The Brief

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to establish a long-debated “Right to Counsel” ordinance, which aims to provide free attorneys to low-income tenants facing eviction.

Tenant rights groups cheered the passage of a policy they’ve spent years advocating for, but cautioned that it could take five years or more before the city has enough funding and lawyers to give all eligible renters free legal representation in eviction court.

“We’re working to get there,” said Catalina Romo Paxcle with Stay Housed L.A., a coalition of legal service providers funded by the city and county of L.A. “This is a win moving toward justice in the courtroom and having a chance at a fair trial.”

Tenants facing eviction have not had the same right to a free attorney as defendants in criminal court. As a result, very few L.A. renters are accompanied by a lawyer in eviction court, where an estimated 95% of landlords have an attorney.

Tenant advocates say this imbalance in legal representation puts renters at a severe disadvantage, increasing their odds of becoming part of an unhoused population that has grown sharply in L.A. over the past decade.

Where will the funding come from?

The ordinance was approved by the City Council in a 14-0 vote. Councilmember Curren Price was absent.

The language of the ordinance clarifies that free eviction attorneys will be provided only to tenants earning less than 80% of the area’s median income. Right now, that means up to $77,700 per year for an individual or $110,950 for a family of four.

In Tuesday’s meeting, Councilmember Nithya Raman said L.A. was finally able to pass a policy she and other councilmembers introduced more than two years ago due to funding approved by voters through Measure ULA. It’s sometimes called the city’s “mansion tax,” though much of the measure’s revenue comes from the sale of commercial buildings and apartment complexes.

Some questions remain about "Right to Counsel," such as how much funding the city will be able to put toward the new program. Measure ULA raised nearly $300 million dollars in the 2024 fiscal year, and the measure requires 10% of annual revenue go toward the "Right to Counsel" program.

One previous report from L.A.’s Housing Department concluded that a fully funded "Right to Counsel" program would cost the city about $68 million per year.

Advocates say more lawyers are needed 

Barbara Schultz, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of L.A., said if the program launches with around $30 million in funding, the city would be able to connect low-income renters facing eviction within certain priority ZIP codes with about 80 lawyers currently handling eviction defense cases countywide through Stay Housed L.A.

“This has to be phased in,” Schultz said. “We can't instantly provide all tenants in the city of L.A. with a right to counsel and evictions, because we don't have enough attorneys to do that yet. It's something that we need to build up.”

Schultz said tenants living outside the current priority ZIP codes would not be disqualified for eviction defense attorneys, but they would be less likely to receive them. Schultz estimates L.A. needs closer to 300 eviction attorneys to serve every qualified renter throughout the county.

With Tuesday’s vote, L.A. now joins other cities, including New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, that have passed their own versions of a "Right to Counsel" in recent years. Tenants in unincorporated areas of L.A. County became the first in Southern California to receive such support after a vote by the county’s Board of Supervisors last summer.

How tenants can ask for help

 
Landlord groups have argued that local governments would be better off spending funds on rental assistance to struggling tenants, rather than paying lawyers to defend them in eviction court.

In a letter to the City Council ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Janet Gagnon with the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles urged lawmakers to change a provision in the ordinance that would have allowed all tenants to challenge an eviction if their landlord failed to notify them of the Right To Counsel protections, even if that tenant did not meet the program’s qualifications.

“It is astounding that such unwarranted complications are being proposed,” the letter read. Councilmembers amended the ordinance Tuesday to clarify that this protection applied only to tenants eligible for the program.

For now, Schultz said, tenants facing eviction who believe they would qualify for help should reach out at StayHousedLA.org or call (888) 694-0040.

Time is up for Orange County governments to add measures to the general election ballot. Here are some of the major ballot measure items headed to voters in November.

Costa Mesa 

Costa Mesa voters will be asked in November if business license taxes should be increased for some large businesses making more than $500,000 in annual revenue.

Currently, large businesses have a $200 limit for taxes to operate in the city. For example, big box stores like Home Depot and Target in Costa Mesa only pay $200 a year in business license taxes. The change, if approved, could increase that to as high as $15,000 based on gross income.

Small businesses — which the city defines as those with $500,000 or less in gross income — will not be affected.

Irvine

In Irvine, voters will be asked whether the city should switch the local election system to ranked-choice voting in 2028.

The system would allow voters to rank their candidates in order of preference instead of casting a vote for one candidate.

If approved, the change would only take effect if the costs stay below 0.23% of the city’s general fund. If the switch goes above that amount, the ranked-choice voting system could be delayed until a future election.

Orange

Orange is currently a general law city bound by state law and mandates. Voters will decide if Orange should become a charter city, joining other municipal governments such as Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Huntington Beach.

Charter cities still have to follow state and federal laws, but can establish their own rules on issues such as mayoral authority, term limits and financial management.

Voters in Orange will also decide on a one-cent sales tax increase that, if approved, would last for 13 years.

The city of Orange is looking at increasingly dire budget conditions. In the 2024 election, voters narrowly rejected a 10-year half-cent sales tax measure estimated to generate $20 million in annual revenue.

San Clemente

Residents of San Clemente got a sales tax initiative measure on the November ballot that proposes a 1% sales tax increase. If approved, the increase could generate about $15 million in revenue for local beach restoration and wildfire prevention.

Over the past few years, coastal erosion has shrunk portions of San Clemente beaches. To fix the problem, experts have turned to costly sand replenishment projects.

In 2024, voters rejected a 0.5% sales tax increase.

Santa Ana

Santa Ana’s 1.5% sales tax increase — called Measure X — is supposed to decrease in 2029 and then completely go away by 2039. Public officials have said the loss of Measure X could mean the city loses millions of dollars in revenue.

Santa Ana voters will decide in November whether to make the Measure X tax permanent.

The tax measure was approved by voters in 2018. Money from the tax has helped the city fund street maintenance, public safety, youth services and homelessness services.

Westminster 

Voters in Westminster will be asked if the transient occupancy tax, paid for by hotel and motel guests, should be increased to 12%. The hike is expected to generate about $452,000 in revenue for general services, including homelessness, park maintenance, and public safety.

Families within the Westminster School District will decide if the district could issue up to $128 million in bonds for school repairs and upgrades.

What didn’t make it to the ballot? 

In Anaheim, three ballot measures failed: One would have asked voters if a 3% tax should be added to entertainment tickets, like theme parks and sports venues. The City Council also chose not to move forward with a ballot item that would have taxed rideshare trips to and from Disneyland. And a rent control ballot item fizzled, with organizers saying signature-gathering had been suspended to focus on strengthening the ballot language.

A sales tax measure in Fullerton didn’t garner enough support with the City Council to make it to the November ballot. The proposal was a 0.5% sales tax to fix the city’s roads, but some councilmembers expressed concern over whether the city could be trusted to actually use the funds toward the repairs.

What’s next? 

County election officials will begin sending vote-by-mail ballots to registered voters starting Oct. 5, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass surprised some transit advocates during a speech at Union Station last month when she proclaimed she wants to develop a "long-term financial strategy and plan" to make public transit on L.A. Metro free for everyone.

The announcement was met with hesitant applause.

In a follow-up statement, the mayor’s office told LAist, “Going fare-free is important to reducing the financial burden on working Angelenos and making Los Angeles a more accessible, affordable city.”

The mayor’s office said Bass plans to introduce a motion to explore what further steps are needed to eliminate Metro fares. Her office did not provide answers to follow-up questions asking whether that motion would go before the Metro Board before or after the election in November, when Bass is running for reelection.

Bass’ announcement comes just a few years after Metro executives said free transit would cost more than $1 billion annually for the region. At the same time, the agency, which is facing mounting political pressure to strengthen fare enforcement, is pouring tens of millions of dollars into taller fare gates that are designed to make it harder for riders to skip out on paying.

Bass’ history on a fare-free Metro

Bass’ July speech, which she made to outline her priorities for her second tenure as Metro Board chair, isn’t the first time the mayor has signaled support for a fare-free transportation system.

When she campaigned for mayor in 2022, Bass told StreetsblogLA that she believes fareless transit “will give people the freedom of mobility with no barriers to entry.” She reiterated that she supports a move to a fareless Metro in a 2023 interview with the L.A. Times. 

Mariana Luna leads the fareless transit campaign for Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, or SAJE, which has long advocated for a fare-free Metro. Luna said Bass’ speech in July reaffirming support for fareless transit was unexpected, but exciting nonetheless.

“We would really love to see some sort of action and not just leave it as a promise during her campaign season,” Luna said.

On the other side is the rider advocacy group Enforce the Fares. Alex Davis, a Metro rider and member of the group, said going fare-free is the opposite direction the agency should be heading.

“It will distract and even set Metro back from tackling the stuff that will actually improve the lives of transit riders,” Davis said, adding that ensuring fares are collected can lead to improved service reliability and system safety.

Bass’ opponent in this year’s mayoral race, former ally and current L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, does not include fareless transit as part of her publicly available transportation platform, which calls for Metro system expansion and service reliability improvements. Raman’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about her thoughts on fareless transit.

Metro says fareless transit would cost region $1 billion

Though not a novel concept, support for free transit in L.A. County gained momentum during the pandemic, said Brian Taylor, a research professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA.

“There was concern with contact between operators and passengers,” Taylor said. “So there was a public health aspect to it that led not to go fare-free, but actually to stop enforcing fare payment. That sort of revived the fare-free movement.”

Days after stay-at-home orders began in March 2020, Metro temporarily suspended bus fare collection and permitted rear-door entry to minimize contact between drivers and passengers.

In response to the financial challenges imposed by the pandemic, former Metro CEO Phil Washington assembled a task force that studied the possibility of a universally fareless transportation system.

In February 2021, when Washington announced he was stepping down, Metro touted his support of free transit for the county. 

A few months later, the idea didn’t seem so possible.

According to a September 2021 staff report, a fully fareless rail and bus network was estimated at the time to cost $1.1 billion annually for Metro and local transportation agencies that rely on the same TAP payment system.

Revenue from fares has decreased since the report was published. Last fiscal year, Metro brought in $175 million in fares, and the agency is projecting $25 million less in fare revenue this fiscal year. That’s compared to the $250 million Metro was, on average, collecting annually in pre-pandemic years, which the agency used to come up with its 2021 estimate.

The 2021 Metro report also detailed that a fareless system would require changes to how the state allocates transit funding, since state funding is dependent on local fare revenue.

In 2024, the Metro executive who oversaw the push toward fareless transit said the agency’s analysis was verified by an outside auditor.

“To be fiscally responsible, we can’t offer a completely fareless system,” Devon Deming, the deputy executive officer of fare programs, said at a July 2024 Metro Public Safety Advisory Committee meeting.

While a fully fareless approach never launched, the initiative resulted in providing K-12 and community college students free rides on Metro and fare capping, which establishes $5 as the maximum a rider pays per day.

It also resulted in making it easier for people to enroll in Metro’s assistance program for low-income riders, which offers 90 days of free rides after sign-up followed by 20 free rides per month.

Metro riders load their tap cards at Union Station in Los Angeles.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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Metro invests in stopping fare evasion

As Bass is pushing for a free system, Metro officials have been moving in the opposite direction by making it physically more difficult to catch a free train ride.

In response to customer feedback about improving fare compliance, Metro began installing taller faregates in 2025. The 7-foot-tall plexiglass, paddle-door gates are designed to be more difficult to jump over or duck under and are equipped with motion sensors. So far, they’ve been installed in 26 rail stations across the Metro system.

Metro spent more than $14.7 million installing the faregates in the last fiscal year and has budgeted $15.5 million to continue installing additional faregates throughout the system.

“We’ve seen a tremendous increase in the fares and the taps where these investments have been put in place,” Chief Bill Scott, who oversees Metro’s Department of Public Safety, said, referring to the statistics that the agency has shared with its board about the taller faregates.

The faregates were highlighted several times during Metro’s State of the Agency event in July, where the mayor announced her fare-free initiative.

Before Bass spoke, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the gates support a safer system.

“Our new faregates have significantly increased paid ridership while reducing reported issues,” said Barger, who is also first vice chair of the Metro Board. “There is a correlation.”

In a written follow-up statement to LAist, Barger said that any potential changes to Metro’s fare policy need to be weighed against the “important reality” that “fare enforcement and access control measures are associated with reductions in crime across the Metro system.”

Does it make sense to go fare-free?

According to Taylor, the UCLA professor, there’s a good economic case to be made for transit systems to go fareless when a large share of its riders are low-income and when the percentage of operating costs covered by fares falls below roughly 10%.

Both conditions are there for L.A. Metro, he said.

SAJE made a similar argument in a 2023 report.

Luna, the assistant director of organizing and advocacy for SAJE’s fareless transit campaign, said she hopes Bass will push to offer a pilot program that would make transit free for those who already qualify for the agency’s low-income assistance.

Making Metro free will negatively impact customer experience, group says

Last year, the rider advocacy group Enforce the Fares launched a campaign to push Metro to restore the number of fare checks transit security officers perform on trains and buses, saying that the physical fare infrastructure investments cannot scale to all parts of the system.

Fare enforcement is tied directly to safety, the group says. Following a surge in violent crime on the system in 2024, Metro reported to its board that 96% of those apprehended for committing a violent crime on the system between April 2023 and March 2024 did not pay fares.

According to the group’s accounting of Metro data, the agency's contracted law enforcement and security officers verified riders paid their fares hundreds of thousands of times per month between 2014 and 2018. That number plummeted to an average of 5,000 verifications per month in 2025.

There’s also been a drop in the amount of fares that pay for the day-to-day operations of the system. In fiscal year 2016, Metro could reinvest the fares it collected to pay for 22% of its operational expenses. In the latest fiscal year, that figure dropped to 6%, according to agency financial reports.

In a report to its board, Metro staff attributed this drop to the “expanding rail system and the declining fare revenues.”

Fare checks have increased in recent months. In May, Metro reported conducting more than 19,000 fare checks. 

Scott, with Metro’s Department of Public Safety, said Metro’s security officers conducted 20,000 fare checks in July and that “it’s trending that way in August.”

In a statement, Bass’ office said she does not support transit security officers performing fare checks and wants them focused on ensuring public safety.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

It’s the first day of school across the Los Angeles Unified School District, and students on the Eastside are returning to their classrooms after an unusual summer break dealing with the aftermath of the Lineage cold storage warehouse fire in June. 

Summer school sites were relocated, baseball games were canceled, and instead of spending time outside, some children spent the past two months behind closed doors to avoid the unhealthy air, mounting stench of rotting food, and hordes of flies and rats in their community.  

“[This summer] was horrible, like living through another pandemic,” said Lizandra Jimenez, who lives in East L.A. two blocks from the Lineage warehouse with her 11- and 14-year-old sons. “It was hell where we were isolated from information, where we had to endure a smell, where we had to endure the heat.

"My sons were anxious because they wanted to go outside but we couldn’t, and there was no information about air quality,” she said.

Students and families arrive at Eastman Avenue Elementary School in East L.A. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026.

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Jacqueline Ramirez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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That worry about air quality lingers for Jimenez, whose children attend Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School and Roosevelt High School less than 3 miles away from Lineage. She said she also worries about the safety of the students who attend Eastman Avenue Elementary, the LAUSD school closest to the warehouse, where she works as a school supervision aide. 

LAUSD has assured that campuses near the site have been thoroughly cleaned and deemed safe for students to return. With schools now open, the cleanup at the warehouse continues as Lineage rushes to meet L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ Friday deadline to remove the rotted food waste from inside.

LAUSD says campuses are safe to return

Over the past few weeks, LAUSD has provided updates and hosted webinars to inform parents on the cleaning and environmental testing efforts it conducted for the more than 50 schools within a 3-mile radius of the Lineage warehouse. 

Those efforts included: 

• Deep-cleaning school campuses including floors, walls, furniture, drinking fountains, lunch pavilions, playgrounds and walkways.
• Replacing all MERV-13 HVAC filters and placing air purifiers in all classrooms and offices, and;
• Independently testing air quality, water, dust and soil samples.

A white van with South Coast AQMD branding sits on the playground at Eastman Elementary in East Los Angeles.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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The district said air monitoring will continue at Eastman Elementary School and Stevenson Middle School for the duration of the cleanup.

A 561-page environmental assessment report released Tuesday by the LAUSD Office of Environmental Safety concluded that the Lineage fire did not result in widespread contamination at nearby schools and thus, were safe for students and staff.

The report did, however, find lead levels in the soil at City Terrace Elementary School and Christopher Dena Elementary School that exceeded California’s acceptable threshold. The district said it does not believe the findings are tied to the warehouse fire. 

As students return to campus, LAUSD said there will be masks available for students and staff upon request, school principals will decide whether students should remain indoors based on odors and outdoor conditions, and psychiatric social workers will be available on-site to support students.

Lineage says cleanup is 90% complete 

Meanwhile, Lineage said it is on track to meet the mayor’s 45-day deadline to remove all the food waste from the site by Friday. As of Monday, the company said they had removed 90% of the food waste. 

“At ninety percent, we are in the final stretch, and we will continue to tirelessly work until the work is done,” Jeff Rivera, chief operating officer of Lineage, said in a statement. 

The company said it expects to spend $80 million to $100 million on the cleanup. 

Last week, the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Hearing Board unanimously approved an abatement order requiring Lineage to strengthen odor-control measures, expand air monitoring and improve communication with residents. 

Parents’ and teachers’ worries linger 

For weeks, parents and teachers across the Eastside have been calling on LAUSD to have stronger protections for students and to be more transparent about environmental testing results. The groups, including Eastside Padres and United Teachers Los Angeles, have also called on Lineage to leave the community permanently. 

Alma Lagunas speaks on a megaphone along with members of Eastside Padres at a town hall regarding the fire at the Lineage warehouse at Stevenson College and Career Preparatory in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, Calif. on July 9, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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Boyle Heights Beat

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On Aug. 6, UTLA, the union representing LAUSD teachers, sent a letter to the district demanding that it expand resources and share the data before the first day. (LAUSD ended up posting its report on testing efforts on Tuesday.)

Following the fire, Jimenez said her family endured headaches, sore throats, congestion and irritated eyes for days. Now, she said she hopes LAUSD has taken the necessary steps to ensure that doesn’t happen again. 

“Who’s going to solve this for us? Or why?” Jimenez asked. “We’re not to blame.” 

Two of the Trump Administration’s top cabinet officials visited a faith-based homelessness program in Los Angeles Tuesday to call for a shift in the region’s approach to the unhoused crisis.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner held a news conference at the Dream Center amid tensions with local officials.

The L.A. region’s lead homelessness agency, known as LAHSA, is currently suing the federal housing department after HUD suspended it from federal grant activity in June.

Turner said Tuesday the federal government wasn’t backing down on that.

“LAHSA does not receive another dollar until there’s accountability and transparency, and the right partners have come around for us to work with,” Turner said.

HUD has formally invited homeless service providers to apply directly for the federal homelessness funding, bypassing LAHSA entirely.

The federal government is pushing to partner more with faith-based homeless service providers like the Dream Center, which have not historically relied on much funding from the federal government, or from the state, county or city.

Turner and Kennedy toured the Echo Park facility, a 14-story converted hospital building, and spoke with several residents in transitional housing or recovery, LAist observed.

“I saw the success upstairs with their clients,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “They're doing it better than us, and we need to start recognizing it.”

Kennedy and Turner presented the suspension of LAHSA as part of the Trump Administration’s broader push against fraud in public benefits spending, mostly involving Medicare.

Funding battle

The Trump Administration suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority for alleged mismanagement in June, pending a federal investigation.

That effectively cut off the agency that administers federal homelessness dollars from performing many of its roles. For example, HUD says that suspension means LAHSA cannot apply for up to $240 million in funding in a grant competition this year.

LAHSA is suing to overturn the suspension and to pause it in the meantime to prevent funding losses the agency said could cause 11,000 people to lose publicly-funded housing.

In a court hearing last Thursday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter acknowledged legitimate concerns about LAHSA’s history of dysfunction and said he wanted to avoid catastrophic funding disruptions.

LAHSA says letting providers apply directly to HUD, without relying on LAHSA or some other agency to coordinate and prioritize the funding request would be unfair and disastrous.

Carter has not issued an injunction order, as of Tuesday evening.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner at the Dream Center Tuesday

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Aaron Schrank

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LAist

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Why the Dream Center? 

Dream Center in Echo Park is a large Pentecostal Christian nonprofit that does residential recovery and housing for families. The center, associated with the Assemblies of God denomination, has been operating for more than three decades.

Pastor Matthew Barnett is the co-founder and CEO. He said in the news conference that the facility in Echo Park provides recovery treatment and transitional housing to about 600 people.

“I feel that sadly, over the last few years, there's just been a prevailing overall theme in LA that people can't change,” Barnett said. “Let’s just get them out of sight. Let's put them in housing somewhere, but can they really change? Well, 70% of the people that live at the Dream Center are graduates of the recovery program,” Barnett claimed.

Unlike many local service providers, the Dream Center does not rely on taxpayer funding to serve unhoused Angelenos, but private donations.

“ Places like the Dream Center that have not asked for money, that have just done the work, it's made it very, very difficult for us to function in this city of expenses that are rising,” Barnett said.

Local officials respond

There were no local elected officials present at the event.

L.A. County voted last year to divert $300 million in county homelessness funds away from the city-county homelessness agency LAHSA and administer those dollars itself with a new county homelessness department.

After Tuesday’s news conference, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the county government has been working to fix the problem, while the federal government has not.

“Publicity stunts are no substitute for the hard work the County has already done to move away from the broken LAHSA system, establish new and accountable oversight of taxpayer dollars and change how we measure success from dollars spent to outcomes achieved,” Horvath said, in a statement.