Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published July 17, 2023 4:42 PM
Kathy Schuler has lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Tustin since 2021, after previously living in an encampment.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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Topline:
Four years after Orange County settled a years-long legal battle with advocates for people experiencing homelessness, there are more temporary shelters but permanent housing is still elusive.
What legal battle? In 2017 and 2018, advocacy groups filed a series of lawsuits against Orange County and several O.C. cities over the enforcement of anti-camping rules and treatment of people experiencing homelessness.
A major feature of the settlements in those cases requires that a person sleeping on public property be assessed by outreach workers and offered appropriate shelter before law enforcement can enforce anti-camping rules.
What's changed since then? There's more street outreach, shelter beds and longer-term housing.
The number of available beds for people experiencing homelessness — including short-term shelter and permanent housing — has increased by nearly 70% since 2017, according to county data. Although, much of that increase is thanks to emergency housing vouchers that were part of the federal government's pandemic aid.
What's still lacking? Permanent housing. Data show the county falling short year after year on its goals for building housing for people experiencing homelessness. The average length of stay in interim housing or emergency shelters is five months.
In 2019, Orange County settled a years-long legal battle that marked a turning point in the way the county addresses homelessness. In the years since, there has been significant progress on the number of shelter beds and standards of care at those shelters. But those signs of progress are accompanied by more troubling indicators.
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LISTEN: What's Changed In O.C. After A Years-Long Legal Battle On Homelessness?
The shift started in 2017 when county officials sought to clear out a large homeless encampment that had become a health hazard and an embarrassment for public officials. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness sued, arguing that because of a dearth of shelter beds — and appropriate beds for people with disabilities — there was no place that people experiencing homelessness could sleep without violating the law.
The result: What's come to be known as the Catholic Worker settlement (Orange County Catholic Worker was one of the plaintiffs), which is actually a group of similar settlements involving more than a dozen O.C. cities.
Four years later:
People sleeping on public property have to be assessed by outreach workers and offered appropriate shelter before law enforcement can enforce anti-camping rules.
There are more emergency shelter beds. But often with more restrictions on who can use them.
Shelters have to adhere to standards of care and there's an appeal process when disputes arise.
There's more permanent supportive housing. But not nearly enough to meet demand.
Federal emergency housing vouchers have helped fill the need for affordable housing. They expire in 2030.
There are no longer massive encampments in places like the Santa Ana riverbed. But there are still more than 3,000 people without shelter on any given night, many of them in encampments that are more hidden and, advocates say, likely more dangerous.
The number of unhoused people dying annually in Orange County has more than doubled in the last five years — to some 500 people last year.
The pre-pandemic lawsuits that led to many of these changes are similar to ones currently playing out in Los Angeles. LAist talked to officials, lawyers, homeless service providers, and people experiencing homelessness in Orange County about what's unfolded over the past several years.
From riverbed encampment to permanent housing: One woman's long journey
Kathy Schuler was living in a tent next to the Santa Ana River channel in central Orange County when I met her in early 2017. Eventually, an estimated 800 to 1,500 people ended up in the sprawling encampment, including Schuler's adult son and daughter.
It stretched for about two miles behind Angel Stadium and the Honda Center. Advocates sued each time county officials tried to clear the encampment.
During a survey of the encampment in April 2017 with Judge David Carter — the same federal judge who oversees severalbigcases on homelessness in L.A. — Schuler showed off the homey details of her tent, including a framed photograph of her with her kids and their bevy of dogs. The area in front of Schuler's tent was neatly swept and decorated with potted plants.
Kathy Schuler in front of her tent next to the Santa Ana riverbed in central Orange County in 2017.
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Jill Replogle
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The following year, in February 2018, Schuler and everyone else in the encampment were told they had to leave. The county promised motel vouchers and help finding permanent housing as part of a deal between advocates and county officials brokered under Judge Carter's watch.
A line of people experiencing homelessness at the Santa Ana riverbed.
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Jill Replogle
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On a sunny February morning, Schuler and her encampment neighbors packed up their things and waited for buses to take them to their assigned bed.
Six years later …
I visited Schuler, now 66, and her dog Freeway this spring in their one-bedroom apartment in Tustin, where they've lived since 2021. The apartment is in a breezy, well-kept complex.
Schuler's walls are covered with jigsaw puzzles she's finished and mounted. Her patio is filled with plants, including a few she's been caring for since her time at the riverbed encampment.
Kathy Schuler and her dog, Freeway, in their patio in Tustin.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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What she likes most about her apartment: "Mine," she giggled, a smile spreading across her face. "Mine."
But it took Schuler more than three years of shuffling through motels and shelters to get her apartment, and only with a lot of help from advocates.
"How long is it gonna take?" Schuler remembers thinking on many occasions. "I'm glad I had people helping me out that know what's going on, you know," she said. "Because I had no clue."
Schuler's adult son and daughter still don't have permanent housing. Her daughter lives in a motel that's been converted into interim housing, part of Project Homekey. Her son and his girlfriend live in their vehicle, Schuler said.
Carol Sobel, a lawyer who's been involved in many of O.C. and L.A.'s most consequential cases on homelessness, said Schuler's too-long road to housing is "not a success."
"How many years to get them stability?" she asked of Schuler and other plaintiffs in the riverbed eviction case. "It is a constant battle."
What the data shows
There is some evidence of positive changes around homelessness in Orange County. There are also much more somber signs.
Point-in-time
The latest point-in-time count, from 2022, found nearly 17% fewer people experiencing homelessness on a given night compared to the previous count in 2019. Still, there are more than 3,000 people who sleep outside or in their vehicles with no shelter.
The 2022 count also revealed stark disparities: The share of the unhoused population identifying as Black or Native American was much higher than their percentage of O.C.'s total population.
Additionally, the percentage of the unhoused population considered chronically homeless (for more than a year) rose from 19% in 2017 to 42% in 2022.
Housing inventory
The county's inventory of short- and long-term housing available for people experiencing homelessness has increased substantially since 2017, according to annual data submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Orange County "Housing Inventory Count" for people experiencing homelessness, 2016-2023.
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Orange County Homeless Management Information System, http://ochmis.org/housing-inventory-count-hic/
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The county has added close to 1,000 emergency and transitional shelter beds to its inventory since 2017.
Available rapid rehousing, which provides short-term rental assistance, and permanent housing have both doubled since 2017, according to county data. Much of this increase is thanks to emergency housing vouchers provided by the federal government as part of the pandemic-induced American Rescue Plan.
People living off of Beach Boulevard in Garden Grove regroup during a break in the rain and after a raid on the encampment that periodically sprouts up here.
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Despite these gains, a recent county report shows the county has failed, year after year, to build enough permanent supportive housing for chronically unhoused individuals, despite pledges to do so in Carter's courtroom. And there's no improvement in sight, by the county's own estimates, given the steep rise in construction costs in recent years.
In 2018, the county projected this type of housing with built-in social services would cost $344,444 per unit. The report notes that the real, average cost per unit of developments funded between 2018 and 2022 was nearly 45% more — $497,570.
"If current development cost trends continue, it is projected that the average per unit cost for supportive/affordable housing in Orange County will be approximately $550,000," the report reads. Nearly 60% of that total is construction costs.
In the absence of permanent housing, homeless service providers told LAist that people are staying in emergency shelters much longer than intended. Data show the average length of stay in shelters here is more than five months. The data also show that more people return to homelessness after a shelter stay than move on to permanent housing.
Deaths of people 'without fixed abode'
Perhaps the starkest contrast to O.C.'s improvements in addressing homelessness comes from a committee convened by the sheriff's department to review deaths of unhoused people. The committee's report, released earlier this year, found that deaths doubled between 2017 and 2021. They've only increased since then — to some 500 people last year.
COVID-19 seemed to claim a relatively small number of the deceased — 17 people in 2021, according to the report. The main causes of death were drug overdoses — especially fentanyl — heart disease, and getting hit by a vehicle.
Brooke Weitzman is a lawyer with the Elder Law and Disability Rights Center, one of the groups that initially sued the county. She worked closely with Sobel on the case and has a more optimistic view of its success.
For one thing, she said, people living on the streets are getting assessed for and offered, when possible, shelter and treatment options before they're ticketed for sleeping or loitering in public spaces.
"In the areas that are a part of the settlements, we aren't seeing anti-camping enforcement anymore," Weitzman said. "Certainly law enforcement is still enforcing other non-poverty related crimes like substance use or theft. But … being unhoused, sleeping in the park, those we're really not seeing tickets for the way we did before the litigation."
Weitzman said suing officials over homelessness was never going to solve the housing crisis, but forcing cities to build more temporary shelters has also made them realize just how hard it is to move people into permanent housing.
"Coming out of the cases, no city in Orange County can honestly tell you they don't have a problem with access to housing," she said.
Doug Becht, who oversees homeless services for the county, said he's proud of the progress since the lawsuits, especially of the standards of care to which all county-funded shelters now have to adhere.
"So regardless of what shelter either an individual or a family go in, they are assured that their service and the atmosphere and the environment and the care that they receive will be high," he said.
The county's legal settlement also establishes a grievance and appeal process — for example, if a shelter or treatment program wants to kick out a participant — and the right to appeal disputes all the way up to Judge Carter.
A volunteer with Wound Walk OC takes the vital signs of a man sleeping in an underpass in central Orange County.
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But Becht said a lack of housing options remains a major challenge, along with limited capacity to act quickly.
“When someone’s ready, and interested in help and is interested in working towards ending their homelessness, we gotta be there and ready to receive that," he said. "And in a lot more cases than ever, we are. But we’re still not able to do it for everyone at every point and that’s where we want to be.”
What critics say
David Gillanders, executive director of the homeless services organization Pathways of Hope in Orange County, questions how much positive change came out of the riverbed lawsuits.
"It has not resulted, I don't think, in enough people getting housed," he said. "But what I do hope it's done is stimulate some conversation around what homelessness is, how homelessness actually works, why people go homeless."
Without a right to housing, which doesn't exist in the U.S. or California constitutions, Gillanders is skeptical about how much progress on homelessness can be accomplished through the courts.
"The ultimate lawsuit is one that makes housing a human right literally," he said, "not just as a slogan that we sometimes say, but actually makes it an entitlement. Short of that, there's nothing that will solve homelessness."
You just have to keep fighting and you have to hope that one day, somebody's going to say, 'Look, this is not making sense.'
— Carol Sobel, lawyer
Sobel, after more than two decades of suing elected officials to force them to open shelters, told LAist she no longer believes it's an effective strategy.
"I think we've fallen into this trap about this being a solution when all the evidence around is it hasn't worked and it doesn't work because at the end of the line, there's no housing," Sobel said.
The O.C. Catholic Worker case has served as a template for a federal lawsuit filed by a business group against the city and county of Los Angeles over the lack of shelter and mental health treatment for people experiencing homelessness. The city of Los Angeles settled their part of the case last year.
L.A. County is currently appealing a ruling by Judge Carter rejecting its settlement. The judge said he wanted to see more beds and more court oversight in the settlement.
Despite Sobel's doubt about fighting homelessness through the courts, she doesn't plan to stop.
"I think about how much worse it would be if we weren't doing this," she said. "You just have to keep fighting and you have to hope that one day, somebody's going to say, 'Look, this is not making sense.'"
Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published January 1, 2026 6:21 PM
Conditions along the Santa Ana River can become dangerous during heavy rains.
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Topline:
An unidentified body was recovered from the bed of the Santa Ana River just before noon on Jan. 1, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
What we know: Officials said a witness called 911 to report a person in the riverbed near the intersection of Warner Avenue and Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. The person traveled about two miles downstream before the search and rescue crew recovered their body in the city of Fountain Valley.
The response: About 60 firefighters from OCFA and the Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa fire departments contributed to the water rescue effort.
The danger of moving water: With more rain in the forecast this weekend, keep in mind that just six inches of fast-moving water can knock down most people, while 12 inches can carry away most cars.
How to stay safe: Emergency officials recommend limiting travel as much as possible during heavy rain and floods, including by car. If you see flooding in your path, remember the slogan, “Turn around, don’t drown.” LAist also has a guide on driving safely in the rain.
Manny Ruiz strikes alongside other workers with Teamsters 2785 at Amazon Warehouse DCK6 in the Bayview District in San Francisco on Dec. 19, 2024. Amazon workers at multiple facilities across the U.S. went on strike to fight for a union contract.
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Jungho Kim for CalMatters
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Topline:
Under a law taking effect Jan. 1, California seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
Where things stand: The new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
Why now: The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum. President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
California under a law taking effect today seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
But the new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum.
President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, the Inglewood Democrat who wrote the bill, said when the governor signed it in September that “California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction.”
The NLRB sued California over the law in October, saying in its lawsuit that the state is trying to assert authority over “areas explicitly reserved for federal oversight.”
On the legal challenge to the law, Terry Schanz, McKinnor’s chief of staff, referred CalMatters to the state attorney general. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is responsible for defending the law in court. A spokesperson for Bonta said the office would have nothing to say about it.
With the NLRB unable to fulfill its duties, states are trying to fill the gap in enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which Congress passed in 1935. But labor experts contacted by CalMatters do not have high hopes for the California law, which is similar to a law passed in New York this year. They said courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled that states cannot decide matters pertaining to federal labor law because of preemption, the doctrine that a higher authority of law overrides a lower authority.
“It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the courts do not overturn these (state) laws,” said John Logan, professor and chairperson of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University.
William Gould, a former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board during the Clinton administration and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, agreed: “In the courts the matter is a dead letter unless (the Supreme Court) shifts gears.”
That’s what the California and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with other business groups, are hoping, according to their amicus brief in support of the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California: “Under California’s view, every state could have its own labor law for private-sector workers. Dozens of laws would overlap and collide.”
The California Labor Federation, an umbrella organization for unions that represents about 2 million California workers, said in an amicus brief that even before Trump fired the NLRB chief, the federal agency’s backlog had been a problem, leading to companies being able to delay bargaining in good faith with their employees’ unions without consequences.
If the California law is overturned, employees who have formed unions but have not succeeded in securing contracts with employers such as Amazon and Starbucks — which are among the companies seeking to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional — may continue to face delays, according to Logan. Or, he said, it’s not clear what would happen if other workers tried to organize and their companies simply fired them.
“The NLRB defunctness is a scandal which cries out for political reform,” Gould said.
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Why now: As the clock struck midnight across time zones, people gathered to celebrate the new year.
Keep reading... for those photos.
As the clock strikes midnight across time zones, people gather to celebrate the new year.
We take a look at the shared joy and traditions in these photos.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Reveler use their smartphones to film the falling balloons and confetti as they celebrate the start of 2026 during the New Year countdown event held at a shopping mall in Beijing, early Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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Revellers watch a fireworks and light show for children on Museumplein as part of New Year's Eve celebrations in Amsterdam on December 31, 2025.
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Members of the public gather to celebrate the New Year during the annual bell-tolling ceremony at the Bosingak Pavilion on January 01, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea.
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Fireworks explode over skyscrapers during New Year celebrations on January 01, 2026 in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines.
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People buy batons that read happy New Year 2026 on December 31, 2025 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thousands lined the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok as the country welcomed the new year.
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Fireworks explode from the Taipei 101 building during the New Year's celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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Revellers watch the New Year's Eve fireworks from the The Huc Bridge at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi on Jan. 1, 2026.
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People attend the New Year countdown event to celebrate the start of 2026 in the Central district of Hong Kong, on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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Fireworks explode around the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, during New Year's Eve celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
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People pose for pictures near illuminated decorations on New Year's Eve in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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Revellers watch fireworks during the New Year celebrations in Karachi on January 1, 2026.
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Iraqis gather in Baghdad's Al-Zawraa Park during New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31, 2025.
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Onlookers stand beside light ornaments on New Year's Eve at Bakrkoy Square in Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2025.
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People strike a giant bell to celebrate the New Year at the Zojoji Buddhist temple, minutes after midnight Thursday Jan. 1, 2026, in Tokyo.
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A couple takes a selfie as the last sunset of 2025 is seen over the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.
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People watch and take photos as the Ferris wheel displays "Happy New Year" in 16 different languages at Pacific Park on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025 in Santa Monica.
Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire.
Where things stand: Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.
What's next: Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who is part of that effort, says he thinks the Senate can pass a "retroactive" Affordable Care Act subsidy extension, but "we need President Trump."
Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.
"There's a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this will be for families that they represent," Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said on Morning Edition Thursday. "That's the common ground here, and it's a doable thing."
Welch said he joined a bipartisan call Tuesday — first reported by Punchbowl News — in which a handful of senators charted out a possible health care compromise.
"We could extend the credits for a couple of years, we could reform it," Welch said of the call. "You could put an income cap, you could have a copay, you could have penalties on insurers who commit fraud. You actually could introduce some cost saving reductions that have bipartisan support."
But according to Welch, this legislation is only doable with President Trump's blessing.
"It would require that President Trump play a major role in this, because he has such influence over the Republican majority in the House and even in the Senate," Welch said.
Last fall, Republicans and Democrats fought bitterly over the Obamacare subsidy extension, causing a political standoff that led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Trump has remained relatively hands-off, withholding his support for any health care legislation.
Despite these obstacles, Welch said he believes the jump in prices that people across the country now face will break the logjam in Congress.
"A farmer in Vermont, their premium is going to go from $900 a month to $3,200, a month," Welch said. "So they're going to really face sticker shock. There's going to be a secondary impact, because the hospitals, particularly in rural areas, are going to lose revenue."
But even if the Senate advanced a compromise bill on the ACA, the House would also have to get behind it. And the lower chamber has its own bipartisan effort on an ACA subsidy extension.
Just before the recess began in mid-December, four House Republicans joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies — forcing a floor vote on the bill when the House returns.
Hours after bucking House Speaker Mike Johnson and joining Democrats, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., told Morning Editionback in December that he thinks this vote will get even more Republican support.
"I don't like the clean extension without any income cap," Fitzpatrick said. "But given the choice between a clean three-year extension and letting them expire, that's not a hard choice for me. And I suspect many of my other colleagues are going to view it the same way."
Fitzpatrick and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., have held meetings with moderate senators on legislative paths to extend the ACA subsidies, a source familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak publicly tells NPR.
The Senate returns on Jan. 5 and the House comes back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.
