The Brief

The latest homeless count from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that 25% of unhoused people in L.A. County self-reported experiencing a severe mental illness (SMI). That’s up from 24% from last year's count.

The latest count, which was conducted over a three-day period in January, found that there are more than 75,000 unhoused people in L.A. County.

The data on mental illness was collected during a demographic survey in which participants are asked whether they have or have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness.

The latest reporting on the unhoused community is a reminder of the thousands of people living on the streets in L.A. who deal with debilitating mental illness.

Deborah Smith's son, Nick, was unhoused and unsheltered between November 2022 and February of this year. He’d been diagnosed since his early 20s with bipolar disorder and later schizophrenia.

Smith said she remembers fighting for months to get her son into shelter and care during the worst of the storms that pummeled L.A.

“The entire thing was a nightmare,” Smith said. “I couldn’t sleep at night when I would hear the rain. I knew that due to his mental illness, that he was not making good choices for himself.”

Smith said Nick was not drinking water due to his psychosis and was subsisting on a diet of Slim Jims and Red Bull. She said Nick was finally assessed by a field psychiatrist with L.A. County’s Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (HOME) program and only then did he start receiving some of the services he needed.

For her part, Smith doesn’t believe Nick would have self-reported that he lives with a severe mental illness, due to stigma around SMI and a common symptom of mental illness called anosognosia, or lack of insight.

Brittney Weissman is executive director of Hollywood 4WRD, where she does outreach for a new pilot project that aims to help people living with a serious mental illness get care within their own community in Hollywood.

“That number seems low,” Weissman told LAist, referring to the 25% SMI figure represented in LAHSA’s latest report. “I think a lot more people in the street live with serious mental illness.”

Weissman, who also previously served as CEO of NAMI Greater Los Angeles County, said clarity gets lost when people are asked to self-report living with SMI.

Randall Kuhn, professor at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA and a lead demographer on the LAHSA count said one of the goals in the coming months is to use some of the demographic survey data to compare the level of mental illness with duration of homelessness.

One thing is clear from multiple studies, Kuhn said: “The longer you’re homeless, the worse your physical, mental and substance use status is.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 650 children in California under President Donald Trump’s second term, an EdSource analysis of federal data has found. Most arrests happened in California communities, rather than at the border, and involved minors who resided and attended school in the state.

The number of children detained in the state’s interior rose 90% during the first year of Trump’s second term compared to the prior year under the Biden administration, our analysis shows. More than 100 of the children detained under Trump were age 5 or under.

The rise in child detainments in the state’s interior began soon after Trump took office in January 2025. Trump won office on a promise to carry out mass deportations, vowing to deport “illegal immigrant killers, rapists, and drug dealers from our streets and [send] them back where they belong.”

Starting immediately and escalating over the summer of 2025, ICE agents have conducted large-scale operations in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Some children have been detained while accompanying parents to routine ICE check-ins. The practices reflect an escalation in enforcement activity that state education officials say has kept some students from attending school.

The children detained so far include a 17-year-old honors student from Los Angeles County who was detained in June 2025 and deported to Guatemala; a 9-year-old boy from Torrance who, along with his father, was detained at an immigration hearing that same month and deported to Honduras; and a 6-year-old deaf student who, in March, was detained without his hearing aids and deported to Colombia along with his mother and younger brother.

Medical professionals and advocates contend that no period of time in detention is safe for children. In 2016, a Department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee recommended discontinuing the use of family detention — the practice of detaining children with their parents as they await the outcome of their case — writing “detention is never in the best interest of children.”

“The kids that are in detention in these facilities, they’re losing their childhoods every single day that they’re in there,” said Wendy Cervantes, who oversees research and advocacy of immigrant families at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy.

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to EdSource that this data is “being cherry-picked” to “peddle a false narrative.” ICE, the spokesperson said, is “not targeting children.”

“ICE does not separate families,” the unidentified DHS spokesperson said. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”

What the data shows

EdSource analyzed federal detainment data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA, capturing federal detainments between October 2022 and March 2026. The analysis found:

• There were 666 Californian children detained during the Trump administration. Of those, 408 children — or 61% — were deported. Under the Biden administration, 8% were ultimately deported. 
• Nationally, children have been held longer in detention under Trump than under Biden. The median length of detention jumped from one day under Biden to eight days under Trump. This does not include 335 children who had not yet been released from detention as of March 11, the last day for which data was available.
• Nationally, the average number of children in detention jumped nearly 10-fold under Trump, due in part to these longer detention stays. Under the last year of the Biden administration, there were, on average, 23 children held in detention each day. During Trump’s first year of his second term, that figure rose to 219.

The Trump administration is going after “the worst of the worst,” including pedophiles and rapists, a DHS spokesperson said.

“Many of the individuals that are counted as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.”

According to EdSource’s analysis of ICE’s data, none of the 666 detained children in California under Trump had any felonies or previous convictions listed. Twelve minors were listed as having pending criminal charges, including three girls between ages 6 and 9. The nature of those pending charges is not disclosed. The ICE data does not include information about any connected family members or their cases.

During his second term, Trump reopened family detention facilities, including the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley and the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas. In California, 250 detained children were ultimately sent to these family facilities.

A 12-year-old from Los Angeles, identified by the initials G.S., gave a declaration in federal court describing their experience living inside the South Texas Family Residential Center during a 64-day detainment with their parents and younger sister.

The child said ICE agents detained the family during a routine ICE check-in in Los Angeles. The family lost their apartment and belongings, according to the May 22 declaration. The status of the child and their family is unclear.

“It makes me feel hopeless to be here for so long, because now it’ll take me and my whole family a long time to get back to normal because of how much money and education we have lost,” the child said in their declaration. “If I could change one thing here, it would be to shut down the whole facility.”

Trump vs. Biden

One major difference between the Trump and Biden presidencies has been the number of children who arrived at the border. Of the 5,676 children detained in California between October 2022 and when Trump started his second term, 94% were apprehended at the border.

Biden prioritized placing some of the unaccompanied minors who arrived at the border with sponsors, Cervantes said, and ended the practice of family detention that resumed under Trump. Cervantes said the Biden administration largely followed the Flores Settlement Agreement.

The 1997 agreement provided rights for immigrant children in U.S. custody and prohibited most detentions from lasting more than 20 days. The declaration from the detained Los Angeles minor is one of several included from children and parents in a lawsuit claiming their rights under the Flores agreement have been violated.

Attorneys representing the Trump administration in this case argued in court in June 2025 that conditions at detention centers for children have “drastically improved” since the original agreement. Referencing the high number of immigrants at the border, the administration said the Flores Settlement Agreement “hamstrung the government in addressing this catastrophic illegal migration.”

Apprehension in California

During the first year of Trump’s second term, adults were detained in California’s interior at more than four times the rate they were held during the last year of Biden’s administration, while the rate of child detainments rose by 90%.

California has passed laws and issued guidance with the aim of shielding schools from federal immigration enforcement. For instance, under California law, school officials cannot allow immigration officials on campus without a judicial warrant.

In some California communities, parents, teachers and neighbors have formed rapid-response networks to report sightings of ICE agents for students and their families to avoid while commuting to and from school.

The sites of some immigration enforcement operations, such as job sites, may be more likely to target adults than children. However, Cervantes notes that some teens working at restaurants or as lifeguards at pools have been apprehended in ICE raids while they’re on the job. She also disputes the Trump administration’s claim that children have not been targets of immigration enforcement.

Children may not be detained at the same rates that adults are, but medical experts warn that any time spent in detention is too long for their well-being.

Shortly after Trump began his second term, medical professionals wrote an open letter to the president and then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warning that “detention itself poses a threat to child health.”

“We have endless amounts of research and expert testimony on how harmful detention is to children,” said Michelle Brané, who was the immigration detention ombudsman under the Biden administration and now leads the nonprofit Together and Free, which supports asylum-seeking families. “You see kids with extreme depression. You see kids really regressing, kids going back to wetting the bed after they’ve been trained for years.”

EdSource Reporter Zaidee Stavely and Data Journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this story.

A water main break near Palm Avenue and Harratt Street sent waters flooding through West Hollywood early Thursday, causing a massive sink hole.

Roads have been closed off and residents warned to stay out of the area, with dramatic footage posted online of water rushing down streets and cars slamming into each other:

Because of the highly pressurized water system, emergency crews said Thursday they must work slowly and carefully to avoid causing more damage. Several roads were closed and Metro system buses detoured — see details below.

A leak from an over 100-year-old trunk line caused the rupture, authorities said. The line has been shut down, as well as two large valves to the east and west. Anselmo Collins, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, assured residents that drinking water is not affected and remains safe to drink.

“We are also coordinating on the ground with law enforcement and will be working with traffic control as we make progress and assess and begin repairs,” wrote LADWP in a statement.

Residents were are encouraged to take pictures of any damage from the flooding in case a claim needs to be filed later.

What you need to know about affected areas:

Avoid the area if at all possible. But if you need to venture in, here’s what you need to know:

Road Closures:

• Eastbound Sunset Boulevard is closed between Larrabee Street and Sherbourne Drive.
• Eastbound Holloway Drive is closed between Sunset Boulevard and Westmount Drive.
• Eastbound Santa Monica Boulevard is closed between San Vicente Boulevard and Hancock Drive.

The following bus routes have been delayed or detoured.

• 2 Line (Sunset)
• 4 Line (Santa Monica)
• 10/48 (Melrose)
• 14/37 (Beverly)
• 16 Line (3rd Street)
• 20 Line (Wilshire)
• 28 Line (Olympic)
• 30 Line (Pico)
• 35 Line (Washington)
• 134 Line (PCH)
• 217 Line (Fairfax)
• 602 Line (Sunset)
• 617 Line (Robertson)

LAist will continue to update this story as we learn more.

Potentially dangerous heat is still in store for Southern California Thursday, but there is some respite on the horizon.

An extreme heat warning from the National Weather Service remains in place for much of the region through 8 p.m. Thursday.

Inland valleys across L.A., Riverside and San Bernardino counties are expected to see highs of up to 104 degrees in some places. Temperatures in inland Orange County will likely get up into the 90s. Coastal areas and beaches will hover in the 80s.

The high temperatures are expected to pose a high risk of heat-related illnesses, especially for people over 65, young children and other sensitive populations. People who work outdoors or do not have air conditioning are also particularly at risk.

Heat wave review

NWS forecasters said Thursday that temperatures during this week’s heat wave peaked on Wednesday relatively close to what they expected: Woodland Hills hit 107 degrees, Burbank hit 97, and downtown Los Angeles hit 94.

High humidity also played into the heat this week, as expected, driven by tropical moisture flowing into the region from the south.

Forecasters said some coastal areas saw up to 70% humidity around midday Wednesday. Humidity in the valleys was generally between 30% and 40%.

“That's pretty muggy,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It’s definitely not Miami humidity, but it’s definitely more than we’re used to.”

Cooldown in sight

Thankfully, more comfortable summer weather is on the way.

Temperatures will start to trend downward Thursday along the coast, while a more noticeable cooling trend will settle in across the region Friday.

The weather this weekend will still be warm, especially inland. But forecasters say temperatures will return to normal levels for this time of year by Saturday and could even dip lower than normal.

Weekend highs will be in the mid 80s in downtown L.A., up to 90 in the valleys and in the 70s along the coast.

Increased offshore winds are also expected to boost the marine layer and bring morning clouds and fog to many coastal areas Friday morning.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

It didn’t matter if they had no money or nowhere else to go at night: Unhoused people who slept on the streets of Los Angeles in the early 2000s could be ticketed or arrested for violating a city ordinance that barred sitting or lying on a sidewalk.

“You arrest them, prosecute them. Put them in jail,” LAPD Chief William Bratton told the L.A. Times in a 2005 interview. “And if they do it again, you arrest them, prosecute them, and put them in jail.”

“It’s that simple,” he added.

Yet L.A’.s temporary shelter beds were (and continue to be) vastly outnumbered by its unhoused population. Unhoused people who were arrested for sleeping on the street lacked money to pay fines and the resources to navigate the court system. They’d get out of jail and end up again sleeping on the street.

What to do about homelessness remains one of the most hotly contested issues in LA, but a 2006 federal court case fundamentally changed the conversation: Jones v. City of Los Angeles denounced the idea that someone could be a criminal just because they were unsheltered. Even as the U.S. Supreme Court has walked back the protections that Jones created, L.A. leaders by and large haven’t returned to the practices of the Bratton era. As cities around the state reevaluate how encampments are policed, an examination of the original case can illuminate the fraught policymaking surrounding the crisis — and what’s at stake today.  

The case

Edward Jones, married couple Patricia and George Vinson, Thomas Cash, Stanley Barger and Robert Lee Purrie had all been previously cited or jailed for sleeping on the streets of L.A.’s Skid Row. A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and National Lawyers Guild argued that they simply had no alternatives, and so, L.A.’s anti-camping restriction should not be enforced between 9 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

The case ultimately made it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In their 2006 ruling, the Ninth Circuit found that the Eighth Amendment — which protects against excessive fines as well as the better-known “cruel and unusual punishments” — prohibited the city from punishing what was  “an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter.”

In writing the court’s majority opinion, Judge Kim Anita McLane Wardlaw noted the hardships experienced by each named appellant. Two couples slept outside to avoid being separated at a shelter; others suffered from disabilities that impeded them from promptly moving to an available shelter. Another man who was arrested learned that police had destroyed his tent and tossed his belongings in the street. They were gone by the time he returned.

Depriving people of their possessions after an arrest is “particularly injurious” to unhoused people who “have so few resources” to begin with, Wardlaw said.

A tarp covers a portion of a person’s tent on a bridge overlooking the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023.

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Jae C. Hong

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Such police actions, Judge Wardlaw wrote, not only restricted their “personal liberty,” but also “caused them to suffer shame and stigma.” 

“[The ruling] forcefully articulates in really important ways why unhoused folks should not be punished for sleeping outside when they have no place else to go,” said Shayla Myers, an expert in the criminalization of poverty and homelessness and the director of impact litigation and policy at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

The surprise settlement

In a surprising development, however, the city of Los Angeles settled the case. As a result, Jones was nullified, and attorneys and the courts could no longer reference it in similar cases.

But in 2018, the Ninth Circuit essentially restored Jones’s precedent in Martin v. City of Boise, ruling that penalizing unhoused people sleeping outside when they had no access to shelter violated their Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

“[The ruling] effectively just reupped Jones, adopted it, cited to the reasoning [and affirmed its] principle,” Myers told The LA Local.

Meanwhile, the Jones settlement bolstered protections for unhoused people in L.A. and beyond, Myers told The LA Local.

“It was very purposeful, and it was clearly drafted by people who are deeply invested in unhoused folks,” she said. 

The settlement required L.A. to increase the number of available housing units above a baseline before it could enforce its anti-camping ordinance. But because the city “consistently lost” units instead of gaining them, Myers said, the settlement remained in force for over a decade.

The impact

In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to those advocating for the decriminalization of homelessness.

In the case of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the conservative supermajority overturned the earlier ruling in Boise. In a 6–3 vote, the higher court ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment did not bar cities from enforcing public-camping ordinances against unhoused people even when no shelter beds were available.

The Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision is based on a narrow textual interpretation of the Constitution that considers only the type and severity of punishment — in this case, fines and short jail sentences for repeat offenders — not the argument that it’s unreasonable to criminalize a basic human function when someone has no alternative. According to Justice Neil Gorsuch, who delivered the majority opinion, such punishments are neither cruel nor unusual, since city and state governments “have long employed similar punishments for similar offenses.”

Writing for the dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor excoriated the majority opinion, which she said “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”

Children play at the Safe Landing for Families, county land with 10 state trailers that now house families with children. Residents at this site receive wraparound services and assistance connecting them with longer-term affordable housing.

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Damian Dovarganes

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AP Photo

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L.A., however, has not passed a citywide anti-camping ban in the wake of Grants Pass. Although the city is conducting controversial encampment sweeps, Myers believes “there has been less willingness” by residents, organizers and city officials “to accept criminalization of homelessness.” 

“Jones did not happen in a vacuum,” she noted.

For example, the Grants Pass decision prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to order encampments that pose a public safety risk be cleared. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors responded by affirming that people who are arrested in them will not be held in county jails. 

“Arresting people for sitting, sleeping, or lying on the sidewalk or in public spaces does not end their homelessness, and will only make their homelessness harder to resolve with a criminal record and fines they can’t afford to pay,” the supervisors’ 2024 motion said. “Our homelessness and housing crisis is regional, and will only be solved with a coordinated, unified response, and resources for housing and services.” 

Today, Myers and other litigators are working to protect other constitutional rights of unhoused people in LA from a variety of ordinances.

“If you let jurisdictions violate people’s rights, they will continue to rely on ordinances that erase the visible signs of homelessness,” she said. “Because it’s easier to throw someone in jail than it is to build an apartment.”

Published as part of a national effort by local newsrooms to reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. You can see coverage from other newsrooms by clicking here.