The Brief

Measure A on the November ballot asks Los Angeles County voters to increase a local sales tax that funds homelessness efforts. The proposal has left many wondering: What happened to the billions of dollars L.A. taxpayers have already put toward addressing homelessness?

L.A. County officials and policy experts say the existing sales tax approved by voters in 2017 has succeeded at providing housing and services to tens of thousands of people. They also admit it hasn’t been enough to thin the ranks of the more than 75,000 Angelenos living in cars, shelters and tent encampments.

Now, voters will have to make a choice: Double the sales tax and put more resources into homelessness prevention and affordable housing development — or side with Measure A opponents who argue the county can’t be trusted to spend the money effectively.

Where homelessness tax funding goes now 

In a squeaky clean industrial kitchen in the San Fernando Valley headquarters of Hope the Mission, Chef Mike Austin drops huge chunks of butter into a massive pot.

“I'm going to be making garlic butter,” he said. “We're going to do garlic bread for the weekend.”

Every day, this homeless services provider feeds thousands of people staying in shelters across the county.

“Many of our guests are struggling with addiction,” said Rowan Vansleve, Hope the Mission’s president. “I don't know the science behind it, but when you're deep in withdrawal, going through that process of breaking free of addiction, sweet treats help. So every week, we bake an obscene number of cookies.”

Vansleve said a lot of the organization’s funding comes from Measure H, which L.A. County voters approved in 2017 to fund homeless services by levying a quarter cent sales tax on every $1 spent.

“If it wasn't for Measure H, you wouldn't see 2,000-plus people spending the night with us tonight,” Vansleve said. “It was a game changer.”

Measure H sunsets soon 

But Measure H is set to expire in 2027. That’s where this year’s Measure A comes in. It asks voters to continue funding homelessness response efforts through a new half-cent sales tax. Measure A would raise an estimated $1.1 billion every year. Unlike Measure H, the tax would have no sunset date.

Vansleve knows that for many voters, doubling this tax could be a tough sell at a time when inflation is straining budgets and homeless numbers remain stubbornly high.

“But the one thing that is true is that there are less people languishing on the streets this year than last year,” he said. “We are seeing that tide start to turn. And if at any point you don't want to pull the funding, it's right when it's starting to get better.”

Rowan Vansleve says Measure H provides much of Hope the Mission’s funding to shelter and house people.

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What it's done so far

County officials say Measure H has put 42,299 people into permanent housing, and 80,508 into interim housing. They say another 9,941 were prevented from becoming unhoused thanks to Measure H funding.

Still, those placements and prevention efforts haven’t been enough to bring homelessness down. In fact, the sheer number of people experiencing homelessness across L.A. County has risen 37% since voters passed Measure H.

Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, said that’s mainly because for every person getting housed, others are ending up on the streets.

“We're seeing people fall into homelessness constantly because of economic factors,” Rountree said. “They can't pay rent. We don't have enough affordable housing. Incomes are not keeping pace with housing costs.”

Measure A has prevention provisions

Rountree has studied L.A. County’s initial efforts at homelessness prevention, which currently make up a small slice of spending. Last year, about 3% of Measure H tax revenue went to prevention efforts, which ran the gamut from tenant-landlord mediation services to direct financial assistance.

Rountree and her colleagues have found evidence that financial help makes the biggest difference. Clients who don’t get financial assistance are nearly four times more likely to end up unhoused compared with those who receive monetary help.

Rountree says Measure A would significantly boost funding for preventative approaches, including eviction defense and rental assistance. When they’re done right, she said, these efforts can save local governments lots of money in the long-run by removing the need to pay for costlier street outreach and re-housing services.

“Hopefully ballot Measure A can fund more of these types of programs, and we can test what's working for whom,” Rountree said.

Surveys show a tight race

In 2017, voters passed Measure H with nearly 70% support. Polls show they’re less enthusiastic about boosting homelessness funding this time around.

UCLA urban planning and public policy professor Michael Lens said, “A lot of people look around and say, ‘What has this money necessarily done for us?’”

An audit of tens of billions of dollars in California homelessness spending earlier this year found the state has failed to track outcomes. Locally, homeless service providers have been sued by the state for failing to convert motels into homeless housing, and others have come under investigation over charging for nutritious meals that were never provided to shelter residents.

Amid all the headlines focused on fraud, other homeless service providers say they’ve been diligently working at sheltering and finding permanent housing for thousands of Angelenos.

Lens said it’s important for voters to consider what L.A. County’s homelessness crisis might look like today without Measure H.

“It's quite likely that we would be in a much worse situation right now,” Lens said. “But that’s, for one, difficult to prove. And two, kind of dissatisfying to the voter who's like, ‘Well the situation is still really not acceptable to me.’”

Some Measure H supporters are Measure A opponents 

Rising homelessness — despite hundreds of millions of dollars in annual spending — has some people disillusioned. Stuart Waldman is the president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, a business group that supported Measure H but now opposes Measure A.

“There needs to be a lot more oversight,” Waldman said. “We have to determine if something's not working, let's make changes.”

Waldman said if Measure A fails, there’s still time to put forward a different plan during the 2026 election, before Measure H funding expires in 2027.

Another organization opposing Measure A is the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which sued the city and county and struck a settlement that requires thousands of new shelter and mental health treatment beds. That court case has also led to an ongoing audit of local homelessness spending.

Paul Webster, L.A. Alliance’s executive director, said the audit won’t be finished until after the election. So far, auditors have repeatedly said in court proceedings that they’re struggling to get L.A. homelessness officials to provide spending and outcome data.

“They have an inability to account for existing budgets and performance,” Webster said. “So in our view, L.A. County hasn't earned the trust of Angelenos with more money.”

Proponents say Measure A would be different. It requires regular audits and detailed tracking of outcomes. They also note the measure includes funding for the newly established L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, a body made up of elected leaders across the region who will be tasked with funding the development of new affordable housing units.

Nycole Zamora Castellanos said this Measure H-funded shelter has given her family the stability they need to recover from a spell of homelessness.

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What would happen if the money vanishes?

If voters reject Measure A, supporters say about 57,000 people currently housed and sheltered would lose their subsidies and services. Many could end up right back on the streets.

After living in her car for six months, Nycole Zamora Castellanos came to a shelter for families run by Hope the Mission in Woodland Hills. State funding through Project Homekey turned this former motel into a 100-unit shelter. Now, it’s operating with Measure H funding.

“We feel stable just being here, and safe — me and my children,” Castellanos said. “We're grateful. Everybody I talk to, that's all they're looking for. Getting their housing, getting back on their feet. That's all they need.”

Castellanos said she recently started a new job as a home health aide. She hoped it would be the next step to finding a permanent home for her and her family.

The Trump administration did not include funding in its federal budget proposal for Los Angeles Metro’s key plan to use thousands of buses to transport fans to scattered venues hosting the 2028 Games.

L.A. Metro’s Board and California Democrats have repeatedly appealed to the administration to provide federal dollars for the region’s "transit-first" Games. The president’s budget request released Friday didn’t provide a dime of the $2 billion the countywide transportation agency is seeking.

The 92-page document is a signal of the administration’s priorities for the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Ultimately, the U.S. Congress decides how federal dollars are spent.

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who represents Culver City and parts of Los Angeles, wrote a letter with her California Democratic colleagues to the administration in February calling this budget process the “final opportunity” to secure Metro’s funding request.

U.S. Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove is one of the California Democrats leading advocacy in Washington, D.C., to secure L.A. Metro's $2 billion federal funding request.

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Assembleymember Sydney Kamlager Facebook Page

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In a statement to LAist, Kamlager-Dove said she was “incredibly disappointed” that Metro was excluded in the president’s budget request.

“At the end of the day, Congress has the power to appropriate money,” she said. “Despite the president’s lack of foresight, I will continue to advocate to ensure this funding is included so L.A. Metro has what they need to succeed.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar, who has a seat on the Congressional subcommittee overseeing federal transportation appropriations, said President Donald Trump has talked about the Olympics “time and time again,” pointing to the most recent State of the Union as an example.

“Our charge is to ensure that they adequately fund this and that they put the resources behind it so they aren't just using it as a talking point, but they're actually leaning in,” Aguilar told LAist in an interview before the president’s proposed budget request was released.

What would the money be used for?

Metro plans to essentially double its bus fleet for the 2028 Games by temporarily acquiring, operating and storing nearly 1,750 additional buses for spectators. The agency says that will cost about $1 billion. The remainder of the appropriations request would be for pedestrian improvements and designing a network of roads for Games vehicles, among other uses.

Seleta Reynolds, Metro’s chief of innovation and Games mobility planning, said at a January Metro Board meeting that finding and preparing the real estate where the buses will be staged involves a lead time of two years, meaning the agency would need a “chunk of funding available by this summer.”

Initially, Metro had asked for $3.2 billion to support a plan to temporarily use 2,700 buses. Metro reduced the estimate for the number of buses needed after LA28, the Games organizing committee, refined the venues and schedule for events.

That reduction, plus other federal funding that Metro has received to partially support station and light rail improvements, brought the total amount of money in the federal appropriations request down to $2 billion, the countywide transportation agency said.

“Without the full level of funding requested, the complete scope of the [Games Enhanced Transit System] would not be feasible, as the cost of operating this temporary system exceeds Metro’s available operating resources,” the agency said in its statement.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, a spokesperson for LA28, told LAist in a statement before the president released his budget request that the organizing committee was supporting partners in Congress and the administration, who are leading the budget and appropriations process.

"With the full support of federal transit money for the games, we can collectively create a positive commuting experience," Prieto Lopez said.

Success with buses during LA84

A bus system similar to the one Metro is planning for 2028 was critical to the success of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Metro's predecessor, Southern California Rapid Transit District, deployed 550 additional buses, hundreds of new drivers and 24 routes to move people around the city for the Olympics.

A view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the closing ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles, 12th August 1984.

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In the run-up to those Games, one California Highway Patrol official warned the L.A. Times that congestion around the L.A. Memorial Coliseum would be so extreme that drivers would abandon their cars on the freeway. Headlines warned of "traffic woes."

Instead, the Olympics offered a surprising reprieve from L.A.'s typical traffic. More than 1 million passengers took buses to the Games.

Rich Perelman, who led press operations for the 1984 Olympics and edited the official report on the Games, told LAist that in 1984, no public funds were used for the additional bus fleet. Bus tickets and some donations and corporate sponsorships covered the cost.

Perelman said organizers pulled off the bus system by staying focused on the areas where parking was sparse, such as the Coliseum. According to the official report, nearly 80% of rides on the bus system were to Exposition Park.

" It was a transit-smart approach," Perelman said. " If there was plenty of parking, we didn't say you have to take the bus. We didn't make any nonsensical claims of 'no-car Games' or 'transit only Games.’"

Security funding from the federal government 

Transportation funding is just one bucket that the federal government is expected to contribute for the Olympics.

The budget released by the Trump administration Friday contained major increases for the Department of Homeland Security, including some linked to Olympics preparations. It asks for additional funding for the FBI and Secret Service, which leads security planning for the Games.

Last year, Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" allocated $1 billion for Olympics security costs.

But exactly how that money will be distributed has yet to be determined — and L.A. politicians have expressed concern that the funds may come with strings attached that the city of L.A. will find hard to swallow.

It's also possible that money could face delays that could disrupt Olympics planning. The federal government was late in awarding hundreds of millions of dollars that it promised for security for the World Cup this year — a delay the Trump administration attributed to the Homeland Security shutdown.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Across from an auto shop on Venice Boulevard and Albany Street sits a narrow, sunken strip of land lined with overgrown shrubs and cacti. It’s mostly filled with trash — from plastic bags and cups to containers, straws, chip bags and aluminum foil.

It’s original purpose was to capture and filter storm water runoff, helping reduce flooding and keep pollutants from flowing into the ocean. But neighbors in Pico Union say that this bioswale and many others across the city have become dumping grounds.

The sidewalk features were installed during former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Complete Streets program around 2018. The initiative aimed to improve streets, add greenery and better manage stormwater along key corridors across the city.

Local resident Aurora Corona — a longtime Pico Union community organizer involved in local environmental and cleanup efforts — said in some instances it looks like the bioswales were not fully installed.

Citywide, there are about 23 bioswales that appear abandoned, Corona said. Many are located in central and South Los Angeles and spread across at least eight council districts.

In some cases, the concrete structures were installed but left without vegetation for years, Corona said, raising concerns that they were never able to function as intended.

Heberto Portobanco, owner of the Nicaraguan restaurant Portobanco in Pico Union, first noticed the bioswale outside his business about eight years ago, but it became hard to ignore about two years ago when it became a hazard.

“We had an accident, one of the people who does maintenance for us came and fell into it,” he said.

The bioswale was deeper and not fully finished, Portobanco said. After multiple people reported what happened to the city, Portobanco said the city added more soil to level it out.

“The idea might be nice, but if it’s not maintained, it’s a problem,” Portobanco said.

The biggest concern for Portobanco remains safety, especially as he said that people continue to use the space improperly or fail to notice it altogether.

He would be willing to help maintain the bioswale outside his restaurant if the city created a formal program to do so.

For him, keeping the space clean is also about pride and perception.

“I don’t want people to think that Latinos are careless and that we don’t take care of our surroundings,” he said, adding that a well-kept space could encourage others to take better care of the neighborhood.

Corona, the local organizer, has experienced similar issues to the ones Portobanco described. 

She lives near two bioswales, including the one near Portobanco’s restaurant.

She first encountered them while organizing a cleanup around 2024 and said she didn’t initially know what they were. What she did know was that they were not being taken care of.

“I was tired of seeing this being a dumping ground, they would just throw trash here all the time,” she said.

That frustration pushed her to take action. She thought of what she had already done with other public spaces in her community.

In 2024, she helped transform a neglected dirt space on Venice Boulevard and Union Avenue into a small community green area — also known as a median — using local grant funding. With the help of volunteers, they removed contaminated soil and planted drought-tolerant greenery.

“It’s only been here since November and it’s grown a lot,” she said about the green belt, pointing to plants that started as small pots and are now taking root.

Corona continues to organize cleanups and, through the city’s “Adopt-a-Median” program, works with neighbors to maintain the space. She said she’d like to see a similar model applied to bioswales — essentially an “Adopt-a-Bioswale” program that would allow residents to take ownership of the ones near them.

“I think people would step up if they were given the chance and the support,” she said.

Across from an auto shop on Venice Boulevard and Albany Street sits a narrow, sunken strip of land lined with overgrown shrubs and cacti. It’s mostly filled with trash — from plastic bags and cups to containers, straws, chip bags and aluminum foil.

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The LA Local

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The program for the bioswales, as she envisions it, would involve planting California natives such as dudleya edulis, dudleya pulverulenta and other species that can withstand the weather. It would also call for improving their visibility by painting the bioswale borders in colors that reflect the neighborhood.

That idea has already been discussed at the city level.

Steve Kang, president of the city’s Board of Public Works, agrees that many bioswales now sit “barren” and are treated as “more of a trash repository.” 

He said his office is now working to create a program similar to “Adopt-a-Median” that would allow community members and organizations to formally maintain bioswales.

“My intention is to make the process as seamless and easy as possible,” Kang said, adding that the goal is to launch the program sometime in 2026.

Under the proposal, participants would enter into agreements with the city, with support from the Office of Community Beautification, which can provide tools like gloves, trash bags and gardening supplies.

For residents like Corona and business owners like Portobanco, that kind of partnership could turn what are now neglected strips of land into something more useful. 

“If we take care of these spaces, they can become something people are proud of,” Corona said. “It changes how people see the neighborhood and how they treat it.”

Big Bear’s famous bald eagles — Jackie and Shadow — appear to be welcoming a new chick into the world.

The first pip, or crack, was spotted in one of the feathered duo’s two eggs around 10 a.m. Friday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream of the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.

More than 26,000 people were watching the livestream shortly after the organization confirmed a pip had been spotted, which signals that an eaglet is starting to poke its way out of the egg shell.

“Yesterday afternoon, evening and throughout the night we heard little chirps coming from the chick,” Friends of Big Bear Valley wrote on Facebook to more than a million followers. “This indicates that the chick was able to break the internal membrane and took its first breath of air.”

As of Friday, the first egg is around 38 days old and the second egg is about 35 days old. Jackie and Shadow's usual incubation timeline is around 38 to 40 days, according to the nonprofit.

There’s still time for the second egg to show signs of hatching, and a pip could be confirmed in the coming days.

What we know

Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, told LAist earlier this week that hatching is an arduous process for chicks that takes some time.

For example, last season, the first chick hatched more than a day after the initial pip was confirmed, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley records. The second chick hatched about a day after pipping as well, and the third chick worked its way out into the world about two days after the first crack was confirmed.

The chicks may look like little blobs of gray fluff at first, but they grow quickly, as fans saw with Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets last year. One of last season’s trio of chicks, believed to be the eldest and most dominant sibling, died during a winter storm within weeks of hatching.

In March 2025, Jackie and Shadow welcomed two eaglet chicks with one remaining egg in their nest.

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Jackie and Shadow's three chicks on March 7, 2025. One of the chicks later died, while Sunny and Gizmo successfully fledged a few months later.

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Jackie and Shadow's eaglets during a feeding of fish in April 2025.

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Sunny and Gizmo in Big Bear's famous bald eagle nest on Friday, April 18, 2025.

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Viewers watched as the surviving eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo, grew from a few ounces to several pounds in a matter of months before fledging, or taking their first flight away from the nest, last June.

But any chicks arriving this season will have to learn how to feed before they can fly.

The initial meals may be a bit awkward while the chicks learn to sit up straight. Jackie and Shadow could start feeding the chicks the same day they hatch, typically tearing off pieces of fish or raw meat and holding it up to their beaks.

Bald eagles don’t regurgitate food for their young, unlike other birds. But the feathered parents do pass along a "substantial amount of saliva” full of electrolytes and antibodies to their chicks during feedings, according to the nonprofit.

Voisard said new life coming to the nest is a reminder “why it’s so important to conserve their lands.”

Big Bear fundraiser

Friends of Big Bear Valley is trying to raise $10 million by the end of July to purchase land pegged for a planned housing project that some say would harm rare plants and wildlife in the area, including bald eagles.

You can learn more about the fundraiser here.