts happening.”

Of the 29 places in California that reported an official homeless census this year, more than half saw a decrease compared to 2024, according to an analysis of point-in-time counts by the Hub for Urban Initiatives. That includes drops of about a quarter in Contra Costa and Sonoma counties, 20% in Santa Cruz County, 16% in Ventura County and 14% in Merced County.

San Diego and Los Angeles counties each saw a decrease of less than 10%. For LA County, this marks the second year in a row that homelessness is down.

But funding worries loom like a black cloud over those promising results. As purse strings tighten, service providers will have to cut staff, programs and bed capacity, meaning they can help fewer homeless people. For years, California cities, counties and nonprofits have been pushing the Newsom administration to provide an ongoing source of homeless funding, so service providers can plan ahead without worrying each year about how much money they’ll get.

Some organizations already are feeling the squeeze.

From December through July, Union Station Homeless Services in Los Angeles County turned away 700 families who needed housing, said CEO Katie Hill.

“We just don’t have anything available for them,” Hill said.

The county cut housing vouchers as the city and county struggled with financial fallout from recent wildfires, falling property tax revenues and increasing legal payouts.

Other organizations are closing their doors for good. Downtown Streets Team, which helps unhoused residents in 16 California cities find housing while earning money cleaning up local streets, plans to close next month after two decades of service.

“The financial and political environment we operate in has shifted dramatically in recent months,” CEO Julie Gardner said in an emailed statement. “During this time, (Downtown Streets Team) lost several significant contracts and grants, creating a multi-million-dollar loss in overall funding. When combined with other factors, including rapidly rising operational costs, these losses made it impossible to continue running the organization in a financially sustainable way.”

‘I just don’t think we’re going to see that funding’

Congress in 2023 appropriated $75 million for something called the Continuum of Care Builds grant, which was supposed to help support the construction of new homeless housing. Former President Joe Biden’s administration started the application process for those grants in 2024. When Trump took the helm in 2025, his administration re-started the process with new criteria, making applicants apply again.

Then, at the start of September, the Trump administration made everyone apply a third time — with a very different set of criteria seeming to disqualify organizations that support trans clients, use “harm reduction” strategies to prevent drug overdose deaths or operate in a “sanctuary city.”

Applicants had to attest that they don’t deny the “sex binary in humans or promote the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic.” They had to promise not to distribute drug paraphernalia or allow the use of drugs on their property.

Applicants also had to attest that they operate in a city, county or state that cooperates with federal immigration enforcement. Newsom has resisted Trump’s immigration crackdown at a state level, and recently signed a set of bills intended to further check ICE.

And applicants were required to operate in a city, county or state that prohibits public camping and enforces that rule. That one could be an easier lift: Arrests and citations for camping-related activities have soared in some California cities over the past year, after the U.S. Supreme Court gave cities more leeway to crack down, and Newsom encouraged cities to ban camping. But two recent statewide attempts to ban homeless camps from near schools and other areas fell flat.

The new funding rules were a major blow to Contra Costa County-based Hope Solutions, which was initially selected to receive $5.5 million to build 15 tiny homes for homeless 18-24-year-olds in Pittsburg. After staff spent at least 100 hours completing the project proposal, they learned this month that they’d no longer qualify because of the new criteria. The Pittsburg Police Department says it does not participate in immigration enforcement. In addition, the new program rules specify the money must go to buildings that serve elderly residents — an about-face that takes Hope Solutions’ youth project out of the running.

“It felt like a gut punch,” said CEO Deanne Pearn, “and really disheartening to know that we had spent so much time and asked so much of our county partners and others, and that that time could have been spent elsewhere.”

The camp where a person experiencing homelessness lives on a hillside above U.S. Route 50 in Sacramento, on Oct. 25, 2024.

(

Fred Greaves

/

CalMatters

)

Hope Solutions is still moving forward with the project, which Pearn hopes the organization can fund with its own financial reserves. But that means the nonprofit won’t have that money for its next project.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness recently sued the Trump administration over the new grant conditions, claiming that all projects in California and three dozen other states would be ineligible for funds. Earlier this month, a federal judge sided with the Alliance, and temporarily barred the federal government from distributing those funds.

Now, that $75 million is frozen as the case moves forward.

While the new conditions at issue in the lawsuit apply only to one specific federal homelessness grant, experts worry it’s an ominous sign for California. Service providers expect applications to open this fall for the main source of federal homelessness funding — the Continuum of Care Program — which funneled about $600 million to California counties in 2023.

If that application poses similar requirements, California could be in trouble.

“Personally, I just don’t think we’re going to see that funding,” said Hill, of Union Station Homeless Services in Los Angeles County.

In a separate lawsuit, San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties sued the Trump administration over contracts that prevented recipients of federal homeless funds from using the money to promote “gender ideology,” “elective abortions” and “illegal immigration.” The counties won an early victory last month, when a judge temporarily blocked the administration from imposing those conditions.

Other federal cuts are looming, too. The Emergency Housing Vouchers program, which launched during the COVID-19 pandemic and now helps more than 15,000 Californians pay their rent, is expected to run out of money next year.

That’s not even counting the cuts to housing vouchers and other federal housing and homelessness programs Trump proposed in May, which are still being negotiated in Congress.

California turning a corner on homelessness

California appears to be decreasing its homeless population, according to the Hub for Urban Initiatives, a California organization that helps local communities shape their homelessness policy, apply for grants and survey their homeless populations.

The 29 California communities that counted and reported their homeless populations this year tallied a total of 131,209 people — a 4% decrease from what those same communities reported last year. That’s a significant step for a state where the homeless population has been stubbornly rising for years.

That data comes from the federally mandated homeless point-in-time count, where teams of volunteers count the unhoused people they see on the street on one night in January. The counts are imperfect, as volunteers can overlook people sleeping in out-of-the-way places, and different counties use different methods — while some places count every year, others count every other. Of the 44 “continuums of care” required to count in California (some small, rural communities combine multiple counties into one continuum of care), 14 didn’t count this year.

The federal housing department will release an official total for the state later this year.

Newsom trumpeted the initial decreases, taking credit for pouring money into homeless housing and other services. He’s not wrong.

Contra Costa County, which saw the state’s biggest drop in homelessness this year, attributes its success largely to the recent boost in state funding, said Christy Saxton, director of Health, Housing and Homeless Services for Contra Costa County. Over the past two years, the county increased its homeless shelter and housing capacity by more than a third.

A big piece of that was the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program, which Newsom launched in the 2019-20 budget year to fill what until then had been a void of state homelessness funds. For the past few years, that program gave cities and counties $1 billion each year.

Those funds support programs such as Contra Costa County’s Delta Landing temporary housing site in Pittsburg, which opened 172 units in 2021. Until then, that part of the county had about 20 beds for its unhoused residents, Saxton said.

But instead of making that state funding ongoing, Newsom’s administration opted to dole it out in one-time grants each year, leaving cities and counties continually guessing what next year’s budget will bring.

This year, that state program will get no new funding (because of the glacial pace at which the state distributes these funds, cities and counties have yet to receive money from the last round). Next year, the amount is set to shrink to $500 million.

“We are significantly concerned about the cuts that are coming,” Saxton said, “because it has taken an influx of money in order to see those decreases, and we need that to continue on now more than ever.”

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

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.

“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “It’s just not a good combination.”

Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.

“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.

Murky water use 

Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.

Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.

They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.

In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.

The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.

A shift to vulnerable regions

California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.

But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.

“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”

Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water-use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”

Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.

Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.

Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”

In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.

“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley, which draws from the strained Colorado River. 

Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.

In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”

Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”

New laws v. Big Tech

Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Now, Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.

It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins in places like the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers OK it.

“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”

Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.

“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.

“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”

Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.

Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.

“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.

“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.

“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”

Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.