The Brief

The number of unhoused people living in and around Los Angeles is trending downward, local experts say, but that’s not the case for at least one group: older adults.

In the city of L.A., the number of people aged 65 and older experiencing homelessness jumped more than 17% since last year, and more than 36% in two years, according to annual point-in-time counts.

Among the unhoused, older adults are estimated to be the fastest-growing population in California, experts say.

Meanwhile, organizations that serve older adults are pulling back on services because of budget shortfalls while bracing for the effects of the Trump administration's cuts to Medicaid. That means people are being turned away from free food programs, senior centers and other supportive resources.

And even before that, people who had housing were already struggling to keep it.

“They were having to choose between their medications, or keeping their lights on, or having food on the table, or paying their rent,” said Yvonne Sun of Special Service for Groups SILVER, an L.A.-based nonprofit that provides resources to older adults in need by meeting them where they are.

A pandemic-era flush of funds from local, state and federal sources boosted the number of programs and services these organizations could offer, but that money has largely dried up.

Eli Veitzer, chief executive of Jewish Family Service L.A., said especially for older adults, ending up on the streets is a matter of “life or death.”

“The stakes couldn't be higher,” Veitzer said.

What’s at risk

Many local organizations for older adults pay for the services they provide through grants and fundraising. But they also receive federal funding, particularly through the Older Americans Act, which was designed to boost community social services for older people.

They also get funding from the city and county of L.A.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government funneled roughly $4.6 trillion to states and agencies to help people respond and recover, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

That money allowed organizations like SSG SILVER, Jewish Family Service and others to scale up. But it was temporary.

Now, leaders of those organizations say the services some older Angelenos rely on are at risk.

When older adults arrive at the ONEgeneration center, they sign in and select which activities they'd like to participate in.

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On a recent Tuesday morning, about 100 people gathered at a senior center in Reseda, where they talked and laughed over trays of linguine, ground turkey and chocolate pudding.

Mark  Schneider, 82, of Panorama City said having lunch at ONEgeneration’s center means he’s getting at least one good meal a day, rather than relying on what he could find at food banks.

It also helps stave off loneliness.

“ My whole life changed because in this community you get to meet people and they're all friends, and you develop your ability to talk to people,” he told LAist. “I had lost that because I was alone.”

ONEgeneration runs seven sites throughout the San Fernando Valley. The Reseda location serves more than 6,000 people by offering meals, exercise classes, support groups and entertainment — including karaoke.

But as the organization struggles to fill funding gaps, some of those services might go away, according to CEO Jenna Hauss. Unless they can find alternative funding, she said they’ll likely have to decide by September to close one or two sites.

“The employees and volunteers that run them, they may no longer have a place to go,” Hauss told LAist.

Damien Valentino, 67, comes to the senior center every day, mainly to exercise and socialize, which he said supports his mental health.

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Sandra Russell and Mark  Schneider after their lunch.

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The organization’s Homebound Meals program will be the hardest hit, she said. It delivers hot food to older adults, largely serving those with physical and cognitive impairments who live alone and can’t drive.

About 30% of the Homebound Meals program could be cut in the area, Hauss said, which means about 100 older adults will lose access to the free food “ with no other alternative resource to give them, simply because there's nothing available.”

Hauss said the organization recently had to turn away a 101-year-old woman who was living by herself because the program isn’t accepting any new enrollments.

“We have to cancel people,” Hauss said. “It's awful.”

Corrin Nagasaka told LAist the ONEgeneration program is essential. She declined to give her age to a reporter when interviewed for this story.

“You're gonna say, ‘Oh, I don't believe it,’” she quipped.

Nagasaka explained that the meal deliveries aren’t just about the food. They are an opportunity for connection — to have a conversation, even touch someone’s hand.

“And that's sometimes all the contact they have the whole week,” she said.

Many people stick around after lunch to socialize into the afternoon.

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What happened to the funding?

The “Big, Beautiful Bill,” signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, includes about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years and nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, otherwise known as SNAP.

Veitzer said cuts to Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in California, will have “a negatively powerful impact” on what services Jewish Family Service L.A. and others like it are able to provide.

For example, he said, the organization may have to make changes to its Assisted Living Waiver Program, which helps older adults get into assisted living, and its Multi-Purpose Senior Services Program, which helps older adults stay in their own homes.

Both programs serve hundreds of Angelenos, he said.

The city budget will also have a major impact, the organizations’ leaders say.

L.A.’s $13 billion budget, signed last month by Mayor Karen Bass, included “pretty severe” cuts for groups serving older adults, Veitzer said.

The city consolidated its Department of Aging with its Economic & Workforce Development Department and Youth Development Department. According to the mayor’s office, the move was designed to enhance services for older Angelenos, including those who may be at risk of homelessness.

But some service providers say they’re concerned that older adults — who make up nearly a quarter of L.A.’s population — will get lost in the system. The number of people 65 and older experiencing homelessness in the city went from 3,427 in 2023 to 4,680 in 2025, according to the point in time counts.

“We're talking about a lot of subject matter expertise that is lost, and we're also talking about representation and visibility,” Sun said.

In L.A. County, chronic homelessness among people 65 and older increased nearly 8.6% since last year, according to the point-in-time counts.

Measure A, passed by voters in November, raised the sales tax by a half a cent. The money is expected to be used for homelessness programs and housing efforts.

But less than 1% of funding is set aside for programs specifically for older adults in the county budget for homeless services for the current fiscal year. There’s $5 million listed for Permanent Housing for Older Adults out of the more than $637 million total budget.

“ It's easier, and cheaper, to prevent the person from becoming homeless than it is to help them once they become homeless,” Veitzer said.

“For older adults … the consequences are more dire.”

This summer's World Cup has been a bonanza for corporate sponsors.

Hydration breaks are "powered by Powerade." Each game crowns a Michelob Ultra "superior player of the match." Even the signs announcing player substitutions have a label slapped on: Rexona deodorant, which is owned by Unilever. They're the "official personal care sponsor" of this World Cup.

This relentless branding is nothing new for major sporting events, but it has provoked outrage in Los Angeles, where protests during the tournament took aim at FIFA's corporate partners, saying they betrayed the city's values.

At a demonstration in downtown L.A. last week, advocates rallied against a number of high-profile sponsors of the tournament, including Home Depot, the official "home improvement retailer" for the 2026 World Cup.

Its signature orange branding has been splashed across tournament activations this summer, but in the L.A. area its parking lots have been the sites of high profile immigration raids. Last summer in Monrovia, a man was killed fleeing ICE activity in a Home Depot parking lot after he ran onto a freeway and was hit by a car. In another incident, federal agents jumped out of a Penske moving van at the Westlake Home Depot and detained 16 people.

" Their parking lots have been turned into hunting grounds," said Miriam Arghandiwal, an organizer with the Boycott Home Depot Coalition.

" FIFA has been intentional in allowing the people's game to become the billionaire's game, and there's no better example of this than its choice in sponsors," she said at the protest.

The group also railed against FIFA partners Hyundai and Kia, citing a 2022 report that suppliers of Hyundai and Kia had used child labor in its Alabama factories. LAist has reached out to Home Depot and the Hyundai Motor Group, which also owns Kia, for comment.

Demonstrators said they wanted FIFA to make corporate accountability a metric of accepting a sponsor.

" We know mega-events like the World Cup can only happen with the support of host communities, local infrastructure and resources, with the workers throughout various supply chains that make these events possible," said Valerie Lizárraga with the nonprofit Jobs to Move America.

The group was also gathered to demand action from the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, which runs the L.A. World Cup Host Committee. Demonstrators said they were dissatisfied with the committee's guidance on human rights for the World Cup.

A spokesperson for that commission deferred to FIFA for comment on corporate sponsorships. FIFA did not respond to LAist's request.

Last week, a small group of climate activists also demonstrated outside SoFi Stadium against Saudi energy company Aramco, another major FIFA partner. They were calling on FIFA to drop the fossil fuel giant as a sponsor.

The World Cup is wrapped up in Los Angeles after Friday's quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium. But advocates rallying in L.A. say they are looking toward the future.

" Things like the World Cup [and] the Olympics are events that are fueled by people," said Father Thomas Carey, a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. "The question is, do we hold them to account to take care of and protect the people who work for them and the people who attend their games?"

Next year, Los Angeles will host the 2027 Super Bowl. And the year after that will be the Olympics.

The Trump administration is abandoning its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming care for youth nationally, according to an official document obtained by NPR.

The document shows that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing a proposed rule that would have blocked all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told NPR in a statement: "CMS does not comment on future rulemaking or speculate on potential actions. The Trump Administration rejects ideologically driven surgical interventions on vulnerable children."

(Surgery is very rare among transgender people under age 18, and the rule applied to all gender-affirming care, which is mainly therapy and medications for children.)

A "victory" for trans rights, but not a "retreat" by HHS

The fact that the Trump administration is backing off from this action is "a victory for people who are defending the rights and interests of trans people," says Sam Bagenstos, a professor at Michigan Law who served as general counsel at HHS under the Biden administration. "But I don't think it indicates a more general retreat from the aggressive posture of the Trump administration."

Bagenstos notes that this type of leverage — a "conditions of participation" rule for the Medicare and Medicaid program — has historically been used by HHS to compel states and hospitals to meet basic health and safety standards. Things like "making sure that you have stockpiles of certain kinds of equipment, making sure that you have certain kinds of emergency protocols, making sure that you have certain staffing ratios," he explains.

The proposed rule was unprecedented, Bagenstos says, because it instead would have prohibited certain kinds of treatments for a certain population. He says it seemed unlawful in a variety of ways. For one, "it violates the Medicare Act, which says that Medicare and Medicaid can't be used to control the practice of medicine within the state — states get to regulate the practice of medicine," Bagenstos says.

Medical groups opposed the change

Normally, HHS would propose a rule, accept public comment for 60 days, and then finalize the rule so that it could take effect. In this case, after proposing the rule in December and receiving more than 30,000 comments, the administration is abandoning the rule. At least in the next year, it will not be finalized and will not take effect.

The American Medical Association and the Children's Hospital Association both submitted comments urging the agency to rescind or withdraw the proposed rule. Major U.S. medical groups say that puberty blockers and sex hormones are safe and can be effective for transgender young people.

Even so, gender-affirming care for youth is banned in 27 states after a flurry of laws passed over the last several years. In the remaining 23 states, many hospital clinics that offer gender-affirming care have continued to operate, while others have shuttered in the past year citing pressure from the Trump administration.

That pressure has come in the form of this proposed rule, another rule that would bar federal Medicaid reimbursement for transgender pediatric patients, and a declaration from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that aimed to redefine the standard of care. (Interestingly, the press release issued when those actions were unveiled in December is now missing from the HHS website, as is the Kennedy declaration document.)

The Medicaid rule is currently in the final stage of review and appears to be on track to take effect in the coming weeks. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued over the so-called Kennedy declaration and succeeded in blocking it in federal court in Oregon. The Trump administration has not appealed that decision so far.

Protesters who are against gender-affirming care for young people gathered outside Boston Children's Hospital in September 2022.

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At the same time, the Department of Justice has issued administrative and criminal subpoenas to hospitals seeking full personal medical files for transgender youth and employment files for their medical providers, although many of those attempts have been blocked in court so far. The Trump administration has also reached settlements with hospitals in Texas and Ohio that involved establishing "detransition" clinics.

And last month, when the Supreme Court allowed states to bar young transgender girls from sports, the White House issued a press release saying that the decision "Bolsters President Trump's Push to Eliminate Transgender Insanity." The release listed actions targeting transgender people across the federal government, from passport markers to military service to research funding.

Will hospitals that ended care for trans youth restart it?

While the Trump administration does not appear to be backing down from anti-transgender actions broadly, its decision not to finalize its most aggressive healthcare rule is significant, says Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University who also worked in the Biden administration. Those other efforts are not nearly as durable as a finalized rule that takes effect, she notes.

The decision of the Trump administration not to finalize this rule "should give hospitals more confidence to either resume or continue offering the care," she says. Because the rule was never in effect, "I would argue that they should have been doing this all along anyway."

Kellan Baker agrees. He's a senior adviser for health policy at the Movement Advancement Project think tank, which focuses on LGBTQ issues. "This administration may have checked itself in one of the most extreme expressions of its agenda and I think people should take solace in that," he says. "But at the same time, this administration is continuing to show that its ultimate goal is eliminating healthcare for trans people and that it is apparently prepared to use almost any means necessary to do so."

The Medicare and Medicaid rule could theoretically be revived at some point, since it has not been formally withdrawn. An entry in the Trump administration's recent unified agenda sets a final action date for the proposed rule as December 2028, just before President Trump leaves office.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a new law that expands the state's mobile ID program to 60% of licensed drivers, his office announced Monday.

For the last few years, participating residents have been able to use the state-issued mobile app and store their IDs in certain phone wallets as part of a pilot program.

Where you can use it

The program works for driver's licenses and state IDs.

The mobile version is mainly valid at airport security, but use is expected to expand in the future.

TSA accepts the California DMV Wallet App, as well as Apple, Google or Samsung wallets. A small number of stores accept them for age-restricted purchases.

One big caveat: Mobile IDs are not accepted by law enforcement or most state government agencies.

That means you should still keep your physical ID or license with you, especially if you're driving. You can find a full list of accepted places on the DMV's website.

How you can apply

Access to the program was previously capped to 4.2 million drivers — now that's quadrupled to over 16 million.

You can join the pilot by downloading the CA DMV Wallet app from your phone's app store and logging into your MyDMV account.

You'll need to provide your driver's license or ID card information. The app will prompt you to scan your card, and you'll have to refresh the mobile ID every 30 days.

More than 3.5 million Californians have joined so far.