The Brief

L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian is pushing back hard on a city-commissioned analysis that found a major homelessness enforcement policy championed by himself and other council members has been ineffective.

Following a Saturday evening statement from Krekorian, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) officials said they stand by their findings.

The LAHSA analysis was meant to feed into a broader report to the council about its 41.18 zones approach that is now eight months overdue. It was completed in November and delivered to the city’s legislative analyst, where it stalled and its info has not been provided to the full council.

LAist obtained a leaked copy of LAHSA’s analysis and published an article about the findings on Friday.

In the sharply-worded statement, Krekorian vigorously disputed LAHSA’s analysis and LAist’s coverage of it.

Krekorian disputed that the information was hidden from the public, alleging LAHSA’s November report had inaccuracies — and possibly “deliberately misleading” info — that still need to be sorted out.

“The information LAHSA provided…was clearly faulty and incomplete at best, and perhaps even deliberately misleading,” wrote Krekorian, who co-authored the 41.18 zone approach that was examined by LAHSA.

He said LAHSA hasn’t been responding to legitimate questions about it from the city’s legislative analyst — something LAHSA officials dispute.

“LAHSA has failed to respond to these basic questions,” Krekorian said, adding that the joint city-county agency “continues to dodge its responsibility to respond to the [legislative analyst]’s legitimate inquiries.”

LAHSA says they "offered impartial analysis"

LAHSA officials say that’s false, and disputed allegations that the report was faulty or deliberately misleading.

“LAHSA offered impartial analysis based on the available data. Our goal is always to provide honest assessments that will allow elected officials to make informed policy decisions,” said Paul Rubenstein, LAHSA’s head of external affairs, in a text message to LAist.

“LAHSA has responded to all questions to date from the [legislative analyst] regarding the report,” he added.

LAist asked Hugh Esten, Krekorian’s spokesperson, if he has any documentation supporting Krekorian’s allegations about LAHSA not responding to questions. Esten said he didn’t, and that he didn’t know if Krekorian did either.

Any such documents, Esten said, would be held by the legislative analyst, Sharon Tso. Tso didn’t return a text message Saturday requesting that info.

In an interview Friday evening, Tso said she had unanswered questions for LAHSA but declined to say what they were. LAist also has asked Rubenstein for documentation of questions being answered.

LAHSA is a joint city-county agency, and half of its governing commission is appointed by L.A.’s mayor and confirmed by the city council.

A spokesperson for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who chairs L.A.’s governing commission and the Board of Supervisors, said no concerns about the LAHSA analysis were raised with the supervisor.

“No one brought this to the Supervisor’s attention — no one at LAHSA and no one on the Council,” said Horvath spokesperson Constance Farrell in a text message to LAist, when asked about the council legislative analyst’s alleged questions and concerns.

What the city analyst told LAist

Tso declined to give a timeline for when her long-overdue city report would be completed and turned over to the full council and public.

“I am being diligent…That’s all I can tell you,” Tso said. She also declined to answer questions about any exchanges with council members about the underlying data or the report. “My conversations with my council members are my conversations.”

She said council members haven’t been demanding the information be disclosed immediately.

“There hasn’t been this screaming demand that we need to have something now,” Tso said.

Strong reactions from city hall

LAist’s article Friday generated strong reactions around City Hall.

In a statement responding to the article, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez called 41.18 a "complete and total failure."

"Our office still has not officially received this report, but we know that encampments swept with 41.18 nearly always return, and we spend millions of dollars every year on this ineffective criminalization of homelessness," he said.

About the data

Rubenstein noted that LAHSA’s analysis acknowledged data quality issues around 41.18. The report says that’s largely because the council didn’t ask for data tracking for 41.18 zones when it created the policy back in 2021, under the motion Krekorian co-authored.

As for the 41.18 law, in his statement Krekorian objected to claims that it criminalizes homelessness, and said it’s “not an alternative to housing programs,” like Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative.

“It simply prohibits encampments in specified limited areas,” he said, “that are especially dangerous to the unhoused themselves, or that unreasonably impede the public’s use of the public right of way, or are adjacent to sensitive areas such as schools and child care centers.”

Krekorian, in his statement, specifically criticized the LAHSA report for saying an encampment had been repopulated even if one person returned. LAist is working on a deeper analysis of the data.

It’s unclear how long Krekorian has had the November report from LAHSA. Esten said he didn’t know, and LAist requested Saturday night that he ask the council president that question. An answer hadn’t been provided as of publication time Sunday afternoon.

Esten said it’s common in L.A. for report-backs ordered by the council to take much longer than their 60-day deadlines, and for there to be no public update about the delay.

Advocates have asked for report for months

A leading advocacy group for unhoused people has been calling for the report’s release for months. The full report-back to the council on 41.18’s effectiveness was due by mid-June. Multiple council members told LAist they have yet to receive LAHSA’s November analysis, which states that it “was performed as requested by the Los Angeles City Council” under its April 2023 directive for a 60-day report-back.

In October, the group LA Community Action Network filed a written comment with the council wondering why the report was taking so long.

On Wednesday, it again urged for the report to be published, both in a letter to the council and during public comments at the council meeting.

The 60-day report-back “is now 261 days past due,” wrote Pete White, LA CAN’s executive director, in the letter. He noted that, on average, six unhoused people die each day across L.A. County.

“It is imperative upon the LA City Council to recognize the urgency of this matter.”

Read the LAHSA summary

LAist made a public record request for LAHSA's report and underlying data. LAHSA released both Sunday night. Here's the summary dated Nov. 28, 2023.

Page 1 of 41.18 Efficacy Summary Report

Contributed to DocumentCloud by Megan Garvey (Southern California Public Radio) • View document or read text

Huntington Beach will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision striking down the city’s controversial voter ID law.

What’s the backstory?

Huntington Beach voters approved a measure in 2024 allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. That contradicts state law — voters in California are asked to provide ID when they register to vote but generally not at polling places.

The ensuing court battle

The state and a Huntington Beach resident promptly sued the city over the voter ID law and won an appeals court ruling striking down the law. The California Supreme Court declined to review the decision earlier this month. The state also passed a law prohibiting cities from implementing their own voter ID laws.

Then, the City Council voted unanimously this week to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.

Does the city have a shot?

The Supreme Court gets 7,000 to 8,000 requests to review cases each year. The Court grants about 80 of these requests, so the city’s chances of getting the court’s attention are statistically slim.

There’s also a question of whether or not the city’s voter ID case meets the Court’s criteria for review — SCOTUS addresses questions of federal law. Mayor Casey McKeon said it does, in a news release, noting a 2008 Supreme Court decision that upheld a state’s voter ID law — in Indiana. But Huntington Beach is a city, and the question in its voter ID case is whether or not a city can implement its own requirements for voting, even if it clashes with state law.

Go deeper

• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Huntington Beach clashes with California over voter ID requirement in court
• HB Mayor defends Voter ID measure as Gov. Newsom seeks to ban it
• Listen 26:32

  The Trump Administration wants your confidential voter data. What’s behind their battle with CA and other states?

When last year’s Eaton Fire burned the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, cantor Ruth Berman Harris helped save what she could from the flames.

Despite best efforts, the campus and nearly everything in it was destroyed.

“I had a colleague calling me and asking me what I needed, and I wasn't able to say,” Berman Harris, one of the spiritual leaders of the synagogue, told LAist. “I don't think I was able to say what I needed for about a year.”

In the months that followed the fire, people from around the world stepped up to replace what was lost, including prayer books, clothes and candlesticks. Several donated challah covers, a decorative cloth that’s placed over the braided bread before being blessed and eaten on Shabbat.

A parking sign at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center after the Eaton Fire.

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And while much of the community’s focus is directed toward larger items that need to be replaced — the buildings included — smaller, ceremonial items can make a big difference, too.

Karen Fink, a Van Nuys resident, donated a hand-woven challah cover that she made for the temple. Her weaving guild was already making dish towels for L.A. fire survivors.

“You've got so many things that need to be done and replaced,” Fink said.

“I just always like to think about who it's going towards, what it's going to be used for, that it should be used well and loved,” she continued.

‘Love through the threads’

On Jan. 7, 2025, as the flames closed in on the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, Berman Harris rushed through smoke and falling embers to rescue all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including weekly on Shabbat.

Berman Harris now works out of an office building in Pasadena, a few miles away from where the center stood.

More than 400 families gathered to worship at the temple before the fire. About 30 families lost their homes, and 40 others were displaced, she said. The congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, which burned during the Eaton Fire, in January 2025 (top) and in January 2026 (bottom).

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“The silver lining of when you go through a traumatic loss is that you don't realize A, how strong you are and B, how not alone you are,” said Berman Harris, who has been a part of the congregation for 14 years.

She said the temple has received many gifts to help them rebuild, but Fink’s challah cover will be used for communal celebrations and holidays to give it an extra layer of “kavod” — of holiness.

Challah covers, usually embroidered with Hebrew words and symbols, are a traditional sight on a table prepared for a Shabbat meal, where both the bread and a cup of wine are blessed before eating. The decorative cover is a symbolic way of honoring the bread, while the wine is being blessed first.

“Because you say the blessing over the bread last,” Fink told LAist. “It gets to have this lovely cover so it doesn't get embarrassed.”

Fink said she used one of her more intricate patterns, featuring white and blue threads in a repeating pattern of the Star of David.

The challah cover woven by Karen Fink when it was fresh off the loom.

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She said it took a couple of hours to wind the thread, about a day to get the project set up on her small loom and another three days to get through the top six rows of stars.

Once the challah cover was complete, it took a few months to get it to Berman Harris, but Fink said she wanted to help in a way that felt more personal than mailing a check.

“They were able to get their Torah scrolls out,” Fink said. “But all the other things that maybe aren't required, but are helpful in enhancing the spirit of Shabbat, the spirit of a synagogue, you know, that was all lost.”

Starting to settle

Berman Harris said the donations have not only helped rebuild their ritual spaces, they were gifted “with love.”

“They're not things you buy on Amazon,” she said. “These are things that you cherish because you can feel the love through the threads.”

Cantor Ruth Berman Harris showing off the handmade challah cover Karen Fink weaved for the congregation.

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The synagogue has received other challah covers that they’ve distributed to families in the congregation.

On the anniversary of the fire, Josh Ratner, senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that Jewish people have overcome “so much” throughout history.

People embrace inside a tent on the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire on Jan. 6.

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“I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our [history] … is one of rebuilding even stronger than before.

“Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve."

Students carry lanterns they created as symbols of hope as they enter the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire.

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