The Brief

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 future of AI in homelessness services

Throughout California, new people are becoming homeless faster than aid workers can find existing homeless residents housing. In Santa Clara County, for example, for every one homeless household that moved into housing last year, another 1.7 became newly homeless, according to Destination: Home, a Santa Clara County-based organization focused on ending homelessness.

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?”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

As many as 100,000 people are expected to watch Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G headline this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this weekend. But some of the other stars making an appearance are Eastside eateries.

With more than 100 food vendors, at least four Eastside food spots are making their way to the desert.

Carmen Santillan operates Cena Vegan, a plant-based eatery in Lincoln Heights alongside her husband, Mike Simms and sister, Marcy Velazquez. Back for its 6th year, Cena Vegan has become a plant-based staple at Coachella.

If you’re attending, check out the Eastside eateries serving at the festival.

Cena Vegan

Some of the Cena Vegan crew at Coachella 2025.

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Courtesy of Jae Ramos

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Known for its burritos and nacho boats, founder Santillan will be focusing on a new concept, “Taco Party,” a unique take on some of Taco Bell’s classic menu items, available at the Street Food Alley station. The team will also debut a “plant-based bacon-wrapped hot dog” at both locations.

What they’ll be serving:

Indio Central Market:

• The Big Vegan Burrito
• The Nacho Boat

Street Food Alley:

• Crunchwraps
• Crunchy tacos

Cafe La Vecindad

When Gracie Esparza and her brother Jonathan Esparza first started their mobile coffee business in 2023, one of their goals was to be a vendor at Coachella. Now three years later, they’re making it happen. What makes it even more special is being able to vend together with their aunt Carmen from Cena Vegan, who is also part-owner of the mobile coffee cart.

“We’re bringing three concepts together, which is a huge task to undertake, but we’re up for the challenge,” Gracie Esparza said. “It’s truly a family effort, and we’re proud to put our mobile cafecito on the map together.”

What they’ll be serving: 

Street Food Alley:

• Café de olla latte topped with cold foam and dusted with cinnamon
• Matcha horchata with cold foam
• Refreshing espresso sparkling yuzu tonic

Delmy’s Pupusas

Delmy’s Pupusas can be found at farmers markets around Los Angeles, including the LAC+USC Medical Center Certified Farmers Market in Boyle Heights. According to Coachella, they were the first to bring pupusas to the festival.

What they’ll be serving: 

Mojave location:

• Pupusas

Villa’s Tacos

After making headlines with a feature in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, Highland Park’s own Villa’s Tacos is heading to Coachella, serving up tacos at the festival’s Indio Central Market.

What they’ll be serving: 

Street Food Alley:

• Villa’s Trio (three tacos made with blue corn masa tortillas, your meat of choice, topped with cilantro, onion and an option to add cotija cheese). 
• House-made agua frescas, including their cucumber fan favorite. 
• Vegetarian options are also available. 

Flying by the moon, witnessing an eclipse, and traveling farther from Earth than any humans have before: The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission have hit many milestones since launching from Kennedy Space Center nearly 10 days ago.

Now, if all goes according to plan Friday, they'll have completed their most important one: making it home.

The crew's Orion space capsule is scheduled to enter the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. ET, (4:53 p.m. PT) just southeast of Hawaii. About 13 minutes later, it should splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

To make it there, the spacecraft will first have to punch through the Earth's atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour and experience temperatures upwards of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

As mission pilot Victor Glover put it: It's like "riding a fireball through the atmosphere."

The trip home

The Artemis II crew — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been preparing for the return home for the past few days, which includes packing up equipment and reorienting the spacecraft for an ideal trajectory that will land them safely in the Pacific at 8:07 p.m. ET (5:07 p.m. here on the West Coast.)

On return day, the crew will wake up at 11:35 a.m. and begin reconfiguring the Orion capsule for reentry. They will make an additional course correction to fine-tune the return trajectory at 2:53 p.m.

Before entering the atmosphere, the spacecraft will need to ditch its service module — which housed thrusters, solar panels and other spaceflight hardware for the mission. Orion will separate from the service module at 7:33 p.m., which will then fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere.

Orion, if all goes well, will avoid that fate. The spacecraft is set to begin its 13-minute plunge through the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. During that time, it's expected that the crew will lose communication with Mission Control for about six minutes.

As the capsule makes its return, it will deploy a series of parachutes that will slow it from about 25,000 miles per hour to just 20 miles per hour upon splashdown.

The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone and will help recover the crew. A team will head out to the floating capsule and install an inflatable raft just below Orion's side hatch. The crew will be examined by a flight surgeon, then helped out of the capsule. From the transport ship, they will hitch a ride back to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Risk of reentry

There's always risk when returning from space. Glover said that he has been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

"We have to get back," he said from the Orion capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and, gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

To get back, the capsule must hit the atmosphere at a precise angle.

"Let's not beat around the bush," said Jeff Radigan, Artemis II's lead flight director. "We have to hit that angle correctly. Otherwise, we're not going to have a successful reentry."

All eyes will be on the heat shield — this is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from the extreme temperatures during reentry. NASA tested it out on Artemis I, the previous, uncrewed mission, and found that the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

NASA mission planners and the Artemis II team worked on a way to mitigate that risk. Instead of "skipping" through the atmosphere like Artemis I, this mission would hit the atmosphere steeper and faster, limiting the time the spacecraft spends in those fiery, energetic moments of reentry.

"It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," said Radigan. "I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen."

Mission success

The Artemis II mission is a key flight test for Orion, and thus far, mission managers have been pleased with the results. The spacecraft has taken humans farther from Earth than they've ever been, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

The crew tested the manual control of the spacecraft, which will be needed for future missions that will dock with a lunar landing system. The mission tested the spacecraft's life support systems and ability to keep four astronauts comfortable within the confined space.

Artemis II returned humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program over 50 years ago. And while some astronauts back then did see the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew was able to observe it from a vantage point never before seen by humans. Their images and geological notes will help better determine what the moon is made of and where it came from.

While some of the astronauts' observations may help scientists understand the distant past, others will help mission managers better plan for the future. Case in point: The crew tested out the very first toilet to go to the moon, and it quickly ran into issues during flight. Multiple times during the trip, the crew had to use manual urinals instead. The issue, NASA said, was not with the toilet itself, but the system that dumps the urine overboard when it gets full.

The Orion capsule will return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the mission, where engineers will examine the spacecraft after its flight, including a closer look at the spacecraft's plumbing. The team will be picking apart the spacecraft to see how it performed — and make any necessary changes ahead of the next mission, Artemis III, set to launch next year.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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Last year, Long Beach made a deal with an oil-drilling company. The company would convert some of its land into public wetlands in exchange for the right to drill somewhere else. Then a state law meant to keep wells away from homes and schools thwarted the company’s plan for more drilling. Now that pact has become fodder for the Trump administration’s war against California Democratic energy policies.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to the property, owned by Synergy Oil & Gas, on Wednesday with a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: state policies are increasing costs for Californians, and the Trump administration will be challenging them.

Wright’s visit to the Synergy site comes just a week after a U.S. district court denied the U.S. Department of Interior’s request to stop enforcement of California’s setback law while a broader legal challenge is pending.

“When you make energy expensive by importing it and putting ridiculous regulations on it, you not only make it more expensive to pay your bills, but you make it so businesses that consume energy aren't going to locate (in) your state,” Wright said, standing between lines of Synergy-owned oil jack pumps near coastal wetlands.

Wright’s visit points up the active fight on multiple fronts between California and the White House over energy prices, especially gasoline. The state’s gas prices are the highest in the nation, a gap that has widened in the wake of global oil market disruptions following U.S. military strikes on Iran.

“California’s gas prices were stable – and below $5 a gallon – for about two years before Trump launched his reckless war on Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent crude oil prices through the roof in red and blue states,” said Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor. “Today, (Wright is) in California pointing the finger to distract from the fact that Americans have paid $10 billion more on gasoline since the start of this war.”

California’s setback law 

Announced nearly a year ago, Long Beach and Synergy intended a deal to be mutually beneficial. Synergy would be able to drill new wells nearby and the city would gain public space and a cut from Synergy’s new revenue.

But a recent setback law – which bans new oil wells within six-tenths of a mile of homes, schools and other populated areas – has made it nearly impossible to get permits, said Synergy owner John McKeown. The site where Wright spoke should be capable of extracting 6,000 oil barrels daily. It is only producing 100 barrels because of state limits, he said.

“What I'm trying to do is save 35 employees, and I'm trying to produce (the oil) we own,” he said on Wednesday.

The Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Long Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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Long Beach Councilmember Kristina Duggan, who helped reach the agreement with Synergy, said the setback law harms city finances. The city gets 8.5% of local revenue from oil production, funds designated for coastal infrastructure.

“We have wells off of the coast of Long Beach on our oil island where we can't drill new wells, and it is so far from sensitive areas,” Duggan said. “It really makes a difference. We rely on oil production for revenue in Long Beach.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sued California over the setback law, arguing it illegally blocks business that the federal government oversees. The administration cited two land management laws, the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act, that authorize public lands for oil, gas and coal development.

While the lawsuit is pending, the U.S. Department of Interior requested a preliminary injunction that would bar the state from enforcing the setback law. A U.S. district court judge denied that request, and called California’s setback law “reasonable environmental regulation” that doesn’t bar alternative methods of accessing oil in the state.

The U.S. district court judge said the U.S. Department of Interior has so far not demonstrated it’s likely to succeed in proving the law conflicts with federal law.

The judge is also weighing whether to let community groups, represented by Earthjustice, and the Center for Biological Diversity to intervene in the case.

Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Seal Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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The setback law's reach extends beyond private landowners like Synergy. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, it would make invalid about a third of federally authorized oil and gas leases in California.

The setback in California “has absolutely nothing to do with public health,” Wright said on Wednesday. “These setbacks get set at the number that will kill the industry.”

Newsom caught in the middle

The setback law is just one front in a wider political battle that has put Newsom in an increasingly difficult position.

Newsom has sought to blame the White House for gas price increases, arguing that Trump’s actions are responsible. At the same time, he has pushed back against growing criticism that California’s own environmental regulations are contributing to the cost of fuel. But his administration’s actions tell a more complicated story.

Oil companies have shut refineries in recent months, causing the state to lose nearly 20% of its refining capacity. In response, California has increasingly relied on importing more crude oil and gasoline. The governor last year orchestrated a deal to boost production in California’s oil-drilling hub of Kern County. The California Energy Commission also quietly set aside a law that gave state regulators the power to cap refinery profits and penalize oil companies for price gouging.

Newsom in 2024 pushed to delay parts of the oil well setback law, arguing regulators needed more time to implement it. Lawmakers approved a compromise extending the deadline to monitor wells near homes and schools for leaks by three and a half years, to July 2030, while keeping the core buffer-zone restrictions in place. Newsom signed the measure, delaying leak detection at oil wells.

Rising federal pressure

The Trump administration has shown no interest in giving Newsom room to maneuver. It’s pushing to expand oil production in California, including plans to revive offshore drilling along the coast at the site of the 2015 Refugio oil spill, where a pipeline, now owned by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp., ruptured.

Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy Chris Wright speaks to Synergy employees at the Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Long Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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Wright invoked the Defense Production Act to order the restart of operations — overriding local courts — arguing the oil was 'vital to our national security and defense. Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued Wright arguing he overstepped his authority.

Wright said he hopes to meet Gov. Newsom in the next few weeks to make his plea for more oil production in the state.

A blueprint for wider battles

The stakes of that legal confrontation extend well beyond a single pipeline.

Even if the Sable project itself wouldn’t meaningfully change California’s oil supply, legal experts say the bigger story is what precedents the fights establish. The case could open a window on how far federal officials can go in using national security or emergency powers to override state authority — not just for pipelines, but for new oil development more broadly.

“I have no doubt they're going to now extend it to try to apply the same theory about a national emergency, about national security, to leasing everywhere,” said Deborah Sivas, a Stanford environmental law expert. “They're going to use that same rationale.”

But Ethan Elkind, a climate law expert at UC Berkeley, said that strategy faces long odds in California, where the politics of oil and gas have shifted sharply against new development.

“California has really been going in the opposite direction,” said Elkind. “The idea of trying to really expand oil and gas production in the state, is really at odds with where the politics are and the economic realities are in the state at this moment.”

In Long Beach, work to remove old wells on Synergy Oil & Gas property continues. For Kristina Duggan, the city councilmember, the larger battles are secondary. She's still watching the city's bottom line.

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

Southern California skies will be filled with clouds and pockets of sunshine today before rain moves into the region this weekend.

Temperatures at the beaches are going to stick around the upper 60s, up to around 70 degrees in Long Beach.

In the valleys, we're looking at high temperatures in the mid-70s, up to 78 degrees over in the Inland Empire.

Meanwhile, warm weather will embrace festival-goers for the first day of Coachella. Temperatures there are expected to reach 87 to 92 degrees.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the rain starts coming in late Friday night. SoCal could get between a half-inch to an inch of rain tonight through Sunday. There will be some brief pockets of sunshine in between showers and there's a 15% to 30% chance of thunderstorms — that means look out for short, heavy downpours.

It's possible the mountains could get up to 6 inches of snow at elevations 6,000 feet or higher.