Sandricka Henderson receives support through Los Angeles County's Housing for Health Division's Homeless Prevention program. Feb. 29, 2024.
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Jules Hotz for CalMatters
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Topline:
L.A. County is experimenting with machine learning to prevent homelessness, and so far nearly 90% of participants have kept their housing.
Why does this matter? It comes at a time when more than 180,000 Californians have no place to call home, and people are ending up on the streets faster than government agencies and nonprofits can get them into housing.
How does it work? L.A. County’s algorithm analyzes data from residents’ emergency room visits, jail stays, use of food assistance and more, and has sparked interest from Silicon Valley to San Diego.
But how well does it work? Final data on the program isn't out yet. But so far, pairing AI with human intervention has led to positive results.
You’ve likely heard about AI powering driverless cars, writing term papers and creating unsettling deep fakes.
Can that same technology also prevent people from becoming homeless?
That’s what Los Angeles County is trying to find out. Officials there are using AI technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing — and then stepping in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more.
It’s still an experimental strategy. But the program has served more than 700 clients since 2021, and 86% have retained their housing. It comes at a time when more than 180,000 Californians have no place to call home, and people are ending up on the streets faster than government agencies and nonprofits can get them into housing. Officials all over the state are turning to methods aimed at preventing homelessness before it happens.
L.A. County’s algorithm analyzes data from residents’ emergency room visits, jail stays, use of food assistance and more, and has sparked interest from Silicon Valley to San Diego. Final data on the program — which has roughly $26 million in federal COVID funds and is expected to end in 2026 — aren’t yet out. If it’s successful, it could have major implications for helping cities and counties spend their limited resources more efficiently.
“If we know who people are who unfortunately are going to have that experience, and they’re already county clients, it’s a real opportunity to do something early on in their lives to prevent that from happening,” said Dana Vanderford, associate director of homelessness prevention for L.A. County’s Department of Health Services.
Dana Vanderford, Associate Director of Homelessness Prevention at Housing for Health at Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, in Los Angeles on Feb. 29, 2024.
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Jules Hotz for CalMatters
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How does artificial intelligence predict homelessness?
The idea started in 2019, when UCLA’s California Policy Lab began experimenting to see if it could use machine learning, combined with L.A. County data, to predict homelessness. Then, the county paired that with money to intervene before people ended up on the street – the program is predominantly funded with $26 million in COVID-era funds from the federal American Rescue Plan.
The UCLA researchers start with a list of 90,000 people who recently used services from the county’s Health Services or Mental Health departments. Using 580 factors, the computer ranks those people from 1 to 90,000 based on their risk of becoming homeless. The people deemed to be highest-risk tend to show up in emergency rooms and jails at high rates, and have high usage of services such as CalFresh food benefits. But the model takes many more data points into consideration.
For example, if people receive services in many different geographic areas, it could mean they’re couch surfing — bouncing from one precarious living situation to the next.
“You sort of let the computer learn what it finds to be predictive over time,” said Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA.
To train the algorithm, the researchers showed it a list of people who became homeless along with the services they used prior to losing their housing. Then, they had the algorithm practice “predicting” homelessness using old data, and checked to see if it was accurate. When they were satisfied, they started using it for real predictions.
How well does it work? Among the 90,000 people the researchers started with, 7% became homeless in 18 months. Among the 10,000 people the algorithm deemed to be highest risk, 24% became homeless.
If they were targeting fewer people (say 1,000 instead of 10,000), it would be even more accurate, Rountree said. But social workers aren’t able to get in touch with many of the people on the list, and others don’t agree to participate in the aid program, so they have to cast a broader net.
Is a computer really better at guessing who will become homeless than human social workers trained in this work? Rountree says yes — 3.5 times better, to be exact.
The problem with humans, she said, is that they’re biased toward the people they know.
“It’s just human nature to want to help the people that you’re in contact with,” she said. “They all seem housing-unstable and at high risk. You want to help those individuals or those families in front of you. But not all of them are going to become homeless and be on the street or use shelter if they don’t get assistance.”
Caseworkers also often prioritize people with lower needs, Rountree said. Someone who recently lost their job but otherwise is stable gets preference over someone facing ongoing struggles with their mental health or addiction, because the stable person is easier to help. But the stable person may not be the one who needs the help the most.
There’s also a belief that people with higher needs won’t spend the money they’re given wisely, Rountree said. But AI doesn’t have that bias, so it ensures the money goes to who needs it most.
The results are apparent. People the algorithm targets are much more likely to have been incarcerated, sought substance use treatment, had mental health issues or been hospitalized than the people who seek aid through L.A. County’s other homelessness prevention programs, Rountee said. In that way, this program fills a hole in LA County’s net of services, she said.
L.A. County’s other, more traditional programs geared to prevent homelessness rely on people reaching out to request help or on case workers referring clients.
Interestingly, they aren’t duplicating efforts. There’s almost no overlap between the people targeted by the AI algorithm and those served by traditional prevention programs, Vanderford said.
“We know there’s a significant population of folks who if somebody doesn’t reach out to them to offer assistance, they might lose their housing right out from under them without reaching out for assistance themselves,” she said.
Then, a human steps in
Four times a year, the Policy Lab researchers send L.A. County a list of residents the AI program has deemed most likely to become homeless. The county then mails those people letters, telling them they’ve been selected to participate in the program. After that, a social worker cold-calls them to tell them the good news.
Frequently, the person at the other end of the line is convinced it’s a scam. After all, how often does someone legitimate call out of the blue offering free money?
When that happens, case worker Genice Brown usually will ask if she can email them — a move she hopes lends a bit more credence to her pitch. Once she convinces them the program is real, nine out of 10 people agree to sign up, she said.
Genice Brown, a medical case worker with the Housing Stabilization and Homelessness Prevention Unit, in Los Angeles on Feb. 29, 2024.
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Jules Hotz for CalMatters
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Individuals enrolled in the program receive a base sum of either $4,000 or $6,000 (the amount is randomly assigned so researchers can assess the impacts of different amounts of money). Families start at $6,000 or $8,000, with larger families receiving more.
Brown can use that money for whatever her clients need most. Usually rent comes first, but it also can cover other bills. In addition, she helps connect her clients to doctors, dentists and mental health services. If they’re looking for work, Brown gets them gift cards for interview outfits, helps them with their resumes and role-plays interview questions.
She works with each client for three or four months.
‘I just really needed the help’
For 38-year-old Sandricka Henderson, help came just in time.
Diagnosed with lupus at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Henderson could no longer work her physically-demanding warehouse job. Disability benefits gave her barely more than $1,000 a month — just a quarter of what she made while she was working. With an 8-year-old son to support, Henderson found she was at least $400 behind on her bills every month.
Just before Christmas last year, Henderson received a call from a woman offering free money. Henderson was sure it was a scam, and braced for the woman to ask for her Social Security number.
But the social worker (who turned out to be Genice Brown) didn’t, and Henderson eventually realized the program was real. The first thing Brown gave her was a $100 giftcard to a local grocery store — a blessing, Henderson said, because she had nothing in her refrigerator.
Shortly after, Henderson’s landlord sent her a letter warning she had 10 days to pay her rent or be evicted. About a week later, Brown sent the rent money and helped Henderson avoid catastrophe. She also helped Henderson catch up on her car payment.
Now, Henderson no longer feels like she’s teetering on the edge of homelessness. She has some money in her savings account, and her rent is prepaid for several months.
“I just really needed the help,” Henderson said. Because she’s used to working hard and taking care of herself, she added, she never would have reached out and asked for it.
“It really did change my whole circumstances,” she said. “My son had a Christmas that I didn’t think I was going to be able to give him.”
The L.A. County team has met with government agencies from all over the country who are interested in its AI model, including Santa Clara and San Diego counties, Vanderford said.
San Diego County is working on a plan for homelessness prevention, Tim McClain, spokesman for the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, said in an email to CalMatters. He wouldn’t provide any additional updates.
Santa Clara County met with the California Policy Lab earlier this year, and hopes to schedule another informational meeting soon, said Consuelo Hernandez, director of the county’s Office of Supportive Housing. The county has its own homelessness prevention program, which relies on humans triaging clients. If artificial intelligence can do that work more efficiently, it’s worth exploring, Hernandez said.
But at the end of the day, what they really want is more money to help the people that already fill their queues.
“Without having additional resources,” Hernandez said, “what is the true benefit of knowing there are more people out there who are in need?”
By Alejandra Molina and Laura Anaya-Morga | Boyle Heights Beat
Published May 29, 2026 9:22 AM
Crews clean the scene along Cesar E. Chavez and Eastern avenues, where gallons of crude oil spilled onto the street.
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Andrew Lopez
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Andrew Lopez
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Topline:
A week after an underground pipeline near East Cesar E. Chavez and North Eastern avenues was punctured, questions remain about who was responsible.
The backstory: Officials said early reports indicated a boring crew conducting directional drilling for a fiber optic line struck the 16-inch petroleum pipeline, which sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains and the Los Angeles River. Streets in the area reopened Thursday after days of closures that disrupted nearby residents, businesses and schools, though more soil remediation remains ahead. Spill report updates from the California Office of Emergency Services indicate that the reported cause of the spill was a “human error.”
How to file a claim: Claims of damage believed to be caused by the spill can be submitted to PPS by calling (877) 817-5465. Callers will be prompted to leave their name and contact information in a voicemail for a representative to return the call.
A week after an underground pipeline near East Cesar E. Chavez and North Eastern avenues was punctured, questions remain about who was responsible.
Officials said early reports indicated a boring crew conducting directional drilling for a fiber optic line struck the 16-inch petroleum pipeline, which sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains and the Los Angeles River. Streets in the area reopened Thursday after days of closures that disrupted nearby residents, businesses and schools, though more soil remediation remains ahead.
The pipeline is operated by Pacific Pipeline System, which since 2006 has been owned by Plains All American Pipeline.
Who was drilling?
In the hours after the spill, Boyle Heights Beat reporters witnessed a truck labeled Camarillo Drilling Inc. A Camarillo Drilling representative told the Beat they were seeking counsel and could not confirm if they were working at the site.
A February 2026 report from the state Department of Water Resources notes that Camarillo Drilling Company, in April 2020, punctured the Santa Ana Pipeline in Riverside “while performing directional and horizontal boring during installation of an underground communications cable.”
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a complaint against Camarillo Drilling in Riverside County Superior Court in April 2022, seeking damages of about $1.2 million to cover pipeline repair expenses and DWR staffing costs, according to the report.
Why were they drilling?
NBC4 reported that HP Communications was behind the drilling of the fiber optic line. A representative with HP Communications told the Beat they could not comment or confirm that they were working at the site.
HP Communications is one of the companies awarded a contract for the Broadband for All plan, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide.
The plan involves building a network of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances, according to LAist. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County. The state owns and manages the system.
Another company that was awarded a contract for the plan is Arcadian Infracom, which in 2023, held a groundbreaking event in Boyle Heights for the California portion of its L.A. to Phoenix fiber route, LAist reported in 2024.
The project will help serve residents in East L.A. and extend to communities in Barstow and Needles (The route totals 306 miles, but only 40 are within L.A. County limits).
What remains unknown?
It’s not clear if the drilling that led to the pipeline rupture is linked to the Broadband for All effort. Arcadian Infracom has not returned a request for comment regarding any potential involvement with the pipeline puncture.
The California Department of Technology did not respond to Boyle Heights Beat’s questions in time for publication.
Pacific Pipeline System (PPS) has also not responded to questions regarding the third-party companies involved.
A state investigation into how the pipe was struck remains ongoing. Supervisor Hilda Solis on Thursday said she’d work with the Board of Supervisors to ensure “every responsible party is held accountable and advancing stronger protections for impacted residents, communities, and small businesses.”
How to file a claim
Claims of damage believed to be caused by the spill can be submitted to PPS by calling (877) 817-5465. Callers will be prompted to leave their name and contact information in a voicemail for a representative to return the call.
According to the pipeline operator, some examples of claims that may be considered include:
Property damage
Business interruption or loss of access
Cleanup or remediation expenses
Equipment, vehicle or inventory damage
Other documented costs directly related to the incident
PPS will request contact information and a description of the claimed damages. The timeline for any potential compensation depends on the urgency of the claim, according to the spokesperson.
How to report air quality concerns
To report excessive odors, smoke, dust and other air contaminants, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice advises residents to contact the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) by calling (800) CUT SMOG or (800) 288-7664.
Residents can also access South Coast AQMD’s online complaint system by clicking here.
To report health concerns related to odors, residents can also contact the L.A. County Department of Public Health by calling (626) 430-9821 or by emailing DPH-OEJCH@ph.lacounty.gov.
Kavish Harjai
writes about how people get around L.A.
Published May 29, 2026 5:00 AM
The FIFA World Cup 2026 Los Angeles logo is displayed during a media event for the upcoming FIFA World Cup at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Tuesday, May 12, 2026.
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Jae C. Hong.
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Ap Photo
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Topline:
LAist prepared the following guide to help folks get to and from the stadium, L.A. city watch parties and tips on using bikes and scooters to get around the region.
The TL;DR: L.A. Metro is providing direct shuttle service from several locations in L.A. and Orange Counties to SoFi Stadium, where countries from around the world will face off in the eight local FIFA World Cup 2026 matches.
Watch parties: There will be free watch parties in the city of L.A. Some of the locations are directly accessible via Metro rail.
Read on ... for specifics and tips on using scooter and bike shares.
You might have braved the process to get a seat at SoFi Stadium for one of the eight FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in L.A., or maybe you’re gearing up to head to a community watch party.
Either way, you can maximize the celebration, avoid traffic and save your wallet by taking transit.
LAist prepared the following guide to help folks get to and from the stadium, L.A. city watch parties and tips on using bikes and scooters to get around the region.
Getting to the stadium
L.A. Metro is the countywide transportation agency and is the official public transit provider for the World Cup matches in the city. It’s partnering with more than 10 regional transportation and charter providers to get people to and from the stadium.
Where is the stadium: All eight of the matches will be at SoFi Stadium, or L.A. Stadium, as it will be called during the World Cup. The address is 1001 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, CA 90301.
How do you get there on Metro: Metro is offering direct shuttle service to the stadium from several locations in L.A. and Orange counties:
Hawthorne/Lennox Station
Crenshaw Station
LAX/Metro Transit Center
Near LAX hotels
El Camino College
Harbor Gateway Transit Center
Culver City Transit Center
Torrance Transit Center
Union Station
Downtown Long Beach
Downtown Santa Monica
North Hollywood Station
Pierce College Station
ARTIC Anaheim Station
Newport Transportation Center
You can catch a stadium-bound shuttle at locations throughout L.A. and Orange Counties.
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L.A. Metro
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When: Shuttles to the stadium begin service at least three hours before kick-off depending on which location you’re leaving from, and they’ll run up to 90 minutes after the matches end.
How often: The shuttles will generally run every 10 minutes. For the Pierce College Station and Newport Transportation Center, the shuttles will run every 30 minutes.
How to pay: You can tap the fare machines directly with your credit or debit card. Or you can go old-school and use a physical or digital TAP card. There are several ways to get a TAP card, including using your smartphone or picking one up at a Metro station. Here is a page with more details and instructions.
How much: The same as usual: $1.75 one-way.
Ok, but how do I get to the shuttle locations?: There are a few different options.
The shuttle pick-up and drop-off locations are well-serviced by existing transit. You can use the Transit or L.A. Metro mobile apps to help with trip planning.
And yes, you can drive, too. For most of the shuttle locations, you can reserve parking via SpotHero on Metro’s official World Cup page. You can also use ride-share or taxi services.
The only pick-up and drop-off location that doesn’t have any kind of vehicle access, including rideshare, is the LAX Metro Transit Center. But that station is accessible by five different Metro bus lines and two rail lines.
Bonus: If you’re looking for a souvenir to commemorate your time on transit during the World Cup in L.A., make sure to pick up a special TAP card. You can see the designs and where to find each one here.
How to get to the watch parties
There are going to be more than 100 free watch parties in the city of L.A. at different park locations. It’s part of an initiative called Kick it in the Park. You can find out more about the watch parties here.
Some of the locations are accessible on Metro rail.
MacArthur Park. You can take the B or D line to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.
Seoul International Park. The D line stops at the Wilshire/Normandie Station, which is about a half mile away from the park.
Sycamore Grove. The A line stops at the Southwest Museum Station, which is less than half a mile from Sycamore Grove.
Stoner Recreation Center. The E Line stops at the Expo/Bundy Station, which is about half a mile away from Stoner Recreation Center.
Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. The E Line Palms Station is just less than a mile away.
Check out the city’s interactive website to learn which Metro, L.A. Dash or other regional transit can take you to the Kick it in the Park events.
Taking a bike share or scooter could be helpful to get to and from transit stations or to go a short distance that isn’t well-served by transit. There are a few different options here:
Metro Bike Share. Metro operates a fleet of regular and electric bikes that you can find at docking stations throughout L.A. Use the L.A. Metro app to find docking stations near you that have available bikes or to find stations where you can return the bike when you’re done using it. There are different prices depending on how long you anticipate needing a bike, and you can pay with your TAP card.
Lime. The private scooter and bike-share company recently expanded into the Valley and now offers a total of 15,000 vehicles in the city of L.A. Its vehicles are also accessible in West Hollywood and Long Beach. You can use the Lime or Uber apps to book the vehicles.
The company is launching a “fan pass” this summer that includes 90 minutes of riding over the course of five days for about $13. You can purchase the fan pass more than once. It’ll be available between June 5th through July 12th. If you don't have access to the internet on your phone but still want to use a Lime vehicle, you can text "Unlock" to 415-463-3473. You will receive a text back with instructions on how to proceed from there.
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David Rodriguez
is an Altadena resident and has been connecting with fire survivors since the disaster.
Published May 29, 2026 5:00 AM
LAist asked “What does rebuilding mean to you?” and fire survivors have been sharing their stories and photos capturing moments of their lives.
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David Rodriguez
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LAist
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Topline:
In February, LAist asked a question: What does rebuilding mean to you? We asked people affected by the L.A. fires to share their stories with us and send a photo that captures that moment of their life.
Why it matters: Rebuilding can mean something different for everyone.
How to share your story: LAist is still hearing stories and receiving photos from fire survivors on what rebuilding means to them. We want to hear from homeowners, current or former renters, business owners and more. Share your story here.
Read on ... to see the photos and hear the stories we’ve collected so far.
What does rebuilding after the 2025 L.A. fires mean to you? That's the question LAist asked you in February.
Fire survivors may feel the world has moved on, but we know that you are in the process of pouring foundations, moving to a new temporary home, settling into a new community and perhaps waiting for a chance to return to the areas that burned in Altadena, Pasadena, the Palisades and Malibu.
So we wanted to hear your stories — and also see photos that capture this moment of your lives. With the fires a year and a half behind us, here are a couple of your stories.
A new start in Altadena
For Missi Figueroa, rebuilding has meant being drawn back to Altadena.
“I felt this weird connection after the fire to this place, like it felt like a grave of my old life, and I just wanted to be here,” Figueroa said. “We looked and thought about moving elsewhere. We just wanted to come back here.”
Her husband, Frank Figueroa, felt that rebuilding is also a part of healing.
“I can’t wait to see everyone else here move back and how tight the community will be,” he said. “I think it will be much stronger.”
The Figueroa family were at the tail end of rebuilding their home in February, including an ADU, where their daughter was standing before it was finished.
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Missi Figueroa
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The children of Missi and Frank Figueroa enjoying raspados outside their newly built home. The local elotero still walks their neighborhood in Altadena.
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Missi Figueroa
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In February, the Figueroas were nearing completion of their new home. They shared a photo of one of their children smiling through the window of the then-unfinished ADU.
They passed the final inspection May 8 and got approval to move back to Altadena, which they have called home for over 10 years. Theirs was the 12th fully rebuilt home in Altadena, and they have since returned to the neighborhood.
The home was to their specifications, including adding lots of tiles and reusing bricks from their former home in the planter in the front.
Missi and Frank Figueroa embrace in front of their new home.
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David Rodriguez
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LAist
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Jose Hernandez, their contractor with Structural Prime Builder, was determined to get the Figueroa family moved in in six to seven months.
“I was blessed that they basically trust us to build their home,” said Hernandez, who runs the family-owned business.
The Figueroas said one thing people should know about rebuilding is the importance of having a contractor you can lean on. They found that in Hernandez.
“I think it’s really important to find someone you can work with, a contractor who you can trust and talk to,” Missi Figueroa said.
Frank and Missi Figueroa sit on a blue bench with their contractors, Danna and Jose Hernandez from Structural Prime Builder, outside their newly constructed home in Altadena.
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David Rodriguez
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LAist
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Share your story
LAist is still hearing stories and receiving photos from fire survivors on what rebuilding means to them. We want to hear from homeowners, current or former renters, business owners and more.
So far, we’ve heard from survivors living in temporary homes, living in RVs on their lots, creating art and starting to rebuild a new home while wondering what comes next.
Share your story in the survey below and we may include your pictures and stories in an upcoming feature. We won’t publish anything you share without your permission.
Framing a new home in the Palisades
Darrin Hurwitz stands in front of his family’s new home under construction in the Pacific Palisades.
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David Rodriguez
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LAist
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Darrin Hurwitz and his family moved to Pacific Palisades from Washington, D.C., in 2022. A big reason they chose their neighborhood was to have a city experience and be close to nature.
Their home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire.
The framing of their new home is almost complete. They are the first house on their street to start rebuilding.
For Hurwitz, rebuilding has felt like “a second job." There was the stress of many decisions — as well as feeling like part of something larger.
“Everyone is dealing with these issues in a different way,” he said. “But ultimately, we are excited to be part of the rebuilding process and thrilled to come back to the Palisades in about a year.”
Darrin Hurwitz and his family lost their home in the Palisades Fire. Their home is the first to be rebuilt from the ground up, and broke ground in early February.
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Darrin Hurwitz
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The Hurwitz home’s framing is almost completed by mid-May.
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Darrin Hurwitz
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Since he’s been in the neighborhood to see the start of construction, Hurwitz said he has found it invigorating to hike the trails. He shared a photo with LAist of the view from a hilltop, where he can watch his neighborhood being reborn.
The Hurwitz home is under construction in the Pacific Palisades.
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Darrin Hurwitz
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Hurwitz and his family are living in Santa Monica while their new home is built. He is optimistic about the progress he and his family have made.
“It takes time for people to figure out what to do, to figure out their financial situation, to decide whether to return to an area that has been ravaged by a natural disaster,” Hurwitz said. “I am optimistic where things are headed. The Palisades will be back in maybe three years or five years or seven years, but it will come back.”
Unbound by the confines of a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Three Pigs specializes not just in yakitori, but a chef-driven, seasonal take on Japanese cooking.
Why track down Three Pigs: Proof that a pop-up can be something more than just a roving restaurant—it can be a conduit for creativity and community.
What to eat: Charred chicken thigh skewers, tender braised pork belly bowls, and an ever-changing list of market-driven specials.
The soft hiss of fat dripping onto white-hot binchotan. The alchemical smell of both sweet tare sauce and charred meat. If you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself parked at the counter of any number of South Bay yakitori joints.
But this is Three Pigs, a Long Beach-based pop-up and catering operation, that roves around the region, one week perhaps at a street fair, another in the parking lot of a donut shop.
It’s the work of partners Allison and Vasili Tavernakis. In just under two years, they’ve built a community of dedicated diners from Orange County to Los Angeles, drawn to their personal market-inspired take on traditional Japanese cuisine.
Three Pigs owners, Vasili (left) and Allison Tavernakis.
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Courtesy Three Pigs
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Yakitori is what first launched Three Pigs, so. So there are always skewers on the menu, like a juicy beef kushiyaki skewer dabbed with wasabi.
But there’s also always something special and even ephemeral to be had. Maybe it will be hearty kakuni don, a bowl of rice topped with meltingly tender soy-braised pork belly, a jammy soft boiled egg, and daikon and bok choy sprouts. Or perhaps you’ll find a hyper-seasonal dish like nowhere else: yuzu-scented whipped tofu, charred broccolini, sake-cherry agrodolce, and sprouted watercress.
Three Pigs is restaurant-quality cooking unbound from the financial and creative trappings of a brick-and-mortar space.
“The challenge is what keeps me excited,” Vasili said. “I want our pop-ups to feel like if you changed our bamboo plates, you’d feel like you were at a restaurant.”
A restaurant-quality dish at Three Pigs.
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Courtesy Three Pigs
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Organic growth
Allison and Vasili are both hospitality veterans. The pair met while working at a restaurant in Torrance: Allison as a manager and social media director in the front of the house, Vasili as a chef in the back of the house. After their shifts, there were few options for late-night bites. Inevitably, Vasili said, they’d find themselves at Japanese izakayas, where they and their coworkers could build camaraderie over skewers and small plates.
It was during those post-work meals that Vasili became enamored with yakitori. But it wasn’t until the pandemic lockdowns that Vasili ever attempted to cook it himself. It was a slow process, learning the techniques and honing the recipes that called back to those late-night meals that he sorely missed. For Allison, who is Japanese-American, the dishes spoke to her own flavor memories and family traditions.
Eventually, they became confident enough to invite friends over for dinners to try out new dishes.
Still, the idea of a pop-up seemed far off. It wasn’t until a friend who owns a store in downtown Long Beach offered a pop-up opportunity that Three Pigs started serving the public. After that first smashing success, which saw their entire menu sell out, the operation has grown organically ever since, building on community connections and word of mouth to find new avenues to share their food.
Evolution and ambition
If you pay enough visits to Three Pigs’ pop-ups, you can watch the pair continually push boundaries.
“On a recent visit to Japan,” Vasili recounted, “we saw a vendor with a gorgeously long irori-style grill with fish standing on skewers. In Japan, irori is a multifunctional space in the home for both heating and cooking. I hadn’t seen a vendor do that before, so I thought I could try building one.”
So he did. Then he sourced ayu, small fish prized in Japan for their sweet, delicate flavor. The fish were skewered whole and arranged vertically around lengths of charcoal stacked in the center of the grill. The result was not just an approximation of that inspiration from Japan, but an homage to the craft and care of Japanese cooking. Even attempting such a cooking method is something no other pop-up, let alone a brick-and-mortar restaurant, is likely doing in Southern California.
Casual pop-ups are only part of the Three Pigs experience. Allison and Vasili also host a dinner series. And it’s at those dinners where Three Pigs’ creativity is truly at play.
At a Santa Monica nursery a few months ago, Three Pigs paired an ambitious tasting menu dinner with an ikebana class hosted by Tiger Blossom Studio. In between flower arranging lessons, Allison and Vasili served a farmers market-driven menu that saw dishes like a hamachi crudo in a pool of strawberry ponzu, spiny lobster in a caviar and white miso beurre monté, and a hojicha panna cotta with craggy, dehydrated black sesame cake.
“We try and create an experience, not just food on a plate,” Allison said. “We see this as an entire restaurant experience that happens to be outside in the community. We get to interact with customers in a more intimate way, ask questions, and have a conversation.”
But that conversation isn’t just one with customers old and new. It’s a dialogue between memory and place, Southern California and its seasons, and tradition and evolution.
No matter where you find Three Pigs, you can always guarantee there will be something new on the menu.
Location and hours: Visit Three Pigs on Instagram at @threepigslbc for upcoming pop-ups and events.