The Brief

With yet another atmospheric river about to sweep through Southern California this weekend, officials are urging unhoused people in Los Angeles to seek shelter.

The latest storm is expected to bring dangerous, and even life-threatening, flooding, heavy snow, damaging winds, and wild waves —even more than Tropical Storm Hilary this past August.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the city, and the county, have been preparing to protect our most vulnerable neighbors, but some advocates say it’s too little, too late.

LAHSA

The agency has activated its Augmented Winter Shelter Program through Tuesday.

Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s communications director, told LAist the program is offering up to 240 additional vouchers for beds in hotels and motels across the county.

“Anybody who's interested in taking advantage of that program and attaining a hotel or motel bed should call 211, or our Augmented Winter Shelter hotline at 1 800-548-6047,” he said.

When LAist called 211 on Friday afternoon, it took more than an hour to reach an operator. When asked how many vouchers were still available, the operator said there were none left.

Amy Latzer is the chief operating officer of 211 LA. She told LAist the first set of vouchers from the city ran out Thursday, so they added 15 more, and those were exhausted by early Friday. 

She said the county’s vouchers also reached their cap Thursday, and the extras they added Friday morning were gone a few hours later.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said Friday evening that LAHSA is increasing housing and voucher availability to accommodate the influx of people coming in from the storm. She said she expects the extra shelters to be open by 5 p.m. Saturday.

However, Latzer warned that their staffing is small, so wait times are high.

“We will get to as many people as we can, as quickly as we can,” she said. “But we are not adequately funded for staffing on this.”

She added that 211 has been significantly underfunded consistently, even for a regular winter season.

The agency’s Winter Shelter Program is also available across L.A. County through March 31.

Chapman said the program offers another 388 beds throughout the season.

All shelters will allow up to two bags per person, but nothing more. They also accept pets or emotional support animals and will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, according to the agency’s website.

“We encourage folks experiencing unsheltered homelessness to give us a call and come get one of the vouchers to come inside,” he said.

You can check the winter shelter availability here, or by calling LAHSA's Shelter Hotline directly 213-683-3333.

Outreach teams have also been going into high-risk areas all week, including around creeks, rivers, and lakes, to warn people about the potential dangers of the storm.

According to the Mayor's office, they focused on high flooding areas, including in the L.A. River and the Sepulveda Basin. The National Weather Service has warned that these areas will rise quickly and “turn into very dangerous raging rivers.”

Chapman said teams have been encouraging people to move to higher ground and offering them a place to come inside, whenever possible. Outreach will continue throughout the storm, according to the mayor’s office.

City

Four Recreation and Park shelters in different parts of the city will open at 5 p.m. Saturday to provide 291 more beds for the unhoused community, the Mayor’s office said in a statement.

Those sites are:

• Mid Valley Senior Citizen Center - 8825 Kester Ave, Panorama City, CA 91402
• Lincoln Heights Senior Citizen Center - 2323 Workman St, Los Angeles, CA 90031
• South LA Sports Activity Center - 7020 S. Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 90003
• Oakwood Recreation Center - 767 California Ave, Venice, CA 90291

Bass said Friday her office’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions have been ramping up outreach and will continue to assess the need for more beds.

“If you have family members or friends that you know are unhoused, please tell them to go to their nearest shelter,” she said.

The Mayor’s office said it will also be connecting unhoused people with housing and services during their time in the shelter.

County

L.A. County’s Office of Emergency Management said in a statement to LAist their Emergency Operations Plan, which was updated last November, doesn’t get into specific considerations for any single population.

“When hazards are present and/or incidents occur, including extreme weather events, partners with the county’s Homeless Initiative and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority are heavily involved in the response coordination to ensure the proper actions are taken to protect and serve unhoused people based on the specific impacts of each hazard/incident,” the statement said.

When LAist asked what procedures and plans were being used to protect unhoused people in advance of the storm, the Office of Emergency Management didn’t immediately respond.

Advocates

Carol Sobel is a civil rights attorney who works with the unhoused community in Southern California. She told LAist she’s “extremely concerned” there’s only 628 vouchers and beds available through LAHSA.

According to the latest homeless count, there’s 55,155 unsheltered people countywide.

Sobel said cold weather can make unhoused people really sick, or die from hypothermia, especially if they’re already at risk and don’t have proper protection.

“The attention gets paid to it when there's a life-threatening storm,” she said. “Why is it that we can't be prepared? And be prepared in advance?”

Sobel noted she’s concerned about unhoused people living in remote canyons getting caught up in mudslides, and the impacts of flooding for people living on the streets.

“The city of Long Beach, for example, was flooded,” she said. “Almost the entire city was flooded. If you're somebody's living on the streets in those areas, where do you go?”

According to the National Weather Service, all areas, including highly populated urban areas, are at risk for life-threatening flooding.

Pete White is the founder and co-executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN). He told LAist that their teams in Skid Row, South L.A, Venice, and San Pedro haven’t seen any official storm preparation for the unhoused community.

“I would hope that, at a minimum, you would be concerned with life, and sort of pick up the pace in terms of how you're getting people prepared,” White said.

He said he’s 10 times more concerned about this storm than he was for Tropical Storm Hilary.

White added that the people on the streets and in encampments are usually the last to know about these major events, and right now, things are moving slowly.

He said the community is often left to fill in the gaps, and LA CAN has been doing their own outreach. White said they’re also urging people to get inside if they can, but he shared some safety tips for people who aren’t able to seek shelter.

“My first tip for folks on the street is that if they are near a gutter, a sewage drain — get away from that sewage drain,” he said.

If the drain gets blocked by any objects, White recommends people clear them if they can so the water can continue to flow.

If you can find sandbags, he recommends putting those around your tent or shelter to keep them steady.

And if you’re in an area that’s flooded before, White said you need to get out of there and move to higher ground immediately.

“All Angelenos need to help one another,” he said. “If you're housed, and you have an extra tarp or if you have access to sandbags, help your neighbor.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.