The Brief

Even in L.A.’s famously overheated real estate market, the profit — and quick turnaround — on a senior housing complex in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood seemed extraordinary.

The man at the center of the deal, since identified by federal prosecutors as Brentwood landlord and developer Steven Taylor, bought the property on Shelby Drive in 2023 for $11.2 million, purchase records show.

He wasn’t planning to hold on to the complex for long. At the time of his purchase, a company owned by Taylor already was in escrow to sell the complex to Weingart Center, a major homeless housing provider, for more than double what he paid, according to a purchase agreement obtained through a public records request.

The $27.3 million to pay for that acquisition came from taxpayer grant funds authorized by city and state officials, according to grant documentation. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom touted the purchase as a key tool in the fight against homelessness.

The deal called for Taylor’s involvement to be kept secret, according to a confidentiality clause included in the purchase contract obtained through a public records request.

That changed last month, when federal authorities announced criminal charges against Taylor. He’s accused of submitting fraudulent documents to borrow money from private lenders when he bought this and other properties.

At a news conference, the region’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, said the investigation is ongoing.

Taylor was arrested in August, when the case was under seal, and pleaded not guilty, court records show. It’s the first of the two known criminal cases brought so far by the federal task force Essayli assembled in April to investigate fraud and corruption around the use of billions of dollars earmarked to combat homelessness in Southern California.

Essayli announced the task force after a court-ordered review and a federal audit found city and state officials have failed to properly track homeless funds and protect against fraud.

Taylor and his attorney, Michael Freedman, have not responded to LAist’s phone messages for comment.

LAist’s review of the Cheviot Hills property deal found the purchase stands out not just for its high price tag but for the complexity and secrecy surrounding it.

The records reviewed by LAist show:

• A purchase agreement shows Taylor was in escrow to buy the property when city and state officials agreed to use taxpayer funds to buy it from him for $27 million.
• Weingart Center’s application for state funding included an appraisal report containing inaccurate information about who owned the property and did not mention the pending sale.
• L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office had a “big role” in the city’s process that recommended this property and two others for the government grants, according to an email from a top executive at the city housing department. 
• A Weingart Center leader said the property, now known as Weingart Shelby, isn’t expected to open until next year, despite the grant originally requiring it to be fully occupied by February 2025.

Bass’ office did not answer questions regarding the purchase. In a statement to LAist, the mayor’s office said the Shelby site “remains an important property providing interim housing in an area of the city that has extremely limited interim housing supply” and that the city is cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation.

Weingart Center’s longtime president and CEO, Kevin Murray, whose signature is on the purchase deal, has not responded to LAist’s requests for comment. He previously told the L.A. Times he had “no prior relationship with the seller and no continuing relationship” and that taxpayers paid fair market price.

Murray and Weingart Center’s chief of real estate development, Ben Rosen, have been placed on leave, according to news reports last month. Rosen also has not responded to LAist’s requests for comment.

The nonprofit’s board has elevated Chief Operating Officer Tonja Boykin to lead Weingart Center and has commissioned an outside investigation, a spokesperson for the nonprofit told LAist.

“In light of recent reporting raising questions concerning the valuation of certain homeless housing projects, we have retained an outside law firm to conduct an internal review of related subjects,” said the statement from spokesperson Stefan Friedman.

This summer, city leaders in Torrance publicly raised concerns that the group was massively overpaying for a hotel property under another round of state homelessness grants.

An LAist review also found Weingart Center has received more than $100 million from taxpayers despite failing to comply with audit requirements since 2022. The latest available audit, of the fiscal year ending April 2023, concluded the organization had multiple failures in tracking taxpayer money it was handling.

(Click here to read another LAist article, also published today, about financial concerns around other Weingart Center activities.)

Weingart Center’s spokesperson said the group remains committed to addressing homelessness, including serving almost 2,000 people daily through interim and permanent supportive housing sites across L.A.

Bass’ office had a ‘big role’ in selection process, per city email

In spring 2023, the city of L.A. was on a third round of state Homekey grants — a program launched by California in 2020 as a way to quickly expand the homeless housing supply, initially by buying motels and hotels and renovating them.

Weingart Center was one of about two dozen groups that submitted 31 proposals to the city in March 2023, according to city records.

Under Homekey, cities and counties can partner with nonprofit or for-profit developers to apply for the grants. If chosen, the non-government partner buys the property with the grant money, and the partnering city or county chips in a sizable amount of money too.

Weingart Center initially proposed an existing hotel property in Harbor Gateway, along the 110 Freeway, in their grant application.

Then, in a May email to city officials, Bass' director of affordable housing production said they’d “identified a new potential site for Weingart,” listing the Shelby Drive address. Weingart changed the proposal to the Shelby site in West L.A. in May 2023, records show.

“The mayor's office did play a big role in the selection process,” states an email from Eric Claros, director of housing at the city’s housing department, which LAist obtained as part of an open records request.

Claros and a spokesperson for the housing department declined to speak to LAist about the selection process.

In late May 2023, Bass’ office informed the office of Katy Yaroslavsky — the city councilmember who represents Cheviot Hills — “that they planned to include the Shelby property in the city's application for Project Homekey 3.0 funding,” according to Yaroslavsky’s office.

A few days later, on June 9, 2023, the city’s housing department officially recommended that the City Council approve the Shelby property as one of three projects to receive city funding and to jointly apply for Homekey grants.

Taylor signs deal to buy the property

On June 16, 2023, less than a week after city staff publicly recommended the Shelby project for state funding, Taylor went into escrow to buy the property from Bridge, according to a copy of that purchase agreement the city disclosed to LAist. The price negotiated at that point is redacted in the copy the city disclosed.

Taylor signed the deal to buy the property on behalf of an LLC he later said he was the sole owner of, according to an email disclosed by the city.

Twelve days later, the City Council took the housing department’s recommendation and officially approved the Shelby property as one of three sites the city would partner on to unlock state grant funds. In doing so, the city agreed to pay $20 million toward the purchase to unlock the other $7 million from the state to purchase the property.

The project called for another $15 million in state funds to be set aside for renovating and preparing the property after the acquisition, plus another $15 million in city and state funds to cover at least four years of operations.

The state says the money it gave for the purchase and renovation came from federal dollars given to states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Click here to see a breakdown of taxpayer funds the city and state committed to the project.)

The taxpayer-funded deal to buy from Taylor

Murray signed the agreement for the Weingart Center to buy the property from Taylor for $27.3 million in taxpayer funds July 26, 2023, according to a copy of the purchase agreement the city released in response to a public records request. At that time, neither Taylor nor his affiliated companies owned the Shelby site.

The agreement states Murray, on behalf of Weingart Center, acknowledged the seller — Taylor — didn’t own the property but was in escrow to buy it.

As part of the purchase agreement, Murray — one of the two Weingart Center executives now on leave — agreed that Weingart Center — the taxpayer-funded buyer — never would identify Taylor to the public or news media as the seller, nor would it reveal the deal’s terms, outside of narrow exceptions.

The deal also said it was expected that an “affiliate” of Taylor would buy the property from its owner and complete the sale.

Appraisal problems

Ahead of the sale, the Homekey grant application required a property appraisal, which Murray commissioned and received in July 2023. LAist obtained a copy of the appraisal from the city through a public records request.

The Shelby appraisal report doesn’t mention that the property was under contract at the time to be sold. The state’s requirements for Homekey appraisals say the reports should include information about any pending sales of the property being appraised.

Instead, the appraisal states Weingart Center was buying the property directly from its then-owner for $27.3 million. The report incorrectly identifies the owner as an LLC owned by Taylor. As a title report attached to the appraisal shows, the property still was owned at the time by the subsidiary of Bridge.

The appraisal report gave several estimates for the property’s value, depending on the method.

When looking at nearby sales of apartment complexes and adjusting for differences, the appraisal estimated the Shelby property’s value would be $19.4 million — about $8 million less than what taxpayers were paying and $7 million more than Taylor was paying.

Other methods in the appraisal generated higher value estimates, including two estimates right around $27.3 million — the amount the report says Weingart Center already had agreed to pay for the property. Those methods looked at similar sales of assisted living facilities and the estimated income the property would garner as an assisted living facility.

The company that conducted the appraisal, BBG, defended its process to LAist.

“The appraiser handled the appraisal assignment correctly with the information they were given,” said Peter Christensen, BBG’s general counsel and chief compliance officer.

Weingart Center sent a copy of the appraisal to the state housing department July 27, 2023, as part of its application with the city for Homekey funds.

State approves grant

With the appraisal and other application materials in hand, state officials awarded over $22 million in Homekey money toward the purchase and renovation of the Shelby property in November 2023.

Records show a business that had Taylor as its point of contact completed the purchase of the Shelby property for $11.2 million Dec. 26, 2023. It was six months after Taylor entered escrow to buy it and about a month after state officials committed to fund Weingart Center’s purchase for double that amount.

The taxpayer money changed hands in April 2024, when Weingart closed on buying it from the company linked to Taylor. No improvements to the property were documented in city permit records during that time.

The Homekey grants are overseen by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), led since 2020 by Gov. Gavin Newsom appointee Gustavo Velasquez.

The department declined to answer questions about their approval of the Shelby grant, following the federal announcement. A spokesperson cited the ongoing investigation, saying the department is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s office, which “has made it clear the department is a mere witness in this matter.”

Delays in opening

In addition to the $27 million in public funds to buy the property, Weingart Center was approved to spend another $15 million in state funds for renovations and other costs to prepare it to become housing for people in need of shelter.

The state grant originally required Weingart Center to finish all construction and rehabilitation work by Nov. 21, 2024, and have the housing units fully occupied by Feb. 21.

Those deadlines have moved significantly, as work on the facility continues and runs into problems like asbestos and mold, according to city permit records and state records.

What’s next

Weingart Center says upgrades aren’t expected to be completed until late February 2026, more than a year later than the original schedule. The state has granted multiple extensions, with the deadline for full occupancy now set at April 21, 2026.

LAist reporters Ted Rohrlich, Jordan Rynning and Elly Yu contributed to this story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘A haystack fire’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.

The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.

The changes remove eligibility for certain noncitizens, including people with refugee status and victims of trafficking. It also applies to immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special immigrant visas for helping the U.S. government overseas.

 ”These are folks … many of whom have large families that we have a commitment to as a country because we welcomed them and invited them here to find a place of refuge,” said Cambria Tortorelli, president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, a refugee resettlement agency. “They’re authorized to work and they’ve been brought here by the U.S. government.”

The federal spending bill, H.R. 1, made sweeping cuts to social safety net programs, including food assistance and Medicaid. In signing the bill, President Donald Trump said the changes were delivering on his campaign promises of “America first.”

Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. The state estimates about 72,000 immigrants with lawful presence will be affected across California.

CalFresh is the state’s version of the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Undocumented immigrants have not been eligible to receive CalFresh benefits.

State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.

Who the changes apply to:

• Asylees
• Refugees
• Parolees (unless they are Cuban and Haitian entrants)
• Individuals with deportation or removal withheld
• Conditional entrants
• Victims of trafficking
• Battered noncitizens
• Iraqi or Afghan with special immigrant visas (SIV) who are not lawful permanent residents (LPR)
• Certain Afghan Nationals granted parole between July 31, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2023
• Certain Ukrainian Nationals granted parole between Feb. 24, 2022, and Sep. 30, 2024

Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.

That’s according to results of a 2025 survey of more than 80,000 students enrolled at CSU’s 22 campuses, plus faculty and staff — the largest and most comprehensive study of how higher education students and instructors perceive artificial intelligence.

Nationwide, university faculty struggle to reconcile the learning benefits of AI — hailed as a “transformative tool” for providing tutoring and personalized support to students — and the risks that students will depend on AI agents to do their thinking for them and, very possibly, get the wrong information. Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions.

Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom, said Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, representing more than 470,000 students.

“Both of these things are allowed to coexist right now without a policy,” she said.

Karroum said that faculty practices are too varied and that what students need are consistent and transparent rules developed in collaboration with students. “There are going to be students who are graduating with AI literacy and some that graduate without AI literacy.”

In February 2025, the CSU system announced an initiative to adopt AI technologies and an agreement with OpenAI to make ChatGPT available throughout the system. The system-wide survey released Wednesday confirms that ChatGPT is the most used AI tool across CSUs. The system will also work with Adobe, Google, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft and NVIDIA.

Campus leaders say the survey and accompanying dashboard provide much needed data on how the system continues to integrate AI into instruction and assessment.

“We need to have data to make data-informed decisions instead of just going by anecdote,” said Elisa Sobo, a professor of anthropology at San Diego State who was involved in interpreting the survey’s findings. “We have data that show high use, but we also have high levels of concern, very valid concern, to help people be responsible when they use it.”

Faculty at San Diego State designed the survey, which received more than 94,000 responses from students, faculty and staff. Among all responding CSU students, 95% reported using an AI tool; 84% said they used ChatGPT and 82% worry that AI will negatively impact their future job security. Others worry that they won’t be competitive if they don’t understand AI well enough.

“Even though I don’t want to use it, I HAVE TO!” wrote a computer science major. “Because if I don’t, then I’ll be left behind, and that is the last thing someone would want in this stupid job market.”

Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research. Just over 55% reported a positive benefit, while 52% said AI has had a negative impact so far.

San Diego State conducted its first campuswide survey in 2023 in response to complaints from students about inconsistent rules about AI use in courses, said James Frazee, vice president for information technology at the campus.

“Students are facing this patchwork of expectations even within the same course taught by different instructors,” Frazee said. In one introductory course, the professor might encourage students to use AI, but another professor teaching the same course might forbid it, he said. “It was a hot mess.”

In that 2023 survey, one student made this request: “Please just tell us what to do and be clear about it.”

Following that survey, the San Diego State Academic Senate approved guidelines for the use of generative AI in instruction and assessments. In 2025, the Senate made it mandatory that faculty include language about AI use in course syllabi.

“It doesn’t say what your disposition has to be, whether it’s pro or con,” Frazee said. “It just says you have to be clear about your expectations. Without the 2023 survey data, that never would have happened.”

According to the 2025 systemwide survey, only 68% of teaching faculty include language about AI use in their syllabi.

Sobo and other faculty who helped develop the 2025 survey hope other CSU campuses will find the data helpful in informing policies about AI use. The dashboard allows users to search for specific campus and discipline data and view student responses by demographic group.

The 2025 survey shows that first-generation students are more interested in formal AI training and that Black, Hispanic and Latino students are more interested than white students. At San Diego State, students are required to earn a micro-credential in AI use during their first year — another change that was made after the 2023 survey.

Students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”

The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 educators in the CSU system, said in a February statement that faculty should be included in future systemwide decisions about AI, including whether the contract with OpenAI should be renewed in July.

“CFA members continue to advocate for ethical and enforceable safeguards governing the use of artificial intelligence,” the CFA said in the statement, asking for “protections for using or refusing to use the technology, professional development resources to adapt pedagogy to incorporate the technology, and further protections for faculty intellectual property.”