Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published June 23, 2023 5:00 AM
Architect Charles Wee shows off the a single unit that makes up the walls of LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.
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Brian Feinzimer
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for LAist
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Topline:
As L.A. deals with a homelessness crisis, officials have been looking to unconventional ways to quickly house people transitioning out of encampments. One new building technology using plastic is starting to gain traction because of quick-to-assemble modular units that can be fit onto odd-shaped parcels.
The demand for housing: The unhoused population in L.A. County has climbed to 69,000. But there's not enough permanent housing, creating an urgent demand for interim housing.
The backstory: LifeArk's CEO Charles Wee is an architect who started out wanting to build floatable housing for people living in places prone to flooding like the Amazon. But then he met a homelessness services provider Paul Cho who convinced Wee that his plastic housing modules could make a dent in L.A.'s homeless crisis.
Questions about plastic as housing: Stick-built homes are the convention so plastic housing is a hard sell for some. Others are already perturbed by the ubiquity of plastic. Keep reading for LifeArk's case for why their product makes sense, even with earthquakes and fires.
When it comes to plastic, architect Charles Wee has heard it all. Awful for the environment. Flammable. Flimsy.
But as Southern California tries to pull itself out of a homelessness crisis, Wee is bullish on plastic being part of the fix.
His company LifeArk is drawing attention for making 8-by-8-foot modules molded from 30% post-consumer recycled plastic that fit together like Legos – if the pieces were made out of a high-density polymer.
LifeArk built a "proof-of-concept" development serving 18 formerly unhoused people in El Monte.
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Brian Feinzimer
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“Plastic is such a surprising material,” said Wee, who designed skyscrapers in Asia before making the sharp turn to affordable housing. “We’ve just been using it the wrong way.”
In a world where stick-built homes are the convention, houses made of plastic can be a hard sell. The mention of plastic — already ubiquitous in daily life, including in our bodies — may turn off some. But there’s nothing like an emergency to shift views.
The common area of LifeArk's El Monte development is intended to build community.
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Brian Feinzimer
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To quickly move people from encampments to interim housing, cities and non-profits have turned to alternative types of housing like shed-like units made of aluminum or shipping containers stacked like building blocks.
But as concerns about cost and habitability with some of those structures emerge, companies like LifeArk are gaining a foothold in the pre-fabricated housing space.
Proof-of-concept in El Monte
The Duarte-based company has started to land contracts up and down California's Central Coast. Its modules are going to into a new interim housing project in Santa Maria and another one in Paso Robles. Next it plans to build a campus of 80 units of permanent and interim housing in San Luis Obispo for a project led by the homeless services division of San Luis Obispo County.
An overhead view of LifeArk's plastic housing development in El Monte which are the three beige buildings on a narrow lot.
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Brian Feinzimer
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for LAist
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Closer to home, possible collaborations are being discussed with the offices of L.A. city councilmembers and church leaders who are looking to develop unused land.
Workers stitched together dozens of modules to create three beige-gray, low-lying buildings that blend into a neighborhood that includes an ice cream supplier and faded stucco apartment complex. One of the 19 units is reserved for case managers offering homelessness support services through the Santa Ana-based Illumination Foundation, which is part owner of the El Monte property.
The inside of an individual’s living unit at LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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The inside of an individual’s living unit at LifeArk affordable plastic modular homes in El Monte.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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“It looks all brand-new, like a modern place,” said Sharon Downing, resident and on-site property manager, surveying her nearly 200-square-foot space that comes with its own bathroom and kitchenette.
Downing had stayed for 17 years in an encampment in the Azusa Canyon. Rocks and sticks she collected during her life in the mountains accent her unit. A carpeted tower for her cat Kiss Kiss stands near a neatly-made bed she's topped with teddy bears. Outside her window is a garden where she tends to raised beds of green onions and lettuce.
"You wouldn't even think that you're living in plastic," Downing said.
LifeArk resident and property manager Sharon Downing tends to blackberries in the garden.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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The price tag
The high cost of land and materials in California makes affordable housing, like all housing, expensive to build. Add to that the drawn-out and costly process of securing funding and government subsidies and meeting environmental and labor regulations.
But LifeArk says it managed to slash the cost of the El Monte development to $3.6 million by completing 90% of the construction at its factory in the Central Valley city of Madera.
LifeArk plastic components are stamped out of a rotational molding machine in a Madera facility.
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Courtesy of LifeArk
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Site work was also minimal. There no trenching. And instead of hooking up individual units to utilities, all the rooms in a building access water, power and gas from the same lines.
A recent report prepared for the United Way of Greater L.A. showed LifeArk's $190,000 per-unit cost in El Monte was the lowest out of 28 permanent supportive housing projects studied by the authors.
The median per unit cost was $470,000 — 2.5 times more than what LifeArk spent.
From the Amazon to L.A.
The original plan hadn’t been to house L.A.’s unhoused population.
Wee, who studied architecture at UCLA, said he had grown “jaded” designing high-rises for corporations, which included the much-discussed “invisible skyscraper” in South Korea.
About eight years ago, he decided to accept a long-standing invite to visit his cousin who had left South Korea to be a missionary in the Amazon. Wee was struck by how locals living along the river had to move whenever waters rose.
Foam insulation fills the plastic shell of LifeArk modular unit. The foam not only lowers energy costs but provides the buoyancy that architect Charles Wee wanted in a home that could float.
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Brian Feinzimer
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“I decided, ‘Let me actually see if I can come up with housing that can float on the water,” Wee said. Hence the name LifeArk.
Around the same time, Paul Cho was trying to find the most affordable way to build homes for Illumination Foundation, the homelessness services provider he had co-founded in Orange County.
A co-worker, who happened to be Wee’s cousin, had told him about the architect's quest to build floatable plastic housing. Cho visited Wee’s studio, then located in South Pasadena, highly skeptical.
“But the more I learned about it, I thought, actually, this concept would have applications for the homeless right here in our backyard,” Cho recalled.
Charles Wee (l.) and Paul Cho (r.) left lucrative careers in architecture and finance, respectively, before entering the world of affordable housing.
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Brian Feinzimer
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The two men decided to join forces. Cho left his post as chief financial officer at Illumination Foundation to become LifeArk’s CFO but still advises the nonprofit, bringing it onto provide support services at the El Monte property.
The pair, both Korean Americans who emigrated to the U.S. with their families as pre-teens, became a rare executive team of color in a home manufacturing industry dominated by white men.
They found other commonalities. Both are in their early 60's. Both had mid-life crises that led to job changes. When he was in his early 40's, Cho quit being an investment banker for firms like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. He attended graduate school at the University of California, Irvine to start a new career in human services.
Both are also devout Christians. Wee's fellow church-goers, in fact, manage the El Monte property through a non-profit, and have an ownership stake.
Architect Charles Wee points to a single 8x8 plastic module used to build homes.
Eaves and her colleagues have been in discussions with LifeArk about developing church-owned land in the region.
"It definitely helps that we have partners with a common heart because there's a common language and it makes it easy for us to understand what motivates us," Eaves said.
Fireballs and earthquakes
Word-of-mouth about the El Monte location has led to regular requests for visits by those active in L.A.’s housing circles.
Cho and Wee recently gave a tour to a group of real estate agents and community leaders, including Jackie Dupont-Walker, who works on affordable housing as a Metro board director and president of Ward Economic Development Corp. in South L.A.
The LifeArk duo answered questions they knew were coming. How fast can you build? Cho said a 3,600-square-foot building with 12 bedrooms took 55 days to assemble.
What about flammability? Wee explained that the company spent five years formulating a polymer with a non-toxic retardant.
“We're able to get what's called a Class A roof, which means I can actually throw a fireball on my roof and it will self-extinguish,” Wee said.
Then there’s the little problem of earthquakes. Wee said the moldability of plastic allowed him to shape modular parts to withstand cracks and heavy loads. Testing showed it could survive a 9.0 magnitude quake, he said. (For reference, the Northridge quake measured 6.7.)
Metro board member and founding president of Ward Economic Development Corporation Jackie Dupont-Walker (l.) toured the LifeArk development in El Monte along with Lori Gay, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County. (r.)
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Brian Feinzimer
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Those on the tour marveled at the speed with which the development was constructed and how it offered both privacy and common space where residents could play games and share meals.
The visitors also envisioned uses for the modules beyond interim housing, such as senior living centers and backyard houses.
“If we have to tweak it a little bit to be back in South Central L.A., that's what we'll do,” Dupont-Walker said. “This absolutely is visionary."
The use of plastic didn't seem to bother anyone. The group's members pointed out plastic is everywhere in homes — in vinyl siding, patio furniture. Why not entire houses?
The other kids on the block
As cities look to pre-fab structures as homelessness solutions, other companies have already gotten in the door.
The Washington-based company Pallet emerged as a market leader in L.A. during the pandemic. City officials, under legal pressure to create more beds, saw in the stand-alone units a fast way to get people into their own space and avoid the coronavirus.
Since 2021, the city and county have bought hundreds of 64-square-foot Pallet units made of aluminum and composite to build "tiny home villages." The expansion of these communities, however, have come with criticism that the units resemble jail cells and that the city overspends on site work to accommodate housing with a limited life span and questionable resistance to fires.
The same time Pallet shelters were proliferating, shipping containers also entered the spotlight. Interim housing projects unveiled during the pandemic had repurposed containers into modular units at the Hilda L. Solis Care First Village near downtown L.A. and “bridge” housing opened by the city of L.A. in Westlake.
It's like, ‘Okay, well, what comes next?'
— Ross Zelen, on the reaction to fluctuating costs of shipping containers
But the pandemic exposed how wildly the cost of shipping containers can fluctuate. Container prices surged alongside the demand for imported goods from people sequestered at home, according to Ross Zelen, who wrote a recent white paper on homeless housing for the Urban Land Institute.
“All of the builders who were thinking about using shipping containers were like, ‘Stick-building is now the better option because it's more expensive to think about this innovative shipping container model,’” Zelen said. “It's like, ‘Okay, well, what comes next?”
Finding new spaces for building
LifeArk may be the new kid in town but it already has influential supporters such as Lewis Horne, a top executive at CBRE, the country’s largest commercial real estate services company.
Horne said as part of CBRE’s commitment to social responsibility, he is trying to help locate properties to site LifeArk units. He said LifeArk stands out because of its ability to mass-produce durable and "dignified" homes that can be configured to fit on odd-shaped parcels, of which there are many in L.A.
“We're not going to solve this problem by putting large communities on large land parcels,” Horne said. “We’re going to be dealing with smaller sites, so the idea is to get better density."
LifeArk’s ability to scale up helped to win over the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which provides loans and other financial services to nonprofits.
Resident Sharon Downing works closely with Rebecca Wee, who runs programming for LifeArk and is also the daughter of founder Charles Wee.
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Josie Huang/LAist
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The fund lent LifeArk $2.1 million to build its El Monte location at a time when traditional banks didn’t want to take the underwriting risk on an untested building technology.
“Why we entered into this was to demonstrate to others that it is a worthwhile investment,” said Kristin Giantris, the fund’s chief of client services. "Not fundable by philanthropy but investable."
Wee, for his part, is still set on his original dream of getting plastic modules to disaster-prone places like the Amazon. But the housing crunch in his backyard is the focus now and he said he is “eternally grateful” that he met Cho, which put them on a challenging but clear path together.
“If you're really looking at solving not only the homeless crisis, but the affordable housing crisis, you got to be able to pump out houses. Literally,” Wee said.
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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Courtesy Orange County Public Works
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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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Andy Wong
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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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Chiang Ying-Ying
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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.
