Homelessness org got big $$ despite audit failures
Nick Gerda
is an accountability reporter who has covered local government in Southern California for more than a decade.
Published November 26, 2025 5:00 AM
Kevin Murray, president and CEO of Weingart Center, presides over a press conference with L.A. city officials in 2021 at a groundbreaking ceremony for an earlier housing development for seniors experiencing homelessness.
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Al Seib
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Topline: One of L.A.’s biggest homeless service providers has been awarded over $100 million in taxpayer funds while failing to comply with federal audit mandates, according to an LAist review of government records. The audits also show multiple failures to properly account for taxpayer money.
The group: Weingart Center is at the center of a controversial property purchase under federal investigation and discussed in a recent criminal indictment of the developer who sold the property.
Out of compliance: LAist’s review found Weingart Center has been continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits — known as “single audits” — since early 2022, based on a review of records in the federal database where they have to be uploaded.
Why it matters: These single audits are “the single most important way” to assess an organization’s ability to manage federal dollars, federal officials say.
Problems found: In the latest available review, auditors found that Weingart Center, among other problems:
Did not include over $50 million in federally funded grants on the list of federal dollars it handled.
Failed to have its financial records checked for accuracy by someone who didn’t prepare them.
Did not have an accounting team with enough experience or size to handle housing developments.
LAist found Weingart Center also has been continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits — known as “single audits” — since early 2022, based on a review of records in the federal database where they have to be uploaded.
The group still has not filed an audit that was due nine months ago for its fiscal year ending in April 2024, according to the federal database and L.A.’s regional homeless services agency.
A Weingart Center audit also was overdue when the mayor and state officials greenlit the group’s taxpayer-funded purchase of a senior living facility in Cheviot Hills. Federal prosecutors earlier this month announced charges against the man who sold the property to Weingart Center.
Former state Sen. Kevin Murray, who has been Weingart Center’s president and CEO since 2011, has not returned LAist’s messages seeking comment.
Murray and Weingart Center’s chief of real estate development, Ben Rosen, have been placed on leave, according to the L.A. Times. Rosen also has not responded to LAist’s request for comment.
The nonprofit’s board has commissioned an outside investigation into the valuation of housing projects, Weingart Center spokesperson Stefan Friedman told LAist. He did not respond to questions about the audit failures.
Murray previously served in the state Legislature with Bass, who has not responded to a request for comment for this story.
Murray is an attorney and a licensed real estate broker. In addition to leading Weingart Center, he also has a local government role overseeing homelessness spending in the region.
This September, Bass also nominated Rosen — the Weignart Center real estate chief — to the spending board as an alternative city appointee to step in when Murray can’t attend. She withdrew that nomination a few days after federal authorities announced their investigation into the property flip.
‘Disappointed’ it wasn’t caught sooner
A large share of the federal money Weingart Center received was distributed by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency known as LAHSA.
LAHSA’s contract requirements say its vendors, like Weingart Center, have to comply with the single audit requirements in federal law. Those requirements say organizations that receive a certain amount of federal money — such as Weingart Center — have to submit the audits within nine months after their fiscal year ends.
Single audits are “the single most important way” to assess an organization’s ability to manage federal dollars, federal officials say.
Among other things, they check whether a group has an accounting system to accurately document the spending.
Weingart Center was long overdue turning in two annual audits for 2023 and 2024 to LAHSA when LAist contacted LAHSA on Oct. 23.
Weingart Center has since submitted its 2023 audit to LAHSA, but the 2024 audit remains overdue.
“We are currently evaluating options regarding next steps,” LAHSA spokesperson Ahmad Chapman told LAist on Nov. 20.
LAHSA’s new interim CEO, Gita O’Neill, told LAist she’s “disappointed” the homeless services authority didn’t catch Weingart Center’s late audits earlier and that she’s been working to beef up oversight of contractors.
O’Neill said LAHSA sent a notice of non-compliance to Weingart Center about the overdue audit and is reviewing the late-submitted audits to see “if additional action is needed.”
At the October meeting of LAHSA’s governing commission, O’Neill shared a plan to improve the agency’s oversight of contracts, which she told LAist will strengthen oversight over issues like single audits. O’Neill, who started at LAHSA in late August, said the reorganization plan would roll out publicly in a few weeks later.
“Every member of this reorganized team will receive training for their new role so we can more effectively hold our [service] providers to the standards we set for them,” O’Neill said. “This is an important step toward holding ourselves and our providers more accountable.”
What state officials say
Aside from LAHSA, the other major agency awarding federal dollars to Weingart Center is the state’s Department of Housing & Community Development, or HCD.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for HCD said Weingart Center was not out of compliance with its award-granting process, which the agency called “very thorough.”
The HCD spokesperson said the state housing agency is not responsible for reviewing the federal audits. Instead, the spokesperson said the audits are received and reviewed by the state controller’s office, which then identifies issues and discusses them with HCD.
The controller’s office told LAist it did not receive single audits from Weingart Center or any other nonprofit.
Problems found in latest available audit
The most recent available single audit of Weingart Center, covering fiscal year 2023, was not completed until July 2025, a year and a half after it was due.
Weingart Center did not includeover $50 million in federally funded grants, via HCD’s Homekey program, on the list of federal dollars it handled. The review also found Weingart Center failed to have its financial records checked for accuracy by someone who didn’t prepare them, auditors wrote.
Weingart Center has been the focus of recent controversy over its use of $27 million in taxpayer funds to buy a senior housing complex from an investor who had just purchased it for less than half that price.
As Weingart Center’s leader, Murray signed key documents in the purchase of the property on Shelby Drive in Cheviot Hills, according to contract records produced by the city in response to LAist public records requests. The documents he signed include a purchase agreement in which he agreed to have Weingart Center keep the seller’s name confidential forever from the news media and general public, with narrow exceptions.
That purchase now is the focus of a federal investigation and was referenced in an October indictment of the man who sold the property to Weingart Center. It was funded by the state’s Homekey program and the city of L.A.
Murray previously told the L.A. Times he had “no prior relationship with the seller and no continuing relationship” and that taxpayers paid fair market price. He has not returned LAist’s messages seeking comment on the property deal.
LAist also has been investigating the sale of the Shelby property and found numerous discrepancies. They include an appraisal report Murray commissioned and submitted for taxpayer funding that showed false information about the purchase deal and the property’s ownership.
Price concerns about another Murray-led project under same state grant program
The Shelby purchase is not the only Weingart Center property deal that has faced scrutiny.
This summer, city leaders in Torrance publicly alleged the group may have been massively overpaying for a hotel property under a new round of taxpayer-funded Homekey grants. For that site, Weingart Center had teamed up with L.A. County to apply for the grant.
It was one of several criticisms Torrance officials cited in urging the county not to proceed. Ultimately, the project was canceled.
And if you're comfortable just reaching out my email I'm at ngerda@scpr.org
Officials at the county government’s housing agency, known as LACDA, say the appraisal Weingart Center submitted for the Torrance purchase “was conducted by a reputable appraisal company and did not raise concerns.”
Torrance officials, meanwhile, said they had “serious concerns” about how much taxpayers would be paying.
Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for California governor, leaned into President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
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Jason Henry
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Topline:
Republican Steve Hilton will advance to the November general election in the race for California governor, setting up a longshot contest against Democrat Xavier Becerra in which he’s promised to slash spending and regulations if elected.
Why now? Hilton, a British American former Fox News host, secured about 25% of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about 88% of votes counted as of Tuesday evening.
His opponent: Becerra is a former state attorney general and U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who emerged from a large pool of Democratic candidates.
The context: Hilton’s win knocks billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer from contention after he spent $215 million of his own money to boost his populist campaign and blanket the airwaves with ads. It will make the general election a traditional partisan matchup during a midterm election year that Democrats will treat as a check on President Donald Trump’s administration rather than the intra-Democratic Party brawl that Steyer supporters had hoped. California uses a top-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot regardless of party.
Republican Steve Hilton will advance to the November general election in the race for California governor, setting up a longshot contest against Democrat Xavier Becerra in which he’s promised to slash spending and regulations if elected.
Hilton’s win knocks billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer from contention after he spent $215 million of his own money to boost his populist campaign and blanket the airwaves with ads. It will make the general election a traditional partisan matchup during a midterm election year that Democrats will treat as a check on President Donald Trump’s administration rather than the intra-Democratic Party brawl that Steyer supporters had hoped for. California uses a top-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot regardless of party.
With a crowded field of Democrats all competing for votes, Hilton led in the polls for much of the race, energizing conservative voters with promises to cut income taxes and the gas tax, boost oil drilling and overturn environmental regulations such as the state’s greenhouse gas reduction mandates.
He’s sold his candidacy as an opportunity for Californians crushed by high costs to end “16 years of one-party rule.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last Republican to lead California, left office in 2011.
“The people of California have really been generous in giving the Democratic Party the opportunity to show that their ideas work,” Hilton said last week, declaring victory early at a press conference in Sacramento. “I think the patience is running out, really.”
He faces an uphill battle in November.
California Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one. Though Hilton says he’s presenting the chance for the state to go in a different direction, there has been a GOP candidate in the general election for governor in every race in the past two decades — and besides Schwarzenegger’s tenure, Democrats have won them all.
He’s also endorsed by Trump, whom Californians disapprove of by high margins.
But he has not downplayed the endorsement.
“I think it’s going to be very helpful to Californians to have a governor who has a good working relationship with the president and his team,” he said.
Hilton’s signature campaign promise is to eliminate the income tax for the first $100,000 in earnings and institute a flat tax rate above that; he said last week that his campaign will consider raising that cap after conducting an economic analysis of the California cost of living. Either option would represent an enormous reduction in state revenue that Hilton has said he expects to offset by cutting a third of state spending.
He has not said how, if elected, he would get such a proposal through the Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature.
Hilton was born in London, the son of Hungarian immigrants to the United Kingdom. He got his start in politics working for the British Conservative Party and played a prominent role in the rise of Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010. He moved in 2012 to Silicon Valley, where his wife was a Google executive, and dabbled in startups before launching a weekly Fox News show in 2017 during Trump’s first presidency. The show, The Next Revolution, ran through 2023.
Federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement are set to receive tens of billions more dollars after Congress voted to fund them not just for the year, but through the rest of President Trump's term.
More details: The House narrowly voted on Tuesday to direct roughly $70 billion to the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the second multi-billion dollar infusion of money to the agencies in the last year muscled through by Republicans alone. The measure passed by a vote of 214 to 212.
Why it matters: The vote marks the end of a 115 day standoff over immigration policy. After federal officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats refused to back more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, with the goal of forcing changes to immigration enforcement tactics.
Read on... for more on the vote.
Federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement are set to receive tens of billions more dollars after Congress voted to fund them not just for the year, but through the rest of President Trump's term.
The House narrowly voted on Tuesday to direct roughly $70 billion to the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the second multi-billion dollar infusion of money to the agencies in the last year muscled through by Republicans alone.
The measure passed by a vote of 214 to 212.
The vote marks the end of a 115 day standoff over immigration policy. After federal officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats refused to back more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, with the goal of forcing changes to immigration enforcement tactics.
But as negotiations fell apart, Republicans moved to circumvent Democrats using a special procedure known as reconciliation to fund the agencies without acquiescing to any of the reforms they were demanding.
In the Senate last week, one Republican joined all Democrats in an unsuccessful attempt to block the measure. The lopsided votes highlighted a Republican caucus continuing to endorse Trump's immigration agenda as Democrats warn that Congress has ceded its ability to provide oversight by funneling these agencies billions of dollars with few strings attached.
ICE gets more than three times its annual funding
Through this legislation, Congress is giving ICE more than three times its last annual budget. Though technically this funding is meant to cover three years, unlike a traditional annual funding bill, the money comes with few stipulations on how and when it should be spent.
While most annual spending measures provide funds for just that fiscal year, this measure includes lump sums that need to be spent only by the end of fiscal year 2029, including:
$38 billion for ICE to hire, pay, train and equip its officers and agents. That includes $7 billion for Homeland Security Investigations and $31 billion for immigration enforcement work like hiring more attorneys, supporting local law enforcement who coordinate with ICE and technology like body cameras;
$22 billion for Border Patrol to pay, train, recruit and equip agents and personnel. That includes $13 billion specifically for immigration enforcement work;
$5 billion for border security technology and screening, including artificial intelligence;
$350 million for enforcement in localities that do not coordinate directly with ICE.
Legislation passed in April to fund most of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol did include provisions that would provide funding for the agency to purchase body cameras, stipulate congressional oversight of detention centers and deescalation training for officers and agents.
Lawmakers agreed to separate funding for ICE and Border Patrol as Republicans and Democrats struggled to reach a compromise on reforms even as a record-long DHS shutdown dragged on.
But now ICE and Border Patrol will be funded without the changes Democrats were demanding, including requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and prohibiting officers from wearing masks. The package also lacks reforms with bipartisan support, such as requiring officers to wear body cameras.
Not only is this standoff ending without Democrats achieving the reforms they pressed for, the agencies will be insulated from additional pressure through the appropriations process for three years.
More dollars after an unprecedented boost
Both ICE and CBP received a massive influx of funding last year, also passed by Republicans through the budget reconciliation process, that has allowed both agencies to largely continue operating even as Democrats refused to provide them annual funding for the last several months.
ICE's usual annual budget is about $10 billion. The $75 billion boost last summer made ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement agency and enabled a hiring surge that doubled its ranks in a matter of months.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the only Republican to vote against this latest funding measure in the Senate last week. She wrote in a statement that by appropriating funding for three fiscal years instead of the usual one, the measure "weakens the normal budgeting process and sets another precedent for avoiding it when we find ourselves in disagreement."
"In doing so, it reduces Congress' ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next," she wrote.
Other Republicans say they were left with no choice once Democrats decided to withhold funding for these agencies as leverage to extract reforms.
"We're attempting here to fund ICE and CBP at last year's operating budget plus inflation, that's all we're talking about here," House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said shortly before the vote. "This is not a slush fund, it's regular, normal funding. And we're going to do it not for one year, but for three years so we don't end up here again."
ICE "got a shopping list"
ICE officials have been gearing up for the potential new cash for months.
"Apparently we're going to get more reconciliation money, so I got a shopping list," said Matt Elliston, ICE assistant director for law enforcement systems and analysis, speaking on a panel at the Border Security Expo in Arizona last month.
Among the items on his list are wearable headset displays so that officers do not need to be on their phones during an operation and data to help identify where someone targeted for arrest lives.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said absent the reconciliation funds, the agency was struggling to correctly pay its employees and fulfill contracts.
While the agencies welcome the funds, immigration advocates are concerned that funding the agency outside the normal appropriations process means provisions that tell the agency how to do its work are not included.
ICE agents confront protesters as they gather outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall on June 8, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey. The agency will receive tens of billions in new funding through the end of Trump's term under a GOP bill passed by Congress.
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Spencer Platt
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Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Coalition, said in the past DHS annual funding bills included specific guardrails on the spending including requirements for the agency to report data on who it is detaining and specific treatment of pregnant women in custody.
"It's very dangerous," Altman said. "And it means that the agency will move forward with even fewer accountability mechanisms than we've seen in the past."
Altman also raised concerns about the $350 million dedicated to immigration enforcement in areas that are not "qualified cooperating jurisdictions," meaning a locality that is not a part of programs that allow local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law.
"The DHS secretary has wide discretion to just say these are not sufficiently cooperating with the White House's mass deportation agenda," she said. "So it's concerning in terms of where the money will go."
Politics of immigration enforcement
President Trump shakes hands with the newly sworn in Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in the Oval Office on March 24, 2026. Mullin has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight.
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Jim Watson
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After the two killings in Minneapolis, Democrats and a contingent of Republicans in Congress said they wanted to take action to reign in the tactics of federal immigration officers.
For weeks this winter, debate over President Trump's immigration policy consumed Capitol Hill. But despite the protracted fight over immigration enforcement funding, that discussion has largely subsided.
Republicans criticized Democrats for pushing an unserious list of demands. Democrats criticized Republicans for dismissing attempts at meaningful reform.
A new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight. And other controversies, like the war in Iran, have overtaken the immigration policy debate.
So much so that when Senate Republicans finally moved to approve the $70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol, much of the debate focused on an unrelated fund proposed by the Trump administration to compensate people who claim to have been wrongfully targeted by the government.
Reflecting on what followed after the two deaths in her home state, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., says it has been hard for her personally to come to terms with the reality that Democrats were unable to extract the policy changes they demanded.
And meanwhile, Smith says Minnesotans are still dealing with the fallout from the crackdown — like kids who did not return to school or businesses that never reopened — even as public attention shifted away.
"This is the way it goes, Americans have really busy complicated lives, they're trying to figure out how to pay rent and buy groceries, but what they saw, I don't think they're going to forget it," Smith says. "And that's what I mean when I say we've lost these votes but that doesn't mean we've lost the fight."
Even if public opinion on Trump's immigration agenda does help Democrats' take control of Congress next year, Democrats' ability to extract changes through the appropriations process will be limited now that the agencies have resources to last until 2029.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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From left, insurance commissioner candidates Jane Kim and Ben Allen.
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Beth LaBerge/KQED/California State Senate
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Topline:
Two Democrats will compete in November to regulate the insurance market amid increasing climate change risks, the aftermath of the 2025 Los Angeles fires.
Why now: For the first time since California insurance commissioner became an elected position, two Democrats will vie for the job in November. The top two vote-getters in the June primary were former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Jane Kim and state Sen. Ben Allen, who received about 27% and 20% of the vote, respectively. One of them will succeed Ricardo Lara, the former Democratic lawmaker who has served two terms as insurance commissioner. Lara has presided over the Insurance Department in the past eight years, during which the state saw its deadliest and most devastating fires.
Why it matters: Kim or Allen will be taking on complicated, enormous challenges that have implications for local communities, people’s ability to buy homes and start businesses, and the state’s economy.
Read on... for more on the race.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
For the first time since California insurance commissioner became an elected position, two Democrats will vie for the job in November.
The top two vote-getters in the June primary were former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Jane Kim and state Sen. Ben Allen, who received about 27% and 20% of the vote, respectively. One of them will succeed Ricardo Lara, the former Democratic lawmaker who has served two terms as insurance commissioner. Lara has presided over the Insurance Department in the past eight years, during which the state saw its deadliest and most devastating fires.
Kim or Allen will be taking on complicated, enormous challenges that have implications for local communities, people’s ability to buy homes and start businesses, and the state’s economy.
In the past few years, insurance companies stopped writing new policies or renewing old ones, especially in high-risk areas, citing increasing wildfire risk from climate change and inflation that followed the COVID-19 pandemic. This caused homeowners to turn to the last-resort FAIR Plan, which is mandated by law to provide fire insurance. The plan, run by an alliance of insurers, has grown to more than 684,000 policies in force as of March, an increase of 152% since September 2022. It has warned about its ability to keep paying claims after major disasters.
Proposition 103, a law approved by voters in 1988, means that among many other things, the elected commissioner has the power to approve rate increases. It has kept the state’s rates from rising too much over the years — Californians’ homeowners insurance premiums have hovered around the middle of the pack nationwide — but that could change. Last year, the commissioner put in place regulations that include new factors insurers can use when setting their premiums, such as catastrophe modeling and reinsurance costs. Some companies have applied for and received approval to raise their rates, so they’re starting to write policies again.
Keeping insurance available but affordable will be the most pressing issue for either Kim or Allen, whose responsibilities will also include regulating auto, pet and some aspects of health insurance, plus workers’ compensation.
Another problem that will need plenty of attention: making sure insurance companies pay their claims in a timely manner that helps communities to rebuild. The L.A.-area fires shed a light on insurer practices that delay and deny claims, as well as underinsurance and the lack of standards for smoke damage, which have held up recovery. Pending legislation — such as those authored by Allen, whose district was hit by the fires last year — and lawsuits will address some of those issues. Well-organized fire survivors who called for Lara’s resignation over his department’s response to their concerns will surely keep up the pressure on his successor.
Here’s a look at each candidate’s record and how she or he would approach the job, based on their interviews with CalMatters and what they have said publicly, including at candidate forums.
Jane Kim
Kim’s proposal to create “natural disaster insurance for all,” inspired by a program in New Zealand, has gotten a lot of attention. She plans to fund such a system with a portion of policyholder premiums that insurance companies would collect and divert to the state. The state would then guarantee fire and flood coverage, while insurance companies would continue to cover other risks.
Naysayers, including consumer advocates, wonder why she hasn’t released any specifics about how much capital such a fund would require. Kim told CalMatters that it would need to be studied, but that at its core her proposal would generate revenue.
Opponents of her proposal also say it’s a bad idea to shift catastrophic burden onto the state, pointing to what they say is the failure of splitting off earthquake insurance from homeowner insurance — most California homeowners now have no insurance coverage.
“We (taxpayers) already are on the hook,” Kim said. “When insurers and utilities refuse to pay, they just pass it on to us anyway. Sharing the risk is important.”
Kim also told CalMatters that an idea Merritt Farren, a Republican candidate for commissioner, proposed — that the state create a reinsurance authority to encourage insurers to write policies in the state — “may turn out to be a more efficient model.”
Among Kim’s shorter-term priorities if she wins:
Create public dashboards to show how insurance companies are spending policyholder premiums, and that show their record on claims.
Expand eligibility for a program that provides low-cost insurance to drivers who make less than $38,000 a year.
Tie a company’s ability to sell auto insurance in the state to its willingness to write homeowner policies.
Make the FAIR Plan more transparent by requiring that its list of board members be public, and that its board meetings be public.
Freeze rates when policyholders file claims.
The former San Francisco elected official, an attorney, touts among her accomplishments free community college for the city’s residents; the first $15 minimum wage ordinance in the state; and a tenant-protection ordinance to avoid unjust evictions. She worked as the California director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 U.S. presidential campaign and most recently as California Director for the Working Families Party.
Kim has a long list of endorsers, including many unions such as SEIU California. Besides Sanders, another U.S. lawmaker, Rep. Ro Khanna of Silicon Valley, has also endorsed her.
Ben Allen
The state senator, who will be termed out of the Legislature, wants to bring together the state, insurers, builders, local governments and firefighters to work on risk-reduction strategies.
“I think that's ultimately going to be the way that we get ourselves out of this mess,” he told CalMatters.
What he calls a comprehensive approach includes thinking about where people live and build: “We shouldn't be building new construction that is irresponsible in high-risk areas. We should be looking for ways to carefully and sensitively encourage people to pull back from high-risk areas.”
If he wins, Allen’s other plans include:
Create a consumer advocate position within the insurance department, and increase staff to handle customer service.
Require insurers to explain claim denials and provide real-time reports of delays and outstanding claims after a disaster.
Increase oversight of the FAIR Plan and make sure it complies with commissioner orders.
Ban the insurance commissioner and staff from working for the industry immediately after they leave the department.
Allen has played up his experience as a legislator, including writing and passing bills related to holding insurance companies accountable. For example, a law he wrote now requires insurers to pay 60% of policyholders’ contents coverage without a detailed inventory, and gives consumers more time to provide that inventory. He also touts writing Proposition 4, the bond measure approved by the state’s voters in 2024 “for safe drinking water, wildfire prevention and protecting communities and natural lands from climate risks.”
Other pending bills authored by him include one that would require insurers to give homeowners 90 days notice before they intend not to renew their policies, along with a clear explanation. Another would penalize insurance companies that fail to correct their practices after the insurance department finds that they have violated laws and regulations.
Allen also has many endorsements, including the two leaders of the state Legislature, Senate Pro Tem Monique Limon and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, unions and the Consumer Federation of California also endorse him.
Will LA extend local voting rights to noncitizens?
Destiny Torres
is LAist's general assignment reporter and brings you the top news you need for the day.
Published June 9, 2026 2:05 PM
A proposed November ballot measure could extend voting rights to residents without U.S. citizenship status in the city of L.A. for local elections.
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Ronaldo Bolaños
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LAist
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Topline:
L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez on Tuesday pushed his colleagues to consider a November ballot measure that could extend voting rights to residents without U.S. citizenship status.
The background: Soto-Martínez introduced a motion in April. It was sent to the city’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, but that group has yet to discuss it. The last action was taken on May 28, when the item was continued until an undetermined date, and it was not on the committee’s June 5 agenda.
What does this mean? If placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the mayor and City Council would have the ability to make changes to the city’s ordinance that would allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. It would affect residents like Grace McManus, a legal permanent resident who has lived in L.A. since 2002. “Like so many longtime residents, I contribute to this city every day, yet I’ve often felt invisible and unheard,” McManus said in a statement. “Residential Voting is about making sure people like me have a voice in the decisions that affect our families and our communities.”
Why is the council member pushing for this? Soto-Martínez and supporters of the measure say everyone who lives in and contributes to L.A. should be represented in the democratic process. “My own parents spent decades working, paying taxes, and raising their children in Los Angeles without the right to vote,” Soto-Martínez said in a statement. “Their story is the story of hundreds of thousands of Angelenos who contribute to this city every day and deserve a voice in the decisions that affect our community.”
Is there a deadline? Yes, the City Council has until June 17 to place a ballot measure on the General Election ballot in November.