The Brief

Jaime Colindres’ third-floor room at the American Hotel in Los Angeles was tiny, but in it he painted expansive scenes of the American West on salvaged pieces of wood. Guitar sounds filled the halls, and neighbors kept their doors open. Some residents landed there when the city’s ruthless rental market slammed its doors on them, but they quickly soaked up the creative soul that creaked and hummed, rattled and swelled through the battered hotel.

That was 10 years ago.

The American is now a boutique tourist hotel in LA’s downtown Arts District. Nearly all of its longtime residents have been replaced. But the culprit is not gentrification. It’s the city’s failure to enforce its own laws to preserve affordable housing.

A 2008 city ordinance sought to protect residential hotels like the American. Residential hotels often offer single-room dwellings and are sometimes the only housing that elderly, disabled and low-income people can afford. But Capital & Main and ProPublica found 21 such buildings, including the American, offering rooms to travelers.

Under the ordinance, owners who convert or demolish residential hotel rooms must either build new units or pay into a city housing fund. None of the 21 have received clearances from the city showing that they’ve done either, according to Housing Department records. But the agency has cited only four of the hotels for residential hotel violations, even as some buildings went through obvious transformations and publicly advertise rooms on travel websites, the news organizations found. The American wasn’t one of the hotels cited.

This week, the city announced it would investigate all 21 hotels for violations of the law and review the resources needed to improve enforcement. “We are asking for a report on how this happened and recommendations for ensuring this does not happen again,” said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

But the city’s action comes too late for some. The American’s unhindered conversion into guest rooms and suites upended the lives of many tenants who called it home. Their stories illustrate the impact that L.A.’s failure to preserve affordable housing has had on the city’s low-income residents.

If the Housing Department’s planned investigation reveals violations of the residential hotel law, the American’s owner Mark Verge said, “We’ll work it out.” Verge previously said he was unaware of the residential hotel law. In an interview, he denied that the conversion left his former tenants in difficult situations, noting that he allowed tenants who wished to stay during the remodel to do so. “That hotel was falling apart,” Verge said. “I literally made them the greatest hotel ever and the greatest place to live.”

The 118-year-old hotel was a hotbed of creativity in part because its low rents gave artists the freedom to focus on their craft. For about $500 a month, most tenants got rooms that were barely big enough to fit their beds, with bathrooms at the end of the hall. The hotel was a place where people turned when they had nowhere to go. Once there, however, they joined a community that many embraced.

“It was just a flophouse for all us artists and musicians,” said Christiaan Pasquale, a singer and guitarist who lived at the hotel in the 1990s and again in the 2010s. “You almost get trapped at the American because it was so fun and so cheap.”

The American was unique because of the community its residents built and because it stood as a cultural hub in the Arts District. Al’s Bar, a graffiti-splattered dive on the hotel’s ground floor, was iconic in the L.A. music scene. For many residents, the club, which closed in 2001, was a hangout where they unwound at the end of the day. The bar oozed punk rock attitude. It hosted “No Talent” nights, displayed work by major L.A. artists and staged live theater events as well as hosting big-name acts like Beck, Ry Cooder and Hüsker Dü.

The American was a housing safety net for Colindres, who had lived at the hotel in the 1990s and again for about five years in the early 2010s. And it was too for Arturo Núñez, a truck driver who had been at the American for about six years until, he said, he was driven away by a bedbug infestation in 2013 before Verge began the hotel’s transformation. Núñez would duck out of gatherings with his Teamster co-workers at Denny’s and rush home to be with his neighbors at the American.

“We talked the same language: music, poetry, painting,” he said.

When Arturo Núñez lived at the American, he said, he would duck out of gatherings with his fellow truckers and rush home to be with his neighbors. 

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Barbara Davidson

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special to ProPublica

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New to the city, Jomar Giner, a 20-something transplant from Utah, ended up at the American in 2013 because it was her only housing option, she said. A would-be landlady had refused to rent to her because at the time Giner relied on disability payments. She was thrilled to learn that the punk bands she’d listened to as a teenager had played just a few floors below her room.

More important, at the American, no one cared about her source of income, she said. She got a job as a barista at the coffee shop across the street from the hotel and quickly settled in.

“I became good friends with a lot of people,” she said. “They were really proud of the place.”

But as the neighborhood gentrified, Verge, an L.A. entrepreneur, bought the hotel and planned to renovate it. He told residents that those who could endure the dust, noise and intrusions of a remodel could stay. Some did. But he also provided an incentive for tenants to move, offering them between $2,000 and $19,000, depending on how long they’d lived there, their age and how long they held out, according to interviews with eight current and former residents. Many of the American’s residents accepted Verge’s offers, they said.

“We were all just desperate at the time,” and the money sounded good, Pasquale said. “We all worked hard at our crafts — I was in a band and touring. Any money like that was a big chunk of change.”

As the American’s tenants moved out, several said, they struggled to find stable housing for as little as they had paid at the hotel.

Giner received a $3,000 payment and, with the help of her then-boyfriend’s parents, scraped together enough cash for the couple to move into a Koreatown apartment. Colindres, the painter, said he negotiated a buyout of $19,000 but struggled to find housing because of a two-decade-old eviction. Instead, he joined an exodus of artists to the desert near Joshua Tree National Park, about 140 miles east of Los Angeles, where a friend had offered him a place to stay.

But after a few years, Colindres grew tired of his hot, lonely surroundings. He said he returned to L.A. and slept in his car.

By then, the hotel was being advertised to nightly guests. Tourists had begun reviewing the American on Yelp in 2016, with one writing, “All in all, a decent stay for very little coin.”

Only a handful of long-term residents still live at the American today.

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Barbara Davidson

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special to ProPublica

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In the years since the hotel’s conversion, it’s arguably become even harder for the former residents to find a replacement for the housing they had at the American. Several former residents left the state to be closer to family or to find more affordable housing.

Today, Colindres shares a studio apartment with a friend, piecing together a living by painting signs for businesses, faux finishes for decorators and, sometimes, movie sets for independent films. Occasionally he sells one of his paintings.

Colindres shows off his paintings at the friend’s apartment where he lives.

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Robin Urevich

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Capital & Main

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Colindres said he doesn’t know how long he can stay in his place, and in L.A., he said, “I have no place to go.”

Núñez, the truck driver, lives in his 1991 maroon Ford van with two cats, T.K. (for tiny kitty) and Orangey. He cooks on a propane stove — red chile with pork is his specialty, he said. The van is immobile, and he pays $100 per month from his Social Security check for a parking spot marked off with orange cones in a lot just a few blocks from the American.

Núñez lives in his van. He pays $100 a month to park in downtown LA, near the American.

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Barbara Davidson

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special to ProPublica

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On a blustery March afternoon, Núñez spotted Colindres across the parking lot and greeted him with elaborate tai chi-like gestures — a nod to Colindres’ longtime practice of the ancient Chinese art.

Núñez retrieved battered chairs from his van as the two sat and reminisced about the ups and downs of their days at the American.

“This is my neighborhood,” Núñez said, gesturing toward the hotel. “I’d move in now.”

But moving in isn’t an option. The American’s online hotel policies say guests can’t stay longer than 21 days.

A view of nightlife in the Arts District in downtown L.A., home of the American

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Barbara Davidson

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special to ProPublica

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Expect silent nights in Naples’ channels this holiday season.

The Naples Improvement Association announced Saturday that this year’s Naples Island Holiday Boat Parade, a Long Beach tradition since 1946, has been canceled because of expected high tides and heavy surf that organizers said would make the event too unsafe for visitors and participants.

It’s the first time in six years — since the onset of the COVID pandemic — that the parade has been canceled. What began as a small procession of decorated barges filled with singing church choirs has grown into an institution in Long Beach with more than 100 entries, from Duffys to dragon boats, and 60,000 spectators.

Ben Fisher, the association president, said the decision came after weeks of deliberations and a 600-respondent poll that found most wanted the parade — and all holiday events in Naples — to be canceled this year.

Forecasters expect a powerful El Niño season that will raise tides 6 to 18 inches above typical levels. This is paired with a series of slow, very wide swells of warm water known as Kelvin waves expected to frequent Long Beach’s southern-facing coast this winter.

During the week of Christmas, tides are expected to reach 7.5 to 8.5 feet, with the highest forecast to arrive in the mornings and peaking around Christmas Eve.

Part of the decision was also tied to ongoing frustrations with the city, which Fisher said has failed to address the island’s deteriorating infrastructure, from its aging seawall to underperforming drainage systems, that make it “too unsafe to draw tens of thousands of people to visit Naples this holiday season.”

“The city has told us to sandbag everything (public and private property); docks and gangways are being dismantled and sawed off however each individual owner sees fit; and the seawalls themselves are crumbling with exposed, rusted and sharp rebar in many places along the canals where many families normally would sit on any given holiday evening,” Mr. Fisher wrote.

For decades, the seawall has shielded multimillion-dollar homes and fortified the man-made canal that loops around the island. The city evaluated the structure in 2009 and found it in significant disrepair. A six-phase repair plan is underway, but only two phases are complete.

City officials have said they need $125 million to finish replacing the aging seawall, and they have halted reconstruction amid shrinking oil revenue and an uncertain future for federal disaster aid. Among the options under consideration is a 30-year bond spread across the whole neighborhood that would cost $5,100 per property annually. If limited to homes along the seawalls, it would cost $48,000 per property.

In a statement Saturday, council member Kristina Duggan, whose district includes Naples, said she respected the decision and added that the focus this winter should be on preparing the island for the upcoming weather. While the seawalls are stable under high tidal pressure, she said, maintenance work will “start next week to seal cold joints and help reduce water seepage.”

“We are encouraging everyone to prepare, and we look forward to seeing the Naples Boat Parade return next year,” Duggan wrote.

When high tides arrive, water already spills over the seawalls in some spots, reaching nearly two feet deep, flooding sidewalks and threatening homes. Residents and officials disagree over whether to prioritize coastal protection or recreational amenities.

The money normally spent on the parade will go instead toward pumps, hoses, plugs and generators, Fisher said, “resources our waterways and neighbors desperately need.”

Whether residents decorate their homes this year, he said, is up to them.

Crowds gathered at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights on Saturday for a rally and march to Adventist Health White Memorial after federal immigration agents mounted a blockade at the emergency room entrance and detained at least two people outside the hospital.

Community organizers and elected officials on Saturday handed off a letter to the hospital’s administrators, calling for an end to any collaboration between the hospital and federal immigration agents.

Sen. Maria Elena Durazo said that it appears the hospital is earning a reputation for being an “ICE-friendly hospital.”

“What happened last night was unacceptable,” Durazo told the hospital’s administrators in the same parking lot where the blockade was held. “It’s unacceptable that ICE would go into our healthcare facilities. But we also believe that White Memorial can and should do more.”

Several hours earlier, patients arriving at the hospital were met by a large presence of masked agents who stood outside the hospital starting Friday evening and into the early hours of Saturday. Ambulances were diverted to nearby hospitals for about two hours while the activity took place.

Local residents and rapid response groups were kept away from the hospital and in multiple videos shared on social media, masked agents pushed away protesters and sprayed them with what appeared to be pepper spray.

The backstory ad what the hospital says

The series of events began after eyewitnesses said they saw federal agents detain a person and take them into the hospital before a crowd of protesters came to rally against the ICE agents, according to Raquel Roman, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral and member of the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network.

Saturday’s rally, organized by the local rapid response group, started at Mariachi Plaza and coincided with a Dia de los Muertos celebration. People marched with signs that read “Protect the Sacred” and “Melt ICE” while others wore La Catrina face paint.

Community members, Durazo, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez and Mayor-elect Nithya Raman gathered outside the hospital around 2:30 p.m. with members of Proyecto Pastoral and Centro CSO to denounce the ICE activity that had taken place outside the emergency room.

Daniel Fontoura, president at Adventist Health White Memorial, said the hospital staff does not work with federal immigration agents.

“I don’t know what I can do to assure you there’s no special relationship, no special contract. When they show up, they show up,” Fontoura said, referring to the federal agents.

He added that the hospital would like to work with community organizations and elected officials to understand what they should do in these types of situations.

The LA Local was provided a copy of the letter handed to the hospital administrators. Durazo asks White Memorial leadership to provide a detailed account of what happened and determine why agents were allowed to block the ambulance entrance.

The letter also asks that the hospital “implement and enforce clear procedures” to block ICE agents from obstructing entrances and accessing patient rooms and to issue a public statement in English and Spanish “reaffirming the hospital’s unwavering commitment to caring for all patients, regardless of immigration status.”

The letter requests a written response from hospital leadership by Nov. 21.

“If these concerns remain unresolved, we will seek a review by the California Attorney General of White Memorial’s compliance with state law,” Durazo wrote in the letter.

The letter was signed by multiple community leaders and elected officials present at the rally.

Fontoura appeared flustered as he spoke to Durazo and the other officials. He told the crowd that hospital staff called 911 to try and stop the blockade. He was drowned out by people shouting, “Shame.”

About the rally

Derek Mejia, 30, a police accountability co-chair at Centro CSO, joined the rally Saturday afternoon.

He was part of a group who gathered outside the hospital early Saturday morning after federal immigration agents detained two people. By that time, Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived at the scene and an LAPD helicopter circled the area, Mejia said.

“It’s a shame,” Mejia said of the incident.

Mejia said he was at the rally because, “One, we want to show ICE that we’re not afraid and two, we want to let White Memorial know that their collaboration with ICE is not only detrimental to the community but that it needs to stop.”

Verita Topete of Centro CSO, addressed the crowd at the rally. “White Memorial is endangering the same community they claim to serve,” she said.

“ICE out of L.A. ICE out of Boyle Heights. ICE out of California,” Topete chanted, and the crowd followed suit.

The group then marched back to Mariachi Plaza before dispersing around 3 p.m.

They were also joined by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, along with CHIRLA’s Executive Director Angelica Salas, union organizer David Huerta of SEIU and Father Brendan Busse with Dolores Mission Church.

Mayor Karen Bass did not atend the rally, but denounced the ICE activity and in a statement called “on the Trump Administration to stop all immigration enforcement in and around health care facilities. Hospital leadership also had a duty to step in right away to protect patients and neighbors, and by all appearances, that did not happen.”

Mayor-elect Nithya Raman joins community members at Adventist Health White Memorial in Boyle Heights on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026 after federal immigration agents blocked off the emergency room entrance.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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Raman, who was elected L.A.’s next mayor, did attend the rally and thanked community members who showed up to protests ICE’s presence several hours earlier at the hospital. She said that as an immigrant herself, she has “felt the fear that so many across the city and across this country have felt … since these raids began.”

“What happened last night at this hospital was an affront to the wishes of the American people and to the people of Los Angeles,” Raman said.

As she left the rally, community members shouted at Raman to “fire the police chief.”

Throughout her mayoral campaign, Raman said she will attempt to replace LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell after criticizing the department’s handling of ICE enforcement, protests and sharing data with federal authorities, which Raman says is a violation of L.A.’s Sanctuary City policies.

The post Community, LA leaders denounce ICE activity at White Memorial appeared first on LA Local.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has offered the job of White House press secretary to his friend and UFC boss Dana White, an announcement unconventional even for the norm-busting president. White said Saturday that he plans to meet with Trump on Monday at the White House.

Trump, while he was at his golf club in Florida, posted on social media that he made the offer to “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior” to become the Republican president's chief spokesperson.

White, who was in London on Saturday for a boxing event, was asked at a news conference about Trump's post and responded by saying that he planned to fly to Washington right after and meet with Trump on Monday.

When asked how he would balance the job with the current positions he has in the fighting world, White seemed confused by the question and then said, “Yeah, I got a lot of jobs already.”

He declined to say what conversations he'd had with Trump but said, “I'm sure I'll have more to talk about after that.”

Before the news conference, the UFC head shared an image of Trump’s post on Instagram, along with an image of himself standing behind the podium in the White House press briefing room with the words “On to the next chapter.”

The White House and a spokesperson for the UFC did not respond Saturday to messages inquiring about the Truth Social post.

Trump said in his post that he requested that White bring along several UFC fighters as “assistants,” adding, “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”

While White didn't make it clear if he was seriously considering the position of becoming the primary spokesperson for the president of the United States, he did elsewhere in his news conference describe his ambitions to expand the Zuffa Boxing organization he also runs with Saudi Arabian backers and hold more of its events around the world.

Trump's post came as his White House is in a period of major transition and struggling with his party's deep losses in Tuesday's midterm elections. The historic wins by Democratic candidates, including in areas that Republicans had held for decades, led to the GOP losing control of both chambers of Congress.

Trump on Friday announced he was replacing his longtime adviser Susie Wiles, who was seen as something of a tempering force on the president's impulses, with aide Stephen Miller to serve as the next chief of staff. Miller is known as the architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies and is among the most determined of Trump's inner circle.

The shake-up at the heart of his administration follows the brief but tumultuous week when Trump tried out a new press secretary in Katie Zacharia, who seemed uncomfortable in her sole appearance before reporters before leaving the job after five days.

The post had been vacant since Karoline Leavitt left at the end of August. Trump remains without a chief spokesperson.

Trump is close friends with White and has attended several UFC events with him since returning to the White House in January 2025.

He brought White and the sport to the White House’s South Lawn in June for the celebration of America’s 250th year of its independence and the president's own 80th birthday. A wire-mesh Octagon was constructed near the executive mansion under " The Claw,” a spaceship-like metal arch fitted with lights, sound equipment and large screens.

“It was an amazing experience, this was a one-of-one,” said White afterward.

White also spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Associated Press writers Daniel Gelston in Philadelphia and Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

Federal immigration agents detained at least two people late Friday outside Adventist White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights, where protesters had gathered after reports of immigration enforcement activity, according to rapid response groups. Protesters remained at the hospital into the early hours of Saturday, where immigration agents maintained a large presence.

It appears the incident began after people witnessed someone being detained and taken into the hospital, according to Raquel Roman, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral and member of the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network.   That spurred a crowd of protesters to rally against ICE agents, who then detained two protesters who are U.S. citizens, Roman said.

ICE activity was also reported near Mariachi Plaza at 5:50 a.m. Saturday, according to witnesses, and outside the East LA Sheriff’s Station, where agents have been seen detaining people in the L.A. County-designated ICE-Free zone. 

Arrests captured on social video

Video posted on social media appears to show one person being detained outside the hospital. In the video, at least three officers in tactical vests are seen detaining someone at the intersection of Boyle and Pennsylvania Avenues around 11:30 p.m.

A group of about six more officers in tactical vests and masks can be seen walking around the area as another, whose vest says “Police ICE,” yells at the person recording to “back up” and “do not impede with the arrest.”

“You’re arresting U.S. citizens,” the person recording says. “18 USC 111, they’re interfering,” the officer replies, referring to Title 18, Section 111 of the U.S. Code: Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees. 

In the video, a bystander who says the person being arrested is his brother can be seen speaking to the officer. 

“Your brother assaulted a federal agent. He’s being arrested for assaulting a federal agent; he’s coming with us,” the officer tells them. 

Boyle Heights Beat reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for more information about the incident but has not yet received a response.

LAPD response

The Los Angeles Police Department was first called to the scene at 11:59 p.m. to respond to a “large group causing a disturbance,” according to LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman. LAPD responded again at 2:24 a.m. as crowds continued to gather outside of the hospital. 

“Officers responded to maintain public safety and keep the peace. At no point did LAPD officers assist federal immigration authorities with enforcement activities or detain any individuals in connection with immigration enforcement,” Eisenman said. 

Video posted on social media by Izzy Ramirez shows a line of agents blocking the emergency loading dock around 2:30 a.m. as a crowd continues to shout at the agents and make noise.

“It was horrible for the local community. The ICE presence was a lot more than I’ve seen it visibly before,” said Roman. 

What the hospital said

Japhet De Oliveira, corporate communications executive at Adventist Health, shared the following statement:

“Federal agents brought a person in their custody to our emergency department, and we cared for that patient with dignity and privacy, as we do for every patient. When agents formed a line across our ambulance entrance, which we did not request nor authorize, we diverted ambulances to nearby hospitals for about two hours to ensure every patient received timely care. White Memorial does not participate in immigration enforcement. We know last night frightened our neighbors. No matter what happens outside our doors, everyone who comes inside is our patient, and our focus will only be on that patient, and it will not change.”

Doctors at Adventist White Memorial last year reported that ICE agents were violating the privacy rights of detained patients and prohibiting contact with patients’ family members. While the hospital released guidelines to protect patients and support staff,  doctors and advocates have said they fall short.

What's next

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, said she was “deeply troubled” by the reports overnight and demanded answers from hospital leadership. She said:

The Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network said it plans to lead a protest against ICE outside White Memorial at 2 p.m. Saturday.

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

The post ICE detains two U.S. citizens protesting outside White Memorial Hospital, rapid response groups say appeared first on LA Local.