The Brief

For the record: We have updated the headline of this article to better reflect what happened to displaced participants in the HOPICS rapid rehousing program. We use the terms “eviction” and “evicted” in the article and a Dec. 12, 2023 newsletter based on the common understanding of the word. However, HOPICS’ middlemen were those legally evicted. The clients were displaced from their homes as a result of the evictions. We regret if that was not clear to readers. 

HOPICS used middlemen to help facilitate the program. The middlemen rented from property owners, becoming the property owners’ tenants. The middlemen then subleased to HOPICS participants. HOPICS subsidized participants’ rent through payment to the middlemen, who were then to pay property owners. As the article describes, when rent was not paid on a timely basis, property owners began eviction proceedings against middlemen. Participants then faced imminent displacement, which we refer to as “eviction.” Legal eviction proceedings were against the middlemen, not the HOPICS clients. As the article also describes, HOPICS arranged for new permanent housing or shelters for most of the tenants facing imminent displacement, however HOPICS could not account for dozens more.

Jesus Mares got a lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to rental support from one of Los Angeles’ leading homelessness agencies, he had a roof over his head.

He had been bouncing between sleeping in his car and hotel rooms. The taxpayer-subsidized room in a South L.A. duplex provided stability until he could get back on his feet, he’d hoped.

It went well for a while, he said. Then Mares quickly noticed things were amiss with the nonprofit, known as HOPICS. He went through several case managers who Mares said didn’t come to see him.

Then came the eviction notice. HOPICS, which has received about $140 million in Los Angeles city, county, state and federal funding over the last three years for a program known as rapid re-housing, was months behind on paying his rent, according to Mares and his former landlord.

“They basically told us to get out of the building and they locked the building up,” Mares said.

All together 306 people lost taxpayer-funded homes in South Los Angeles as a result of HOPICS’ failure to pay rent on time, the nonprofit said. While more than half were then placed in permanent housing or sent to temporary sites, HOPICS and Los Angeles housing authorities did not say what happened to 119 people.

A CalMatters review of the program, based on hundreds of pages of documents and dozens of interviews, shows that the prominent Los Angeles nonprofit repeatedly ignored explicit eviction warnings from some landlords, did little to vet the middlemen it entrusted to execute the program, and took on far more clients than its case managers could serve.

CalMatters interviewed three participants who landlords said were evicted from HOPICS-funded houses, and they reported ending up back on the streets or living in their cars.

Brenda Wyatt outside of her temporary housing location in Los Angeles on Oct. 4, 2023.

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The eviction mess underscores weaknesses in California’s strategy for addressing its biggest crisis, homelessness. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has allocated more than $20 billion to fight homelessness, but the state’s homeless population surpassed 170,000 people in 2022. Like HOPICS, many government-funded services provide only temporary housing, depend on too few case workers and must compete for units in an already-tight rental market.

Leaders of the nonprofit, whose formal name is Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System, say they were overwhelmed by the sudden influx of emergency COVID money during the pandemic to run what’s known as rapid re-housing, a popular local rental assistance program.

To execute the program, HOPICS used middlemen – many of which were newly created nonprofits – to rent out rooms to the unhoused. However, HOPICS’ leaders often didn’t pay those brokers on time, they say, because they needed to review and approve rent bills sent by the very landlords they had chosen to work with. Some of the invoices, they say, had questionable charges.

“We didn’t have the habit of Google searching everybody’s names, and probably that’s a simple fix,” said HOPICS deputy director and former U.S. Rep. Katie Hill. “This is a lot of money that has gone towards a program that has shown that it can house a lot of people. It’s not perfect in any way, shape, or form, and it’s evolving, and we’re learning as we go.”

The federal government sent $100 million in emergency aid to Los Angeles County to address the homelessness crisis during the pandemic, along with another $220 million to six cities in the region including L.A. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority then turned to organizations like HOPICS, which is a division of a larger LA nonprofit, Special Service for Groups, to carry out the programs. Between 2019 and 2023, HOPICS placed 3,100 homeless people into permanent housing through rapid rehousing programs, according to the nonprofit.

Annual revenues at Special Service for Groups surged from $84 million in 2018 before the pandemic to $149.1 million in 2022. It also gets rapid re-housing funding from Measure H, the 2017 Los Angeles County sales tax and a mix of federal, state and city funds.

While the rush of COVID funding has ended, HOPICS continues to deal with the fallout of the evictions. It still hasn’t paid all of the rent the landlords claim they are owed, it acknowledges. And, separately, three Los Angeles motels sued HOPICS and its parent late last year, alleging it stopped paying rent for clients who were living at the motels. The nonprofit settled the case early this year, though the terms weren’t disclosed.

HOPICS Director Veronica Lewis said her organization can be late with payments because of its efforts to verify that its clients are actually living in the units.

“The notion that we just don’t pay, it’s just absurd,” she said. “We want to be good stewards of public funds.”

CalMatters sent the Los Angeles homeless authority questions about how it funds and oversees HOPICS. The homeless services agency’s spokesperson issued a statement that didn’t answer several questions, including how many clients got into rapid rehousing programs as a result of pandemic funding and how many have returned to homelessness after leaving rapid rehousing programs. The agency also did not comment on whether it’s a common practice for homeless services nonprofits to pay rent late.

The authority’s “role is to ensure service providers receive the funds necessary to bring our unhoused neighbors home … ensure the program is performing efficiently, and work with the provider to identify any performance concerns,” the spokesperson said.

“It’s about time somebody stepped up and exposed what HOPICS is doing,” said Demario Swait, a 59-year-old who was evicted. The nonprofit gets a grant “to make sure that people are housed, and people are not being housed. And I’m one of them.”

Swait and Mares said they are still trying to pick up the pieces from the HOPICS evictions. Swait is now in temporary housing with a different agency, looking for permanent housing, he said.

Demario Swait at Leimert Park in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

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Mares packed his things and went back to living in his car, he said. “Right now, I’m at my family’s house trying to get it together, trying to find a new spot.”

Why HOPICS turned to middlemen

A Vietnam veteran who had slept on Skid Row founded HOPICS in the 1980s as a one-man operation working to find housing and services for homeless people.

Today it’s one of the county’s largest homeless services organizations with a contract from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority to coordinate shelter placements and other services in South L.A. To lead the organization, Lewis was paid $261,000 last year, according to the organization’s tax records. She also sits on the state council on homelessness, which Gov. Newsom has charged with developing policies to prevent and end homelessness in California.

HOPICS is supposed to help unhoused people find a place to live, pay a portion of the rent for up to two years and provide a wide range of social services, like employment training and assistance applying for public benefits, according to its contract with Los Angeles County.

Ideally, clients gradually contribute more toward rent until they’re able to stay housed on their own, according to the Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority.

Landlords are often reluctant to rent their properties to people receiving government rental assistance, whether due to bias or an aversion to red tape.

Property owners who wanted to help house the homeless “don’t necessarily want to be landlords to our population,” Lewis said, and many didn’t want to handle multiple leases for clients sharing one house.

So, instead, HOPICS turned to middlemen. These brokers would rent properties and then sublease rooms in those properties to participants.

Housing 1BY1 Co-Founders Dejon Dixon and Norris Jones in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. Dixon and Jones say a Los Angeles-based nonprofit owes them hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent for formerly homeless people.

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CalMatters interviewed five brokers who got into business with HOPICS by renting homes from a large property management group called Ocean Properties, Inc. Ocean Properties describes itself as a development company that flips “small inadequate homes” into larger duplexes. It sells the multi-unit houses to investors and often remains as property manager, renting out more than 2,000 affordable housing units across South L.A.

HOPICS does not lease houses from Ocean Properties directly.

Instead, it goes through people like Norris Jones. He created the nonprofit Housing 1By1 in August 2020, to help with Los Angeles’ housing and homelessness crisis, he said. A month later he welcomed his first HOPICS tenant. Jones and his partner, Dejon Dixon, sublet more than a dozen units, housing more than 80 people for about $950 a month for a private room. They charged $2,800 as a security deposit, according to several signed lease agreements.

Jones and three other brokers said HOPICS would go months without paying rent, causing them to fall behind on paying the property owners. As a result, he says he owes Ocean Properties more than $200,000 in rent and fees. He said he doesn’t understand how a company getting paid by the government “got us in a position where we can’t pay the rent for the people they house in our homes.”

HOPICS officials say Jones has overstated how much it owes him and, in some cases, said he’s submitted invoices far too late to get reimbursed. Still, in a February email to Jones, HOPICS acknowledged owing him $135,000 for 2022 and “upwards of $90k” for 2023.

Now, Jones said HOPICS has paid him some of the unpaid rent. He’s in talks to settle with the agency over the rest of the money he says he’s owed.

“I spent all my money to do this,” Jones said.

In the rush of new funding, HOPICS acknowledged it went into business with some brokers without doing so much as a Google search. For instance, the agency leased 24 locations from Donye Mitchell of LA Supportive Housing. CalMatters found that Mitchell left federal prison in 2014 after serving a sentence for defrauding California’s Employment Development Department.

A property owner in June filed a lawsuit against Mitchell and his business partner in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging they owe more than $77,000 in back rent for a site his nonprofit used to house homeless people, court records show. Neither party has responded to the suit.

One of several properties managed by Norris Jones and Dejon Dixon, co-founders of Housing 1BY1, in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

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Mitchell did not respond to voice messages left with his business partner or emails from CalMatters for this story.

HOPICS officials said some landlords shuffled residents around the units against program rules, and failed to tell the agency about impending evictions until the last minute.

Herbert Hatanaka, executive director of Special Service for Groups, Inc., is personally investigating some of the claims from the brokers.

“There’s missing information,” he said. “We have evidence, for example, clear evidence that there were individuals that were not living in some of those facilities for the time that (the landlords are) billing us for. ”

Overwhelmed L.A. homeless caseworkers

Vetting and paying rent invoices wasn’t the only holdup for HOPICS clients. A persistent shortage of caseworkers contributed as well, former employees told CalMatters.

To have rent paid, rapid rehousing clients must meet with their case managers at least once a month. HOPICS tenants, landlords and former employees told CalMatters that just didn’t happen.

One employee said the agency was badly understaffed because of high turnover and unable to keep up with the number of tenants it was supposed to serve. Los Angeles County requires each case manager to work with up to 25 clients.

“When I signed my acceptance letter, it was for 20 clients, and within 30 days, I had 60,” said Neal Glasgow, a former caseworker for HOPICS who said he left in 2022 after about a year. “I was playing catch-up every month.”

The caseworkers verify that tenants are still living in the units, set tenants’ rent contributions and connect tenants with services.

Glasgow said landlords called him so often about unpaid invoices that some of them became his friends. HOPICS’ leaders acknowledged they didn’t meet the caseworker ratio, citing understaffing in the social services industry.

Several former tenants said they went months without contact from a caseworker, leaving them feeling stranded in temporary placements. Brokers who visited the homes also said their tenants didn’t receive visits from case workers and complained that instead of getting help to become financially stable or get treatment, the clients languished in the houses, sometimes using drugs and having mental breakdowns.

In Los Angeles Superior Court claims, three tenants have said they’d seen 15 or 20 different caseworkers in the two years they were allotted in the rapid rehousing program and still hadn’t gotten permanent housing. A judge ruled in May and June that the agency did not owe them any money for emotional distress and dismissed the case.

The current rapid rehousing system of cost-sharing rent for a couple of years doesn’t make sense to some of the people who once ran it.

“It’s setting (the unhoused) up for failure,” Glasgow said. “You put them in a room that they can’t afford and after the program, they’re gonna end up back homeless, and that’s a lot of money wasted.”

HOPICS officials say they now lease some houses directly from property owners. That practice, known as master-leasing, is a strategy agencies including the L.A. Homeless Services Agency, are increasingly considering.

“It’s basically eliminating that middleman that has too much opportunity for problems,” said Hill, the HOPICS deputy director.

An eviction letter posted in one of the residences where Vincent Osby housed formerly homeless people in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023.

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But they also still house clients in units run by brokers. The nonprofit’s officials said they’re doing more to vet landlords before placing clients in their units, including requiring all future and current landlords to sign stricter, clearer program requirements and asking for references.

“We’re asking more questions now,” Lewis said.

Brenda Wyatt, 58, was kicked out of her room on Sept. 4, she said. Her landlord, Vincent Osby, hadn’t been paying the property owner. He confirmed he couldn’t keep up with the rent but declined further comment.

Osby, who played two seasons of professional football for the San Diego Chargers in the 1980s, leased more than a dozen units to HOPICS clients, HOPICS officials said.

The landlord moved Wyatt to another shared house after he fell behind on rent. She said it was unclear whether HOPICS or Osby was at fault for the late rent payments.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on, excuse my French,” Wyatt said. “That leaves us in limbo. We don’t know what to do. We worry about getting kicked back out on the streets.”

President Trump once insisted he had "nothing to do with Project 2025," the right-wing policy plan that became a key flashpoint during the presidential campaign.

The Democrats tried to turn the 900-page Heritage Foundation-led blueprint to remake the government into a political boogeyman, and succeeded to some degree, but it wasn't enough to win the election.

A year later, many of the policies have been implemented, from cracking down on immigration to dismantling the Department of Education.

"A lot of the policies from Day 1 to the last day and in between that the administration has adopted are right out of Project 2025," said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, who has used Project 2025 to prepare legal papers against the administration.

Concerns about the project started to bubble up over the spring of 2024, but really caught fire a few months later when actress Taraji P. Henson singled out Project 2025 while hosting the BET awards.

"Pay attention. It's not a secret. Look it up!" she said, speaking directly into the camera during the show. "They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game."

'Ridiculous'

Then-candidate Trump tried to dismiss the hysteria, calling the ideas "ridiculous" — and claiming he did not know who was behind it — even though key people involved in developing the plans served in his first administration.
And when it was clear the firestorm would not go away, Trump went on the attack against those allies who wrote the playbook.

"They're a pain in the a--," said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, who tore into the organizers of Project 2025 at an event hosted by CNN and Politico during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

"Look, I think that in the perfect world, from their perspective, they would love to drive the issue set, but they don't get to do that," he added.

Yet days after winning, Trump tapped Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget — considered the nerve center of the White House. Other contributors followed.
Trump soon unleashed a flurry of orders reshaping the government, many of which were outlined in Project 2025.

"As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female," he said during his inaugural address.

Trump ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He launched massive immigration enforcement and took the first steps to overhaul the federal workforce.

Bonta, the attorney general of California, said Project 2025 defined Trump's first year back in office. The country's 23 Democratic attorneys general studied Project 2025, consulted with each other and, he said, prepared a response for every potential action should it be taken.

"The existence of Project 2025 was the Trump administration telling us exactly what they were going to do and sending it to us in writing," Bonta said.

Bonta has filed or joined lawsuits that have successfully blocked Trump's policies requiring states like California to join his immigration crackdown, freeze of domestic federal funding and layoffs at agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education.

The White House dismissed concerns about Project 2025, calling them irrelevant theories from Beltway insiders.

"President Trump is implementing the agenda he campaigned on and that the American people voted for," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Jackson said the president focused on implementing the agenda he campaigned on — lowering gas prices, accelerating economic growth and securing the border.

Fueling controversy

Trump may have actually fueled the controversy by rejecting Project 2025 during the campaign, said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former White House aide to George W. Bush.

"I would say that Project 2025 was largely standard conservative fare, but with a bit more of a MAGA flavor than previously."

Troy sees little difference between what the Heritage Foundation did with Project 2025 and what think tanks on the left and right have been doing for years compiling policy proposals for incoming presidents.

He pointed to the personnel and policy ideas of the Hoover Institution that helped shape the George W. Bush administration and the Center for American Progress' influence on the Obama administration.

"If the Trump campaign had leaned into it and said, 'sure, this is an agenda that has been put out as a think tank. This happens all the time. We will look at them in due time when the election is over,' " said Troy. "By criticizing and disavowing Project 2025, it suddenly became more radioactive."

Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, says he never took the attacks personally, which he chalked up to political calculus. 

He likened watching the president sign executive orders and directives that first came across his desk to being an animator who watches his or her sketchbook come to life on the big screen.

"I believe the proof is in the pudding," said Dans, who also served in the first Trump administration. "Every day that President Trump rolls out another Project 2025 item, it's really an endorsement of our work, myself and the work of thousands of patriots who came together."

Dans is now highlighting that work in a run for the Senate, against Trump-ally, Republican Lindsey Graham.

Trump did eventually embrace Project 2025 during the shutdown fight last fall.

He boasted of meeting with "Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame," while threatening to dismantle federal agencies.

"I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," he said.

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President Trump says his controversial push for U.S. control of Greenland comes after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, adding he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace.

In a message to Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Sunday night, Trump criticized the European country for not giving him the prize.

"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America," Trump said in the message.

"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland," Trump added.

The message was reported by PBS NewsHour, and was later confirmed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a statement.

Gahr Støre said he received the message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finland's President Alexander Stubb had sent to Trump, in which they had conveyed opposition to Trump's proposed tariff increases on eight European countries over the recent Greenland dispute.

In their message to Trump, according to The New York Times, which received a copy of the exchange from the Norwegian prime minister's office, Gahr Støre and Stubb wrote: "We believe we all should work to take this down and de-escalate — so much is happening around us where we need to stand together."

The pair suggested a joint call.

"Norway's position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter," Gahr Støre said. "We also support that NATO in a responsible way is taking steps to strengthen security and stability in the Arctic."

Gahr Støre also pointed out that while President Trump claimed that Norway "decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize," the government of Norway is not responsible for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded by a five member Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1901.

The Danish navy's inspection ship HDMS Vaedderen sails off Nuuk, Greenland, on Sunday.

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The Peace Prize, which was last awarded to Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, is also awarded for the previous year. That means the most recent prize was awarded for 2024, before President Trump commenced his second term of office. Machado gave Trump her prize last week as a symbolic thank you for his recent actions in Venezuela.

In a phone interview with NBC News on Monday, Trump again claimed that the Norwegian government has control over the Nobel Peace Prize. "Norway totally controls it despite what they say," he said. Trump also said he would follow through on his threats to impose further tariffs. When asked whether he would use force to seize Greenland, the president replied: "No comment."

The European Union is set to hold an emergency summit on Thursday, in which attendees will discuss how to respond to the threats. In a statement on social media, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc had "no interest to pick a fight" but would "hold our ground."

Trump's message to Gahr Støre comes as tensions rise between Europe and the United States over the status of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark that is strategically important and rich in resources.

On Monday, the World Economic Forum said officials from Denmark would not be attending the meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week. "We can confirm that the Danish government will not be represented in Davos this week," a spokesperson, Alem Tedeneke, told NPR.

On Sunday, in a collective rebuke to President Trump, the leaders of Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning recent U.S. tariff threats. The eight countries, which are all members of NATO, said that Trump's proposed tariffs "undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral."

On Saturday night, President Trump had written on his Truth Social social media platform that he would impose tariffs on imports from the countries, after they had deployed limited military personnel to Greenland to participate in a Danish-led Arctic exercise known as 'Arctic Endurance.'

Trump said America would levy a 10% tariff on goods from the eight countries starting on Feb. 1, which would rise to 25% on June 1, and remain in place "until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland" by the United States.

The open dispute comes after weeks of increasingly assertive U.S. rhetoric regarding Greenland, in which Trump has repeatedly said that Greenland is strategically vital to U.S. national security, citing its location and untapped mineral deposits.

In his text message, Trump questioned Denmark's right to claim Greenland. "Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also," Trump said.

Trump made similar comments last week, saying "the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn't mean that they own the land," drawing mirth on social media, with comedians like Jon Stewart noting on The Daily Show "how do you think we got our land?"

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend is typically busy for the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles. On Monday, the orchestra finished its third performance of the weekend at the California African American Museum, which included a musical rendition of the civil rights leader’s seminal “I Have a Dream Speech.”

It was flautist Tionna LeSassier’s first time playing with the orchestra on the federal holiday. Tionna said she began playing flute when she was 12.

“I feel really relieved that I was able to accomplish such a big performance for a really big holiday,” Tionna, who has been playing flute for more than two years, said. “I cannot believe I’m here playing with these amazing musicians.”

The orchestra’s performance, which included pieces like “We Shall Overcome” and the “Afro-American Symphony,” capped off the museum’s annual “King Day” celebration.

The event is held on the federal holiday that honors the legacy of the Baptist preacher whose nonviolent protests and eloquent speeches helped shift American attitudes about race in the 1960s and beyond and lead to landmark Civil Rights legislation.

Earlier in the day, museumgoers listened to and reflected on a recording by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from 1967. Nearly 60 years later, event participants said, the words still feel fresh.

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” King said in “The Three Evils of Society,” his keynote address at the National Conference on New Politics in Chicago.

Cameron Shaw, executive director of the Exposition Park museum, told LAist on Monday that the speech has “incredible relevance to the political and social moment and what we’re going through as a people today.”

In a brief discussion after the speech, one attendee spoke about the need to interrogate racism as a systematic ill, not just as one-off acts, and another commented on the importance of standing up to injustice.

Shaw says the museum’s celebration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day has evolved over the last several years, but one of the main throughlines she sees is the continued message of “speaking truth to power.”

“When we celebrate Dr. King today, we celebrate all of the folks past and present who have been brave enough to speak truth to power,” Shaw said. “That is something we truly need.”

Monday’s event also featured a faux stained glass workshop inspired by an exhibition the museum has on display about architect Amaza Lee Meredith.

The museum’s King Day event was one of several celebrating the Civil Rights leader this weekend in L.A.

In South L.A., an annual parade drew thousands of people, with a march concluding in Leimert Park. "It was a wonderful and powerful tribute to Dr. King’s memory to march down MLK Boulevard alongside so many friends and community members in the historic Leimert Park neighborhood," L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.

A report of a stabbing marred the end of the event. Bass' statement said city officials were investigating and ensuring people got home safe. She added that "Los Angeles has zero tolerance for this type of violence."

Italian fashion designer Valentino died Monday at his Roman residence. He was 93. His foundation announced his death on Instagram.

Dubbed an "international arbiter of taste" by Vogue, notable women wore his designs at funerals and weddings, as well as on the red carpet. He dressed the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis, as well as modern stars, including Anna Wintour to Gwyneth Paltrow and Zendaya.

The image of style and lavish living, Valentino's signature features included crisp suits and a "crème brûlée" complexion — due to his fervor for tanning. He was heavily inspired by the stars he saw on the silver screen and had a lifelong fixation with glamour.

"I love a beautiful lady. I love a beautiful dog. I love a beautiful piece of furniture. I love beauty. It's not my fault," he said in The Last Emperor, a 2008 documentary about him.

In the world of haute couture, Valentino embraced sophistication, elegance and traditional femininity through his dresses and trademarked a vibrant red hue. His work embodied romance, luxury and an aristocratic lifestyle.

He was born Valentino Garavani and named after the silent movie star Rudolph Valentino. A self-described spoiled child, the designer acquired a taste for the expensive from a young age; his shoes were custom-made, and the stripe, color and buttons of his blazers were designed to his specifications.

His father, a well-to-do electrical supplier, and his mother, who appreciated the value of a well-made garment, catered to their young son's refined palate and later supported his fashion endeavors, sending him to school and financing his early work.

Growing up in the small town of Voghera, Italy, he learned sewing from his Aunt Rosa in Lombardy. After high school, he moved to Paris to study fashion and take on apprenticeships.

Valentino owed much of his success to his former lover and business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti. The two met in a café on the famed Via Condotti in Rome in 1960, where Valentino had opened his first couture studio.

They founded Valentino Company the same year, and its first ready-to-wear shop opened in Milan in 1969. Together, the pair built a fashion empire over five decades.

They separated romantically when Valentino was 30 but remained business partners and close friends. Valentino knew little about business and accounting before meeting Giammetti; together, they formed two parts of a whole — Giammetti the business mind, and Valentino the creative force.

"Valentino has a perfect vision of how a woman should dress," Giammetti told Charlie Rose in 2009. "He looks for beauty. Women should be more beautiful. His work is to make women more beautiful."

They sold the Valentino company in 1998 for nearly $300 million. It made $1.36 billion in revenue in 2021, according to Reuters.

Even after his retirement in 2008, he couldn't completely leave fashion behind and continued to design dresses for opera productions.

Once the fashion world became more accessible to the public, millions of aspiring fashionistas bought jeans, handbags, shoes, umbrellas and even Lincoln Continentals with his gleaming "V" monogram. By the peak of his career, Valentino's popularity would rival that of the pope's in Rome.

Copyright 2026 NPR