The Brief

When Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill last month that would have supported sober homeless housing, his reason left many scratching their heads.

Newsom said Assembly Bill 255, which would have allowed cities to use up to 10% of their state funds to pay for “recovery housing,” was unnecessary. That’s because using state funds for sober housing is already allowed, the governor said. He said “recent guidance” makes that clear.

That was a big surprise to Assemblymember Matt Haney, who had spent the past two years working on the bill Newsom was now saying had been moot all along. Haney had been under the impression that California’s “housing first” rule — which dictates that homelessness programs offer housing to people regardless of their sobriety, mental health, employment, etc. — meant sober housing wasn’t eligible for state funds.

When CalMatters asked about the “recent guidance” that allows the state to fund sober housing, the governor’s office sent a link to a 20-page document. No one CalMatters spoke to had ever seen that document before. Neither had Haney, anyone in his office, or the other stakeholders involved in his bill, including the service providers trying to build more sober housing, he said.

While the document was dated July, 2025, it wasn’t published online until Oct. 2 — the day after Newsom’s veto.

“I think it’s a terrible bureaucratic failure,” Haney said of the lack of communication. Having the state and the Legislature work together, rather than on separate parallel policies, would have saved everyone time and resources, he said.

“Why didn’t anybody say anything over the course of two years,” Haney asked, “not just to me, but to the cities, counties and providers who desperately wanted to open these beds?”

The California Interagency Council on Homelessness, which has been working on the document since late 2024, put the blame on Haney’s office for not reaching out. A preliminary draft was publicly available earlier this year as part of a February council meeting, said Executive Officer Meghan Marshall.

The new sober housing guidelines come at a time when the state is facing political pressure from some facets to shift its approach to homeless housing – both to embrace drug-free housing and to turn at least some of its focus from permanent housing that accepts everyone to temporary shelter that may come with strings attached.

A group of legislators, city housing staffers and nonprofits recently took a trip to San Antonio, Texas to tour a massive homeless shelter there, and returned with ideas on how to beef up California’s shelter capacity — which some on the trip say has been neglected as a casualty of California’s strict preference for long-term housing. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has signalled that it will shift federal money away from permanent housing and into temporary shelter, while also imposing conditions such as sobriety. California might have to get on board with that agenda, or risk losing federal funds.

While few California Democrats are supportive of anything Trump does, the continued prevalence of encampments on the streets has convinced some that the state should change its tactics.

“We need to break the logjam of the dogma that says that only permanent housing is acceptable,” said Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas. “Because what we’re de facto saying is that people are going to stay on the streets until we’ve built enough permanent housing or market-rate housing, and neither is on track to meet the need anywhere in the near term.”

But that push has some service providers worried that, in an environment where homelessness funding keeps getting cut, focusing on sober housing and temporary housing will mean less money for the permanent housing that ends people’s homelessness.

“The current trend shifts away from solving the actual lack of a home and focuses on some people’s associated issues,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination Home.

The debate over sober, temporary, or permanent housing doesn’t address the underlying income inequality that causes many Californians to lose housing in the first place and prevents their being able to afford housing afterward.

The deal with sober housing

California has required state-funded homeless housing be “housing first” since 2016, meaning it gets people into a permanent home as quickly as possible without forcing them to jump through additional hoops. The idea is that once someone is safely housed, it becomes much easier for them to get sober, find a job or take care of other issues.

Haney argues the model prevented the state from funding sober housing, which he said could be lifesaving for people who are overcoming an addiction and don’t want to live next to neighbors using drugs.

The new state guidance says sober housing can be housing first, if it’s done right. It must be the client’s choice to get sober and live in recovery housing, and they must have other local options that don’t require sobriety. In addition, sober housing providers can’t evict someone for relapsing. If a client decides they no longer want to live in sober housing, the provider must connect them to another housing option.

The guidance is more permissive than Haney’s bill. While the bill would have capped state funding on sober housing at 10%, the state guidance has no limit. But Haney worries it’s too strict in other ways. If housing providers can’t evict someone for using drugs or alcohol, they can’t run effective sober housing, Haney said.

“There are some questions as to whether anyone is actually going to step up and do this under the guidelines as written,” he said.

The state guidelines come with no money to open new sober housing beds.

Without extra funding, as more money goes to sober housing, that means less money for low-barrier housing, said Loving, who worries that shift will move the state backward. Sober housing and drug testing were the norm in the 1980s and 1990s, but people still overdosed in those environments, she said.

“Drugs were always present, even in sober living environments,” Loving said. “And that did not increase our housing outcomes. What increased our housing outcomes was the availability of actual houses for people to transition into.”

Temporary or permanent housing?

Several dozen California legislators, city housing workers and nonprofit providers traveled to Texas last month to visit a massive homeless shelter in San Antonio. Haven for Hope fits about 1,500 people on one 22-acre campus — meaning that almost anyone in the city who wants to can sleep indoors. Most of those people are required to stay sober in order to keep their spot, and healthcare, counseling and other services are offered on site.

That program is a sharp contrast from the “discouraging results” of California’s homelessness strategy, said Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose who went on the trip. He’s frustrated with what he sees as California’s neglect of temporary shelter. New programs such as Newsom’s Homekey only fund permanent housing. So did the Measure A affordable housing bond in Santa Clara County.

Long-term housing is the only way to resolve someone’s homelessness, which is why it has been the gold standard in the state. But it can take years to build, and voters aren’t always patient.

“If you push all your chips to the middle of the table on permanent supportive housing, you start to lose your constituency because constituents are coming by in their cars every day and seeing more tents and more illegal encampments,” Cortese said. “And their thought process is, ‘I thought we just put a billion dollars into eradicating homelessness. What’s going on? Why is it getting worse?’”

An illustration is displayed at The Salvation Army Silicon Valley groundbreaking ceremony for their HOPE Community Safe and Sober Overnight and Transitional Housing program in San Jose on Nov. 3, 2025.

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Nhat V. Meyer

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Bay Area News Group

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Land is scarce and expensive in California, which would make it hard to replicate a shelter as large as Haven for Hope. But city staff in San Jose are looking into whether some version of it can be done there, said Housing Director Erik Soliván, who was on the Texas trip.

While it may seem unusual for the Golden State to look to Texas in search of advice on social services, Californians have been awed by Haven for Hope for years. CalMatters wrote about the phenomenon in 2023.

The Texas shelter has made some changes since then. About 1,600 people slept in the shelter in 2023, and the facility served 85% of the city’s homeless population.

But even that giant facility couldn’t hold everyone. The space was overcrowded, with hundreds of people sleeping on the floor on mats inches apart. Haven for Hope had to pause enrollments and put new rules in place to limit who can come in. In the last fiscal year, the population was down to an average of 1,453 people per night. About 60% of those are in a program that regularly conducts drug and breathalyzer tests.

California will have to do more to embrace that style of shelter if it doesn’t want to get left behind by the federal administration, said Elizabeth Funk, founder and CEO of shelter provider DignityMoves, who went on the Texas trip.

The Trump administration appears poised to divert money away from permanent housing and into temporary housing that comes with sobriety and other requirements. But we won’t know the extent of that change until the government shutdown ends.

“The federal government is going to come down with a bunch of money for things that don’t allow drug use,” Funk said, “and that needs to fit in our system.”

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

Take accountability and move forward.

Those were the two points Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore hit repeatedly when speaking with LAist’s Larry Mantle this week.

On taking accountability, Moore said hazardous conditions and decisions made before the Palisades Fire erupted a year ago meant “our firefighters never had a chance” to arrest the fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

On moving forward, he emphasized that reform is already in the works.

“Things have changed since the Palisades Fire, and we're going to continue making big changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Moore, who was selected for the LAFD top job by Mayor Karen Bass in November.

Here are three takeaways from the interview, which aired on AirTalk on Tuesday.

1. Staffing decisions hampered fire response

The LAFD uses a so-called pre-deployment matrix to set firefighter staffing levels ahead of high-risk weather.

According to the department’s after-action report, however, staffing levels on the day the Palisades Fire began fell short of the LAFD standard for extreme weather conditions. The National Weather Service had warned of low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation, what it calls a “particularly dangerous situation.” It’s the highest level of alert the agency can give.

Despite the high risk, the LAFD report said the decision not to deploy more firefighters in advance was in part made to save money.

Moore said Monday that the department has updated its policies to increase staffing for especially hazardous conditions, but he said he doesn’t believe additional resources would have stopped a fire of the magnitude that leveled the Palisades.

To suppress that kind of fire, he said, the department would need to pre-deploy resources across the city’s vast geography — to places like Baldwin Hills, Franklin Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, the Palisades, Porter Ranch and Sunland-Tujunga.

Moore said the department has already made new policies to call for more resources when the Weather Service issues a “particularly dangerous situation” alert.

2. LAFD is mostly an urban firefighting department

Moore referenced a key finding of the after-action report regarding a lack of training in wildland firefighting, which contributed to confusion and struggles to effectively utilize resources during the fire.

Wildland fires pose a number of challenges that are different from what firefighters face in urban environments. Those include the need to coordinate a large number of resources over vast areas, all while dealing with fast-moving flames that can rapidly tear through dry plants and structures.

The department found in its report that fewer firefighters were trained in fighting these wildland fires in recent years and that “leaders struggled to comprehend their roles.”

Some leaders in the department had “limited or no experience in managing an incident of such complexity,” the report said. And some reverted to doing the work of lower positions, leaving high-level decision-making positions unfilled.

“What we're doing now is really furthering that training and reinforcing that education with our firefighters so that they could be better prepared,” Moore said on AirTalk.

3. Changes to the after-action report

Early versions of the after-action report differed from the version released to the public in October, a fact that was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Times also reported that Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who wrote the report, wouldn’t endorse the final version because of the changes.

Moore acknowledged to the L.A. Board of Fire Commissioners at a Jan. 6 meeting that the report had been watered down.

“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore told the commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief, and I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief."

Some changes were small but telling. A section titled “Failures” later became “Primary Challenges.”

Moore told LAist that changes between versions “ made it easier for the public to understand,” but an LAist review found the edits weren’t all surface-level.

In the first version of the report, the department said the decision not to fully pre-deploy all available resources for the particularly dangerous wind event “did not align” with their guidelines for such extreme weather cases. The final version said that the initial response “lacked the appropriate resources,” removing the reference to department standards.

The department also removed some findings that had to do with communications.

One sentence from the initial version of the report said: “Most companies lacked a basic briefing, leader’s intent, communications plan, or updated fire information for more than 36 hours.” That language was removed from the final report.

LAist has asked the Fire Department for clarification about why these assertions were removed but did not receive a response before time of publication.

Olympic organizers announced Tuesday that registration to buy tickets will run through March 18, with sales beginning in April. LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said that locals will get the first bite at the apple.

The registration period opens 7 a.m. Wednesday.

" Our host city communities here in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to be a part of a local presale," Hoover said outside the Coliseum while surrounded by Olympic athletes from Games past. "With our thanks and as part of our commitment to making sure that those who live and work around the games, where the games will take place, can be in the stands and cheer in 2028."

Olympic organizers also provided more details on ticket prices for the first time. One million tickets will sell for $28 a pop and around a third of tickets will be under $100, according to LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman.

That means the majority of tickets to the Olympic Games will run into triple digits. If the World Cup is any indication, some tickets could get astronomically pricey.

Interested fans can go to LA28.org to register. Those who are selected will get an email with a time slot to purchase tickets.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors took a step toward banning ICE from unlawfully operating on county-owned property and to post signage designating those spaces as “ICE Free Zones.”

The board unanimously approved the motion at Tuesday’s meeting, directing staff to draft the policy.

The draft could include requirements for county employees to report to their supervisor if they see unauthorized immigration activity on county property.

The city of Los Angeles passed a similar order last July, which strengthened protocols that prohibit ICE from operating on city-owned property. The agenda staff report points to an “ICE Free Zone” ordinance passed by the city of Chicago in October.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis co-authored the motion.

Horvath said the county will not allow its property to be used as “a staging ground for violence caused by the Trump administration."

Solis added that their action as a board could have a ripple effect on other city councils and local governments.

“Even though it's taken us this long to get here …I think it's really important for our communities to understand what we're saying is you don't have the right to come in and harass people without a federal warrant,” Solis said. “And if you use our property to stage, then you need to show us documentation as to why.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in an X post that the county cannot exclude federal agents from public spaces.

"Anyone who attempts to impede our agents will be arrested and charged, including county employees," Essayli said in the post. "We have already charged more than 100 individuals for similar conduct."

Since June, ICE raids have ramped up across the nation, heavily targeting certain immigrant communities like those in Los Angeles.

The motion directs the draft to include language that prohibits all types of ICE operations on county land, including staging and mobilizing without a warrant.

The motion cites an incident on Oct. 8, when county officials say federal agents raided the Deane Dana Friendship Park and Nature Center in San Pedro, arresting three people and threatening to arrest staff.

The motion also requires that the county post 'Ice Free Zone' signage on all of its properties.

Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, told LAist the policy is enforceable under Fourth Amendment case law.

“You have to make sure that when you post that signage … that means that you routinely, or semi-routinely, assess who's coming in to the property, so that you can control access,” Perez said. “But if ICE shows up with a warrant, with a subpoena, then all bets are off, and they can enter into the property and do what they need to do.”

Perez said the county has moved “incredibly” slow on this issue.

“It's embarrassing that the county is moving six months later, given how we've been facing violent, aggressive, invasive and illegal raids now for so long here in Southern California,” Perez said, adding that local governments have not been fast or creative enough in protecting immigrant and refugee communities.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of the region’s largest immigrant advocacy groups, supports the motion.

"We do not want our county resources being used for federal immigration enforcement activities, which disrupt, uproot, and terrorize our communities,” Jeannette Zanipatin, policy director for CHIRLA, said in a statement. “It is important for all public spaces to be really safe for all residents.”

County staff have 30 days to draft a plan to implement the new policy.