The Brief

To slow the rise of homelessness, one program in Los Angeles County has been using artificial intelligence to find and offer help to people before they lose their housing.

The program has shown promise at preventing homelessness. But first, outreach workers need to convince people the help they’re offering isn’t a scam.

“We hear all the time from our clients that our program sounds too good to be true — what’s the catch?” said Dana Vanderford, head of the Homelessness Prevention Unit run by the L.A. County Department of Health Services.

The stakes are high for the prevention unit. Many policy experts have become convinced that L.A. County won’t solve its homelessness crisis by focusing only on the expensive, lengthy process of moving people from the streets into new housing.

Prevention advocates note that for all the people in L.A. who’ve been rehoused in recent years, more have become unhoused. This stark math recently helped persuade county leaders to vote against $21 million in planned budget cuts to prevention programs.

But the work of preventing homelessness is complicated. In many cases, the difference between keeping someone housed and watching them fall through the cracks comes down to a delicate human interaction — two strangers trying to establish trust in an unexpected phone call.

The art of building trust

In a Skid Row office building, Emily Gonzales-Zentgraf looked at a spreadsheet and dialed a phone number. This time, someone actually picked up.

“Hi,” Gonzales-Zentgraf said. “I'm calling from L.A. County's Department of Health Services Housing Stabilization Team. How are you doing today?”

The person on the other end said she was at a doctor’s appointment.

“OK, I'll give you a call later today,” Gonzales-Zentgraf said before making a note in her spreadsheet.

The goal was to get this person enrolled in services provided through the county’s prevention unit, a special initiative of the Department of Health Services’ Housing for Health program.

Housing for Health is now being cited as a model for the county’s new approach to funding homeless services. Last week, elected leaders voted to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding from the region’s troubled L.A. Homeless Services Authority.

The prevention unit can offer quick cash assistance for things like rent, medical care or car repairs. It also gives people six months of case management and help signing up for other county programs.

Gonzales-Zentgraf wasn’t able to sign up the person she reached on the phone for help yet. But she considered the call a success.

“Every time I'm able to have a conversation with someone, it's me building trust,” she said.

Many people eligible for help are unreachable

Outreach workers say they’re getting better at winning that trust. One strategy is to avoid the word “homeless.” They’ve found it can scare people. Instead of saying they’re with the county’s “Homelessness Prevention Unit,” they say they’re with the “Housing Stabilization Team.”

Improving the program’s contact success rate is critical. At last count, more than 75,000 people are experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. Even as thousands move into shelters and apartments each year, thousands of others become newly unhoused.

In the past, only about 21% of the people the prevention unit called ended up enrolling in the program. About half never called back at all.

“Phone numbers wouldn't work,” said Vanderford. “Voicemails would be left and not returned.”

She said the people they’re trying to reach are by nature difficult to contact. Many are sick and frequently in and out of hospitals. Some can’t afford reliable phone service. Others have been stung by past experiences with government programs.

“We've learned a lot in the last couple of years about what works in cold calling our clients, but we still get clients who hang up on us,” Vanderford said.

Dana Vanderford, associate director of homelessness prevention for L.A. County's Department of Health Services, stands in the call center where outreach workers try to establish connections with people on the brink of losing their housing.

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If calls, emails and physical mail all fail, the prevention unit will try to establish contact through a person’s medical provider. For now, the unit does not send text messages because of concerns about running afoul of federal telemarketing laws. Some hope that will change.

In a world where spam calls seemingly never cease, Vanderford said her team understands the need to patiently explain what the program is and what it offers.

“That's something that keeps us up at night,” she said. “There's some segment of eligible clients who we’re not reaching. But I think the trade off there is we know that we're reaching a group of people who have a really high level of need.”

Using AI to predict homelessness

County prevention workers know the people they’re reaching out to are at high risk of homelessness because they’re relying on a statistical model created by researchers with the University of California system’s California Policy Lab.

The model uses artificial intelligence to comb through county records on emergency room visits, psychiatric admissions, food assistance, arrests and other factors that put someone at high risk of becoming unhoused in the next 18 months.

Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab, said the predictive model identifies people with about a 1-in-4 chance of becoming unhoused.

“What we know from the unit so far is that 90% of people complete the program and are still housed,” Rountree said. “Which is great.”

Rigorous studies on the program are still in the works. Results from a randomized control trial are expected in 2027.

Rountree said early results suggest preventing homelessness saves money in the long run. Research on the prevention unit shows that on average, it takes about $6,500 to stabilize a participant’s housing. Helping someone find new housing after they’re already living on the street tends to be much more expensive.

“Our system is trying to solve a crisis, and it does not have enough funding to do everything it needs to do,” she said. “The future, I think, is around thinking strategically around the maximum impact for dollars.”

Reaching out before people know they need help

Preventing homelessness is not as easy as it sounds. First, you need to know who is going to become unhoused. Otherwise, prevention dollars may end up going to people who — while seemingly vulnerable — were not likely to become unhoused in the first place.

Researchers say looking at eviction filings is not always a reliable way of predicting homelessness. Some renters who get evicted do become unhoused. But many do not. They might move in with family members or find cheaper housing elsewhere.

People at high risk of becoming unhoused are also likely to not be renting directly from a landlord. A 2023 UC San Francisco study found that in the months leading up to their homelessness, 49% of Californians were not lease-holders. Instead, they were chipping in on rent as a roommate or living somewhere for free.

All of this makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint who will become unhoused. Often, people don’t realize they’re on a slippery slope to homelessness. Many never think to ask for help.

Unlike programs in New York and Chicago, which rely on people calling a homelessness prevention support line and asking for aid, L.A. County’s program proactively finds people at high risk and calls them.

Research has shown the Angelenos identified by this model rarely ask for help on their own.

“We were not only finding a unique group, but we were finding a group that was more vulnerable,” Rountree said.

Armando Carrillo plays with his Pomeranian dogs, Snuggles and Elle, inside his living room in Arcadia on March 29, 2025. Enrolling in homelessness prevention services helped him secure pet food assistance through Pasadena Humane.

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He picked up a call that changed his life 

Armando Carrillo was part of that unique group. He had lost his job as an after-school tutor and was close to maxing out his credit cards when he got a call last year from an unknown number.

“I ended up trying to swipe it away, and I accidentally swiped it to answer,” said Carrillo, who lives in an Arcadia apartment with his disabled mother and two siblings.

At first, Carrillo was skeptical. He said he hadn’t asked for any help avoiding homelessness. But he later realized the offer was genuine after the county mailed him a letter confirming the offer.

By enrolling in the program, Carrillo found help covering his portion of the rent, paying down his debts and feeding his family’s pets. He said getting treated for anxiety and depression was critical in helping him find a new job as a special needs aid in a local school district.

Now Carrillo has stable housing. He said he’s glad he didn’t hang up the phone that day.

“I felt very, very, very lucky that I was one of the people considered to be helped because I would have ended up homeless," he said.

Carrillo said he understands why others don’t immediately answer the phone. But he urged people who get the calls to check their voicemail, even if they don’t pick up at first.

“It's OK to be skeptical,” he said. “Especially now, with everything that's going on, a lot of scams and all that… All it takes is looking [the prevention unit] up on Google. Within 10 seconds, you know that they're a legit organization.”

Ask Logan Sudeith how many bets he places in a week and he'll laugh. It's a comical line of questioning for the 25-year-old former financial risk analyst, who estimates he clocks about 100 hours a week on prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket. After a while, understandably, some of the bets blur together. What are his net profits, though? That's a number he's got at the ready.

"Last month, I made $100,000," said Sudeith, who does most of his trading from his laptop while bed-lounging in his Atlanta apartment. He's executing so many orders on the sites, he says, that he has no time to cook. So he DoorDashes every meal.

"My last salary was $75,000 a year, so I left my job to trade full time," he said

Some of his biggest hauls in recent months include lucrative stakes on Time Magazine's person of the year ($40,236), the most-searched person on Google last year ($11,083) and a wager on the New York City mayoral race ($7,448). And of course, a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there on questions like, how many times will a sports announcer say "air ball"? And will President Donald Trump use the phrase "drill baby drill" at an upcoming press conference? (Traders had $500,000 on the line on this market.)

"I'm not a fan of Trump, though I do spend most of my day listening to him and tracking what he is doing," said Sudeith, noting that whatever candidate in the next presidential race is the most friendly to prediction markets has his vote. "I could be a single-issue voter. If they're super-super heavy anti-prediction markets, it would be hard for me to vote for them."

The boom of online prediction markets is being driven by the Sudeiths of the world. He's one of millions of traders logging on every day to services like Kalshi and Polymarket to place high-dollar and incredibly risky bets on the outcome of the world in real time, whether it's an award host's turn of phrase to the number of migrants the U.S. will deport this year.

Much like previous financial crazes around meme stocks and NFTs, true believers view prediction markets through a stick-it-to-the-man prism. It's a movement against the elite establishment, they say, whether it's the mainstream media, pollsters or government agencies. This growing group of renegade traders maintain that core truths emerge only after thousands of people express their opinions with their pocketbooks.

"Markets are the most efficient way to get to real information," Sudeith said. "If you're watching on election night, I think you'll know who the winners are before the news can report it."

While the industry may position itself an alternative to the mainstream, the mainstream is embracing it.

CNN and CNBC have struck deals to incorporate Kalshi prediction markets into coverage. The Wall Street Journal's owner, Dow Jones, is partnering with Polymarket, as did the Golden Globe awards this year, with announcers updating viewers on Polymarket odds before every commercial break.

Founders of the prediction markets apps say they enable people to turn their opinion into a financial hedge against things like inflation or a government shutdown, yet skeptics say that is twisty and self-serving logic.

"They are gambling sites no different than FanDuel or DraftKings, a corner bookie or a casino in Las Vegas," said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of Better Markets, a nonprofit that pushes for Wall Street reform.

Kalshi says 'there's no house'; not all agree

Traditional gambling often means wagering against "the house," where the casino acts like the banker, extracting fees and maintaining a competitive edge.

Prediction markets like Kalshi say they're different.

Here's how they work: A staff member creates "a market," often after one has been suggested by a user, like what will President Trump say at his next Oval Office briefing?

Then anyone can propose a "strike," the lingo for a term that's being bet on, whether, for instance, Trump will say "Greenland," or "Minnesota," or some other word or phrase.

Kalshi staff pick what terms will be bet on for both sides of that "yes" and "no" wager.

In order to work, however, there needs to be money on both the "yes" and the "no" side of the market, so Kalshi relies on institutional partners, like the hedge fund Susquehanna International, or everyday users with large enough portfolios to front the cash. This is called being a "market maker." Kalshi provides financial perks and data access to traders who do this.

But because traders are competing with other traders, Kalshi argues there is no house involved in these transactions.

Several federal lawsuits against Kalshi have challenged this notion, claiming that the Wall Street firms that Kalshi taps are indistinguishable from a traditional "house."

One suit filed this month in the Northern District of Illinois highlights that the company itself has a separate entity, Kalshi Trading, that supplies cash on the opposite side of trades.

"Thus, Kalshi users are betting against the house exactly the same way it would in a brick-and-mortar casino," wrote lawyer Russell Busch in the complaint.

Kalshi denies this. Company spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana told NPR that market makers merely price bids and asks and do not have a competitive advantage.

"Market making is completely different from being a house because a house has monopoly pricing power, whereas market makers compete with thousands of other market makers to take bids," she said.

The Trump family invests in prediction markets. The administration is taking a friendly policy stance

While the Biden administration sought to rein in this industry, Trump's regulators are breaking down barriers to allow it to flourish.

More than $2 billion is now traded every week on Kalshi, an amount the company says is 1,000% higher compared to the Biden years.

Polymaket, which was forced in 2022 to shut down in the U.S. for operating as an unlicensed betting site, recently won the Trump administration's blessing to re-launch in the U.S.

The Trump family is also getting in on the action. The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., is on the board of Polymarket, and his venture capital firm invests in the company. He is also a "strategic adviser" to Kalshi. Truth Social, the president's social media site, is planning to launch its own prediction market called Truth Predict.

The explosive growth and permissive regulatory environment has ignited a debate about the underbelly of an industry that essentially turns many features of modern life into potential monetary wins and losses. Fears persist that when elections, politics and foreign invasions become a gamble that insiders could abuse their access for profit and market odds could influence what actually happens.

Donald Trump Jr. speaks during The Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas on May 27, 2025.

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Then there's the most prosaic, but perhaps more immediate worry: That the prediction markets gamify trading with slickly designed apps, one-click checking account deposits and constant push alerts, catering to compulsive online bettors. They're not unlike other app-based trading platforms, but now almost anything is a potential betting opportunity, which economists and other financial experts say can enable a new generation of gambling addicts.

While individual bets on Kalshi are not public, the app has a leaderboard showcasing top profit winners.

That offers hope to some traders who turn to Discord and Reddit to discuss how losses have set them back.

"I'm down 2000 this week when I was up 1200 last week," wrote a Kalshi trader who goes by Educational_Pain_407 on Reddit. "Lost it all and keep trying to claw it back. So I don't know what to tell you but right now I don't have enough to pay my bills in my bank account so I can't bet even if I wanted to."

There are three federal lawsuits against Kalshi seeking class action status alleging the apps have sucked young traders into gambling addiction.

Officials at Kalshi have said if traders "lose their shirt that's on them," and even the Reddit user behind on his bills concedes it's a matter of personal responsibility: "Live and learn and pay for your mistakes. The consequences of being an adult," he wrote recently.

While online sportsbooks and gambling are nothing new, the rapid speed, volume of cash and ease at which transactions flow across prediction market apps set them apart from other forms of betting, according to legal and financial experts.

"Like sports betting, these platforms can be addictive. It is the adrenaline rush that the target demographic is chasing," said Melinda Roth, a visiting professor at Washington and Lee University's School of Law who studies prediction markets. "I do believe this is a looming public health crisis."

Decoding the lingo: 'Mogged,' 'Fudded,' 'PMT'

Evan Semet, 26, is another diehard prediction markets trader who left his salaried position in finance as a quantitative researcher after he started raking in six figures a month on Kalshi."I don't feel the need for another job at the moment," he said.

His first golden ticket came via bets on the number of Transportation Security Agency screenings that happen across a certain period on Polymarket.

Semet said he set up a dedicated server through Amazon Web Services to host statistical models that he runs to help him decide where to place bets.

"It was pretty modelable," he said, noting that he leans on the finance savvy he gleaned at a trading firm to make money on predictions. "Most day traders draw some shapes on a chart and think it has some statistical significance but it's really just astrology," he said. "They're old-school gamblers going off of intuition. I try to be driven by statistics."

To stay tapped in, he's often toggling between multiple live trades on one screen and following a discussion among other traders on the social network Discord.

Keeping up on what's happening there requires understanding a hyper-specific type of lingo that's a blend of Generation Alpha and Gen Z slang, repurposed finance terminology and a grab-bag of other cultural influences from gaming to crypto to the gutter humor of fringe sites like 4chan.

If you've been out-maneuvered by another trader, you've been "mogged."

Advertisements by the company Kalshi predict a victory for Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election before the polls closed Nov. 4, 2025.

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If a market has "fudded," people are selling their positions out of fear, uncertainty and doubt. A "rulescuck" is someone who is a stickler for the rules of a betting market and will try to win on a technicality.

A "bondsharp" is a well-known community member who frequently puts up money on the other side of a bet.

These are just a handful of the terms required to stay apace of the chats on Discord, where PMTs are often discussing their full port (prediction market trader, and full portfolio, of course).

"It is a good amount of terminology. It's borrowing lingo and terms from stuff I've heard at real trading firms mixed with online pop culture," Semet said.

Prediction market trading can be a compulsive sport for many of them, who admit they can be dopamine junkies. Others prefer to avoid the pressure-cooker feeling of watching a bet win or lose live.

"It's an antsy, gambling-like feeling watching it all happen live," Semet said. "It's intense, almost feels like the fog of war, trying to decide what to do," he said. "Sometimes I prefer to not look at all and see how I did later."

How predictions markets got into politics

Kalshi's big day came, as it were, on Election Day in November 2020.

That's when they got word that Trump's Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures contracts, greenlit it as a "designated contract market," a blessing that essentially gave the platform a license to operate as a financial exchange.

It was a long time coming.

For years before that, Kalshi's co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, former Wall Street traders who met at MIT, had been battling a skeptical CFTC, which had long rejected similar applications over concerns that an events contract platform would operate a type of gambling outside the purview of state gambling commissions. Regulators also feared the bets invited insiders to rig the outcomes of events from sports to elections.

As Kalshi hired lawyers and lobbyists leading up to their CFTC approval, another prediction market, where most are betting with cryptocurrencies, Polymarket, was exploding in growth. It, however, had not bothered to even try to receive federal buy-in. The Biden administration shut down the exchange for operating without a license. Now, Polymarket has the CFTC on its side, and is staging a U.S. comeback.

Two developments helped Polymarket's return: the company acquired a little-known derivatives exchange QCX, which had already obtained CFTC approval. And the Trump administration's CTFC and Justice Department abandoned investigations into Polymarket.

States, however, are on the attack. Massachusetts has sued to push Kalshi out of the state. Eight other states, including New York, New Jersey and Maryland, have sent the company cease and desist letters alleging that it is operating as an illegal and unlicensed sports gambling site. The motivation is clear: Gambling brings in serious tax revenue for states, while prediction markets bring in none.

For both Kalshi and Polymarket, one of the most controversial areas of prediction market trading is elections, an issue Biden-era regulators took Kalshi to court over.

Under the 1936 Commodity Exchange Act, which was updated in 2008 after the financial crisis, future event contracts cannot involve terrorism, assassinations or "games," but political betting is not explicitly banned.

Biden administration lawyers argued that placing wagers on races amounted to a game, a word that is not defined at all in the law. Election bets, the regulators contended, could turbocharge the spread of political misinformation and create financial incentives for voters to cast a ballot even when it's contrary to a voter's political views.

It also puts the CFTC in the awkward position of having to investigate news, whether real or fabricated, that moves a prediction market. Former CFTC officials told NPR that the agency has never been equipped to be "an election cop."

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. rejected that framing and handed Kalshi a major victory. The court also pointed out that the harm these markets would cause the government was not "concrete" enough.

The Trump administration dropped the appeal, unleashing what is expected to be an unprecedented torrent of prediction market cash into this year's midterm elections, which is raising alarms among those pushing for stricter regulations on this industry.

"AI, deepfakes, and other nefarious activities to attack candidates could easily impact the betting activity and odds, as well as the actual outcome of elections," said Kelleher of Better Markets. "They don't really care who wins or loses. They only care about the volume of bets and driving that volume as high as possible."

Regulators appear unprepared. The CFTC usually has five commissioners but currently only has one. Meanwhile, Kalshi's board includes former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz, who was among the officials who gave the platform its federal approval in 2020.

Former CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson, who left the agency in 2025, said that lack of commissioners comes on top of high levels of turnover among the most senior staff lawyers.

"We're essentially asking the CFTC to get involved in engaging and policing an element of our democratic process that we really haven't thought carefully enough about," Johnson said.

Insider trading scrutiny grows

Before a U.S. operation ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, one trader on Polymarket banked a nearly half-million-dollar profit on a bet Maduro would not remain president for long.

While the trader's identity remains a mystery, speculation continues to rattle around the internet about whether the person had insider information. The episode has renewed scrutiny on how the companies ensure bets aren't rigged.

On Discord, when traders see a large bet placed that immediately stands out as an outlier, cries of "the market is insidered" are common. Proving it is another matter.

As is often the case on the platforms, open-shut evidence of insider trading is elusive. Kalshi requires a government-issued ID to sign up in order to trace any possible market manipulation back to a real person. Polymarket does not, but it has yet to publicly re-launch its U.S. app. Internal and third-party surveillance tools, the companies say, are on the lookout for unusual activity.

Congress has begun to take notice. Following the Maduro trade, Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-NY, and 30 other Democrats, sponsored legislation banning federal officials from using prediction markets to trade on policies or political outcomes using non-public information.

Being up against an insider is always a risk, said full-time prediction markets trader Semet.

"There's always going to be someone who has more information than you, unless you're the insider," he said. "There are certain accounts that miraculously have every single Google and OpenAI release date nailed perfectly, and it's like, all right, just don't fade those people," he said using the slang word for voting against another trader.

When asked if he thinks Kalshi and Polymarket are doing enough to combat insider trading, he gave a blunt assessment: "F*** no," Semet said. "I really don't think they care."

"Tailing," or making a bet joining in on a suspiciously large bet is common on the platforms. Bloomberg on Monday reported on a new tool that allows traders to get alerts when anomalous transactions occur so they can potentially cash in on what could be a winning wager.

From the vantage point of these traders, nearly everything has a trading implication.

And that kind of thinking can fuel conspiratorial theories about why something did or did not happen.

Take, for instance, a recent White House press briefing in which press secretary Karoline Leavitt left the room seconds before hitting 65 minutes. To most, that was unremarkable.

Yet on Kalshi, that looked like a secret message, because many thousands of dollars in bets were at stake that she would cross the 65-minute mark.

The chatter about Leavitt was mentioned on CNBC, which got the attention of traders on Discord, who wondered if this or another incident will ever lead to a PMT, prediction market trader, testifying in Washington about rigging the markets.

"PMT getting called before Congress," wrote a Discord user, whose handle is "permanent resident of hell," they added: "Let's get a market on it."

Topline:

Why it matters: Caruso has long been rumored to be eyeing a run for California governor or for L.A. mayor.

Why now: But in a statement released on social media, Caruso said, "After much reflection and many heartfelt conversations with my family, I have decided not to pursue elected office at this time."

He called it a "difficult" decision.

The backstory: Caruso ran for L.A. mayor in a self-funded campaign costing some $100 million against Karen Bass in 2022.

Last year, former Vice President Kamala Harris — another high-profile politico said to be interested in the state's top job — announced she would not be joining the race.

Deep dive: Who’s running for California governor? Here’s a look at the current field of candidates

Community volunteers say one of the first lesson they learned during ICE raids is to make as much noise as possible.

When they see people being detained by ICE, they use their voices, megaphones and, most effectively, whistles to signal danger.

One workshop being held in Downtown L.A. today will teach people how to use this tool.

Make some noise

Rain Skau is an organizer with the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, he said the idea to hand out whistles came from community organizers in Chicago where they’ve been using them to alert neighborhoods of ICE presence.

Skau said his group had already been doing outreach to businesses across the city on how to better protect their workers from immigration raids, but they wanted to do more.

They plan to give out these kits in their future outreach.

The back and front of hotline cards included in the whistle kits.

The cards details what to do and who to call when a person has been detained or is being detained by ICE.

A hotline card with information on who to call when a person has been detained by ICE.

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A hotline card with instructions on what to do when encountering a person being detained by ICE.

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“This wasn't something that we were doing previously. We want to make sure that people have whistles and they have the hotline information,” said Skau.

The whistles are 3D printed and come with a phone number to advocacy group Unión del Barrio’s community hotline to report ICE sightings and those who might have been detained.

Amplify

Skau says there are two specific whistle patterns — one to alert people if ICE is nearby. The other to signify when someone is being detained.

In that event whistle-blowers are also instructed to “form a crowd, stay loud, and stay nonviolent.” 

But Skau said they’ve mostly been telling people to whistle as loud as possible, no matter the pattern, to raise awareness.

Jack Bohlka organizes Home Depot Patrols for DSA-LA, he said the whistles are tiny but mighty.

Jack Bohlka (center) poses with other members of DSA-LA during a recent "Know Your Rights" business walk.

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“It's a whole lot better than trying to yell. It's instantly recognizable, they're very effective,” Bohlka said.

Jack Bohlka's personal whistle he uses for Home Depot patrols.

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Spreading the sound

Some 300 people signed up for today's workshop, more than Skau and Bohlka anticipated. They had to end RSVPs early to keep attendance manageable. But Skau says more workshops are in the works (check their Instagram for new events).

Participants today will assemble and take home whistle kits with instructions on how to use them, what to note if someone is being detained, and who to call during a raid.

DSA-LA said lately immigration enforcement agents have changed their tactics, targeting specific areas, striking quickly and leaving. It’s part of why Skau thinks getting whistle kits to as many people as possible is critical.

“So that if you just happen to be walking down the street," Skau said. "And you see something happening right in front of you, you're not just standing there shocked and aghast, and unsure of how to respond."

In Los Angeles, volunteers have been painting their own crosswalks, reasoning that safer streets shouldn’t be held up by red tape.

Now, a group of them is channeling that same DIY energy to another everyday need: public seating.

“We just want to build a bunch of benches and hopefully people have some cool places to sit,” said Jonathan Hale, founder of People’s Vision Zero.

Hale, a Sawtelle resident and UCLA law school student, is leading a session next weekend to build public benches. The plan is to bypass the permitting process, set out the seats and create more third spaces.

“There’s not that many places where you can go that aren’t work or home,” Hale said. “Benches, parks [and] open, inviting public spaces are a way that we can rebuild that in L.A.”

For Hale, the gathering is just as important as the finished product.

“The point of the labor is that we form stronger bonds with our neighbors and we have a healthy discussion about the use of public space," he said.

A growing bench movement

That conversation is part of a larger one across the country, where residents are making small but impactful changes to improve public space — from pop-up bike lanes to guerrilla gardens in what's described as "tactical urbanism."

Unpermitted public benches have been popping up in cities from Chattanooga, Tenn. to Kansas City, Mo. and San Francisco.

Over the last couple years, the San Francisco Bay Area Bench Collective has installed more than 100 benches at bus stops that draw the most riders.

“Bus riders deserve to be treated with respect and to have a place to rest as they wait for the bus,” said Mingwei Samuel, an Oakland-based programmer who founded the group.

Samuel, who learned woodworking from his father, built and installed his first public bench in San Francisco in 2023.

The San Francisco Bay Area Bench Collective has placed more than 100 benches in the last couple years.

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Bench locations chosen by the collective are usually located near bus stops.

“It’s sort of a revolt against the trend of hostile architecture,” he said. “Cities trying to remove benches just because they don’t want people to gather in public spaces.”

The Bay Area collective is seeing real change. More than 100 benches now dot the region, from Berkeley to Petaluma.

Last year, the city of Richmond approved a permit program allowing residents to add their own benches.  

Sawtelle resident Johnathan Hale is expanding the work of People's Vision Zero to include bench building.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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From crosswalks to benches 

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Hale’s group had already been gaining traction with its crosswalk projects.

Volunteers with People’s Vision Zero last year painted more than a dozen DIY crosswalks, taking a page from another volunteer group The Crosswalk Collective.

Most of the crosswalks have been left intact by the city. But in December, while volunteers were striping a street in Westwood, Hale was arrested and cited in an incident that went viral on social media.

Afterward, Hale met with the office of Mayor Karen Bass. In a statement to LAist, the mayor’s office said Bass was once a former community activist like Hale and wants to “explore solutions that are innovative and will expedite crosswalk installations across Los Angeles.”

The office did not respond to follow-up questions about what those solutions may look like or when they would be rolled out.

For now, Hale said he’s taking a hiatus from painting crosswalks “in the interest of working with them in good faith.”

That’s opened the door for more bench projects. Hale did a test run of sorts last summer in Sawtelle.

Drawing from skills learned as an Eagle Scout, he built four benches that he placed at the West Los Angeles Civic Center and Stoner Park, using the same design as those made by the Bay Area collective. All but one of the benches at the civic center are still there.

“When I’m just walking along and there’s people sitting on my bench, and they don’t even know that I built it, I get to feel like Batman or something,” Hale said. “It’s my little secret.”

Now he’s ready to scale up – and artists and woodworkers are answering the call. So many people have RSVP’d to the upcoming bench build next weekend that capacity has already been reached. Hale anticipates hosting more events.

He says Los Angeles should become a national leader in grassroots urban problem-solving or — as he puts it — “getting stuff done.”