The Brief

The Trump administration is upending its homelessness policy, with deep cuts to funding for long-term housing. Instead, it will shift money toward transitional housing that requires work and addiction treatment.

In a statement, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the new policies will "restore accountability" and promote "self-sufficiency" by addressing the "root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness."

Critics warn the major overhaul could put 170,000 people at risk of losing their housing again. And they say the timing of this major overhaul is terrible. Normally, funding notices go out in August, but now programs around the country will have little time to start applying for new funding in January. And in many places, it will leave a months-long gap after current funding runs out and before new money flows.

In another change, HUD will no longer automatically renew existing programs — creating the possibility that formerly homeless people who've lived in subsidized housing for years will be forced out. The agency is also opening up more funding for faith-based groups.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the new policies could upend life for many people who've found stability in permanent housing programs. "HUD's new funding priorities slam the door on them, their providers, and their communities. Make no mistake: homelessness will only increase because of this reckless and irresponsible decision," CEO Ann Oliva said in a statement.

The funding shift reflects a conservative backlash to longstanding policies

For two decades, federal funding has prioritized getting people into permanent housing and then offering them treatment. That policy is called Housing First and has long had bipartisan support. Backers say the approach has a proven track record of keeping people off the streets.

But critics counter that it has failed to stem the steady rise of homelessness to what are now historic levels.

Those critics include President Trump, who has long pushed cities to clear homeless encampments from streets and parks. The new funding shift reflects an executive order he signed in July , which also sought to make it easier to confine unhoused people in mental institutions against their will.

"The influence of Housing First just became too powerful," says Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank. He calls it a top-down approach, and says for years it was hard to get funding unless a program followed that policy. Eide says that left out a large group of people who may not need permanent housing or who may want the enforced sobriety it does not offer.

"I think what we're going to be looking for is a reinvestment in transitional housing," he says. That means places people can stay for 18 months or so to get sober or recover in other ways, and then — ideally — move out and succeed on their own.

There's broad agreement that the U.S. needs more of every kind of support for homeless people: permanent housing, rehab and mental illness treatment. But critics of HUD's shift fear this may make it harder for some to get help.

"It is moving away from trauma-informed care, and that's problematic," says Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president and CEO of LA Family Housing in Los Angeles.

For example, she thinks this will lead more shelters to bar people unless they're already sober or enrolled in recovery or mental health care. But that's a high bar for many people, she says, and it could backfire.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Fans tired of waiting for the next Frozen sequel or the next chapter in the Star Wars saga may soon have new ways to engage with those worlds — by creating their own content using Disney's IP.

That was the tantalizing hint Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped during an earnings call Thursday, as he described how the company is exploring ways to make the Disney+ subscription-based streaming service more interactive, and customizable for users.

While Iger stopped short of making any formal announcements, he suggested Disney is in discussions with artificial intelligence companies about tools that could allow subscribers to generate and share their own content built from Disney-owned stories.

"AI is going to give us the ability to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content," Iger said.

Disney+ declined to offer additional details about what form these new creative tools might take or which tech companies were involved in the negotiations. Meanwhile, AI remains a concern in many parts of the entertainment industry, with many companies including Disney engaged in lawsuits against AI players for copyright infringement.

Iger acknowledged this tension. On the earnings call, the CEO said the company's conversations with potential AI partners are focused on enabling new forms of fan engagement and guarding against uses that could dilute or misuse Disney IP.

"It's obviously imperative for us to protect our IP with this new technology," Iger said.

The trend towards increased interactivity 

Disney isn't alone in trying to rethink the boundaries between audiences and the entertainment they consume.

At the recent TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Netflix's chief technology officer, Elizabeth Stone, offered her own look at a future shaped by deeper user engagement.

"The future of entertainment is likely to be even more personalized, even more interactive, even more immersive," Stone said during an on-stage conversation with TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos.

In addition to games and social media videos, one of Netflix's most talked-about experiments in this direction arrives next year: Stone said viewers of the classic talent competition Star Search reboot will be able to cast votes directly from their TVs or phones, influencing which contestants advance – or do not.

Younger audiences and deal-making climate drive quest for interactivity

This engagement layer sits on top of Netflix's vast library of films and TV series. But platform leaders increasingly see passive watching as only part of the picture.

Younger audiences, especially Gen Z, are gravitating toward spaces where they can participate, remix and respond rather than simply watch. According to Deloitte's 2025 Digital Media Trends survey , more than half of Gen Z respondents say social media content feels more relevant to them than traditional TV shows and movies. The research also points to the growing popularity of indie creators, and a change in consumer expectations around quality: Content doesn't always have to be polished to be extremely popular, as some of the most-watched feeds on YouTube and TikTok prove.

At the same time, despite ongoing litigation, entertainment corporations are starting to get comfortable with the idea of licensing content to AI companies. One of the most high-profile in recent weeks is the licensing partnership between Universal Music Group and the AI music creation platform Udio.

"It shows that the AI companies can work with the creative community to come up with models that work for both of them," Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid told NPR regarding this particular deal. "And I think we're going to start seeing more and more deals come through because they realize they can do this and do it the right way."

Copyright 2025 NPR

President Donald Trump says he is going to "make America affordable again." It's a pledge he made frequently during the campaign. And now, after dropping it from his lexicon for more than eight months, he's saying it again as polls show voters rank the economy and cost of living as their top concern and blame Trump's policies for making things worse.

A senior administration official tells NPR Trump will soon travel around the country with a message that while some things have improved, there is more work to do to help people feeling economic strain. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, added that when it comes to affordability, "there's no finish line."

Thus far, Trump has spent far more time boasting about how great the economy and stock market are doing than acknowledging any economic anxiety.

"Record high, record high, record high," Trump said of the stock market last week at a business event in Florida.

"Costs are way down," Trump said at a late night signing ceremony in the Oval Office Wednesday. "My administration and our partners in Congress will continue our work to lower the cost of living, restore public safety, grow our economy and make America affordable again for all Americans."

Trump's affordability challenge marks a dramatic reversal of fortune for a president who returned to office on a promise to bring costs down and whose greatest political strength was on the economy. Now his approval rating on the economy is severely underwater.

After sweeping wins by Democrats in last week's elections where the cost-of-living was a key issue, Trump suddenly had a lot to say about "affordability." But he has frequently come across as dismissive and defensive.

"The affordability is much better with the Republicans," Trump said last week. "The only problem is the Republicans don't talk about it, and Republicans should start talking about it and use their heads."

But earlier this week when Fox News' Laura Ingraham pressed Trump on rising costs of things like coffee and ground beef, he called it a "con job by the Democrats."

Asked why people are anxious about the economy, Trump responded by questioning whether people really are saying that.

"I think polls are fake," Trump said. "We have the greatest economy we've ever had."

To support his positive outlook, Trump points to the booming stock market, his tariff policy and pledges by companies and countries to invest in the U.S.

Inflation this year has been persistent but not dramatic, at about 3%. Eggs have gotten cheaper since Trump took office, but other staples like ground beef and coffee are up. According to Gas Buddy , the average price of gasoline in the U.S. is $3.09 per gallon, slightly higher than this time last year.

"Consumer confidence is the lowest it's ever been," said Jason Furman, a professor of economics at Harvard. "People are really negative about inflation."

It's a political truth — and a pitfall for presidents — that people don't want to hear that everything is awesome if they are struggling.

Furman, who served in the Obama administration, says the messaging team in that White House was very cautious not to brag about the economy, as the nation emerged from the Great Recession.

"Because they thought anything we said positive about the economy risked people thinking President Obama was out of touch," said Furman. "I didn't see that type of reserve when Biden was president. He bragged about it quite a lot, and I think that [rang] hollow with a lot of people. And President Trump is even less reserved about his bragging."

Trump's insistence that the economy is great earned him a rebuke from Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Appearing on the Sean Spicer Show on YouTube , Greene said she gives Trump credit for holding inflation steady.

"But that doesn't bring prices down," said Greene. "And so gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping. It's actually infuriating people because people know what they are paying at the grocery store, they know what they're paying for their kid's clothes and school supplies. They know what they're paying for their electricity bills."

She called for compassion rather than lecturing.

Former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore says there are three major cost issues that have to be addressed: grocery prices, home prices and health care costs.

"It is true factually that the average family has more purchasing power today than they did when Biden left office," said Moore. "And yet people don't feel it. You know, they're not feeling the love. And I can't explain why that is except that people tend to focus on things where their prices are rising."

In fact, purchasing power also grew during the Biden administration, because wages rose faster than costs. But voters didn't want to hear it then, and they are in no mood to hear it now.

"People are kind of in a crabby mood right now when it comes to the economy," said Moore.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Maria Mendez walks her little white dog, named Peluche, on a wide dirt path in the city of South Gate’s newest park.

“Me gusta mucho el parque porque tenemos este sembradío de aguacates, limones y venimos a hacer ejercicio en las mañanas,” she said. She loves it for the avocado and citrus trees, and because she can exercise in the mornings, she said.

The park has sycamores and oaks too, a small wetland, a playground and throughout, winding walking paths. Mendez said she and Peluche come here most days. It’s convenient because the park is right next door to the mobile home park for seniors where she lives.

South Gate resident Maria Mendez and her dog, Peluche, walk the paths of the Urban Orchard every day.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

This park, though, is in a bit of an odd location.

“If you look around, you'll see you are in between the 710 Freeway and the L.A. River,” said Steve Costley, the city of South Gate’s director of Parks and Recreation. “Not a natural space to think, ‘Hey, let's go plant a park.’”

The park is called the Urban Orchard — 7 acres of renovated city-owned land sandwiched between the freeway and the river. To get there, you have to wind through industrial businesses. The din of the freeway is constant.

But under the new trees and next to the engineered creek and wetland, there’s the sound of birds and water.

Urban Orchard Park officially opened this summer — a brand new green space for the city and Southeast L.A. as a whole. Two other newly renovated parks also opened this year in South Gate.

So how did the small city do it?

A need for more green

South Gate is home to about 100,000 people, 95% of whom identify as Latino, according to census data. The average household income is less than $75,000 a year. And city residents have some of the least access to nearby nature — just 3% of the city’s land is made up of parks, one-fifth the national average, according to data analyzed by the nonprofit Trust for Public Land .

“We're one of the very high-needs cities in all of L.A. County that doesn't have enough park space,” Costley said. 

Lower income communities of color across the region and the country have disproportionately less access to green space than wealthier, whiter communities.

The constructed wetland at Urban Orchard Park is fed by stormwater from the L.A. River and helps filtrate and clean that water to irrigate the park.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

The new Urban Orchard Park in South Gate is sandwiched between the 710 Freeway and L.A. River.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

“Parks are what we love. Parks are what I think people need. I think parks make a city into a community,” Costley said.

Parks can also boost life expectancy , improve air quality and cool neighborhoods as climate change makes heat waves worse . The Urban Orchard will go even further, helping to address food insecurity as well.

Though the city is still working out the details, a grove of 200 citrus trees, along with vegetable beds and an avocado orchard, will be a source of fresh produce for seniors living in the mobile home park next door.

Dayana Molina, community organizer with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which helped fund and design the new Urban Orchard Park.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

“We were really trying to address and bring the vision of the community through this process,” said Dayana Molina, a community organizer with the Trust for Public Land, which helped design and fund the new park. “So we heard about food insecurity. We heard about not enough shade.”

Not only is the Urban Orchard adding green space where it’s badly needed, but it will also recycle stormwater. The 1-acre constructed wetland cleans runoff from the L.A. River and stores water in a large reservoir the city built under the citrus orchard, providing 70% of the park’s irrigation.

Any overflow will return to the river channel, cleaner than before. Eventually, the hope is that native fish can be introduced to the park’s wetland and streams.

“This is not just a South Gate park, it's really a regional project that is bringing benefits to the whole region,” Molina said.

Residents — and wildlife — are already benefiting.

Dale De Julio, a retired truck driver who lives next door to the Urban Orchard, now walks there every day and loves to observe the birds.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

Retired truck driver Dale De Julio lives in the mobile home park next door to the new Urban Orchard. He remembers when the land was an empty dirt lot. He never used to go for walks near his home. Now, De Julio walks the park every day.

“ This has given me an incentive to get out and walk around,” De Julio said. “I need that now that I'm retired.”

He said after years of driving trucks all over the country, seeing countless sights but never having the time to stop and appreciate them, the park is a place he can finally do that.

Just the other day, he said, he even saw a blue heron, a bird he’d never seen in the area before.

How to build a new park

Limited space, expensive land, historic pollution, lack of funding, permitting, other red tape — there are many obstacles to building a new park in Southern California.

The Urban Orchard was no exception, and the process was not cheap or quick. The park ultimately cost more than $31 million and took more than 10 years to complete.

The funding all came through state, county and federal grants, as well as private donors. The project came to fruition via multiple partnerships between the city and the private and nonprofit sectors.

“ South Gate is not a rich community. We don't generate that much revenue on our own, so we're very reliant on partnerships,” said Vice Mayor Joshua Barron.

UCLA research has found that public-private partnerships are essential to the success of greening projects such as the Urban Orchard.

“This really requires, as the proverbial saying goes, a village,” said UCLA professor Jon Christensen, who led that research and studies equitable access to green space.

The Urban Orchard, he added, “is a real testament to the dedication and persistence and creativity that is required to build new parks in Los Angeles.”

That creativity included cobbling together funding from a variety of sources, including $3 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, nearly $8 million from the State Water Resources Control Board, more than $4 million from the state’s Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, nearly $7 million from local Measure W funds, $5 million from Caltrans, Proposition 68 funds, more than $700,000 from the Conservation Corps of Long Beach, and private donations.

Joy Chancellor, 19, of South L.A. plants lettuce in one of the vegetable gardens at the Urban Orchard in South Gate. She's a corpsmember with the Long Beach Conservation Corps, which will maintain the park for its first three years while training young people in environmental jobs.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

The first three years of maintenance will be carried out by the Long Beach Conservation Corps, training young people from the area in environmental jobs. The city will have to find a way to pick up the maintenance tab after that.

“It was not a smooth process. It never is when we have complicated pieces of land adjacent to the L.A. River,” said Nola Eaglin Talmage, the Trust for Public Land’s Parks for People program director. “We've got all kinds of different public funding streams, all with different timelines, all with different requirements.”

Eaglin Talmage said a new county motion brought by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath could help streamline the process. And state efforts such as Proposition 4 are also essential to making these types of efforts possible, especially as federal funds for environmental projects dry up under the Trump administration.

“The passing of Prop. 4 is one of the reasons why we'll be able to continue to build green space in Los Angeles,” Eaglin Talmage said.

A bigger reform idea

Places to sit and enjoy nature in the new Urban Orchard Park in South Gate.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

South Gate Vice Mayor Barron said there’s another way for small cities to have an easier time building projects that benefit the public — updating outdated tax revenue laws.

“Last year, our residents and businesses paid over $80 million in property taxes, but yet the city of South Gate was only allocated about $5 million of that,” Barron said.

Currently, South Gate receives just 6.14% of property tax revenue collected within the city — a percentage set in 1978 through Proposition 13. After Proposition 13, the state created a formula to divide that tax among counties, cities, schools and special districts, with each city’s share based on its pre-1978 property tax base – a formula that still governs allocations today and mostly benefits wealthier cities with higher property values. That hurts cities like his, Barron said.

Only the state legislature can update that formula, something Barron is pushing for.

“One of the things that I really wish that we could look at is helping cities like South Gate, like Bell, like Cudahy, Maywood — the Southeast L.A. region — be a little bit more self-sustainable,” Barron said.

“All we're asking,” he added, “is to be able to be self-sustainable and not have to always rely on grant money to be able to get projects off the ground.”

I am standing in front of a homespun food cart on a dusty side street next to a strip mall in Rowland Heights, the sun beating down from high up, watching as the proprietor makes circles with a millet and mung bean batter on a big round griddle.

“We got everything from China,” says Cong cong Li, referring to that heavy duty piece of cookware, with two gas-powered burners running underneath. Way back in the day, Li says, people used wood fire to make the street snack she's making now.

Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes, selling $10 made-to-order street snack in Rowland Heights.

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)

She cracks a couple of eggs over the thin, now crispy layer of batter, which Li says they grind with a stone mill themselves at home. Then a sprinkle of black sesames. Next come the scallions. Then the deep-fried dumpling skin. Li finishes my order off with the requisite sweet bean sauce.

She scoops the scalding hot Chinese crepe right off the griddle into a bag – so fresh it burns to the touch – just like the very first time I had jianbing guozi.

The first bite

It isn’t everyday I get to see this traditional Chinese snack made right in front of me. In fact, the first – and last – time was some 20 years ago when I was leaving Beijing.

Literally, leaving after spending months in the country. To mark the occasion, I decided to take a series of public buses to the airport, an idea that quickly became less cute when I got off at the final stop – and the airport was nowhere in sight.

I dragged my luggage and sheepishly followed the handful of people also hauling bags on a long, long trek to close that last stretch, the sun beating down from high up.

That was when I spotted a homemade food cart selling a kind of a wrap I'd never had before on the side of the road.

Hungry, tired and feeling more than a little lost, I watched as the proprietor made circles with the batter, cracked eggs over it, then drowned it in sauces and herbs.

One bite – a mouthful of soft, crispy, earthy flavors – was all it took. I am no foodie but it was the best food I had ever had in my life.

Ever since, I have been searching for that same taste in the San Gabriel Valley.

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)

Crepe-making, Chinese street food style, in Rowland Heights

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)

The SGV crepe cart

Li and her husband have operated their Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes cart near the intersection of Jellick Avenue and Colima Road in Rowland Heights for more than two years, working daily from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Before, Li said they were making Chinese crepes at different night markets and festivals around the San Gabriel Valley. Eventually, they struck out on their own for a simple reason.

“We have to feed our family,” Li says, laughing, in Mandarin.

The crepe, jianbing guozi (煎饼果子) in Chinese, is a common street food in the couple’s hometown of Shandong Province. The traditional breakfast snack is said to hail from the city of Tianjin, a little further north. An exact date isn’t known; many sources cite the year 1933 as the first time it was mentioned in a newspaper, but its existence most likely predated that reference by centuries.

Li says jianbing guozi is common now in many areas across China – customized according to local taste – and of course the snack inevitably travelled well beyond the country.

Cong cong Li at the Chinese crepe food cart she and her husband started in Rowland Heights.

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)

The search

I didn’t learn its Chinese name until several years after I returned to L.A. and that knowledge set me off on a quest of sorts. The San Gabriel Valley, I figured, has got to have it, right?

It wasn’t one of those epic, exhaustive, obsessive searches , but I always did keep an eye out. Internet searches turned up nothing for many years, and friends also drew blanks.

But by the late 2000s, I noticed the snack creeping up in reviews at this or that restaurant. Now it’s found in many more places. There’s even an entire shop, Me + Crêpe , dedicated to that single dish in Pasadena. Last time I had it was at Tai Chi Cuisine in Irvine, recommended by a Chinese foodie. It was great, but the decorum of being served at a restaurant was ... different.

The discovery

The finished product.

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)

Fast forward to a week ago. I spotted on Instagram a food cart with a big griddle, tossing me back to that fuzzy, serendipitous day in Beijing. I had to go check it out.

And on this weekday early afternoon in Rowland Heights, the vibe is right — pure street food culture. Customers drive up or dash from their parked cars to put in an order – some biting into the steaming hot wrap right away. When their stand first opened, Li says the majority of their customers were Chinese. Now it's more evened out, as word spreads.

Which is how Angel Cueva found the spot, driving from Whittier after seeing a video on social spotlighting the operation.

“ I don't know, maybe just the cart, the preparation, just looked like it had a lot of good stuff in it, Cueva says. “ When I seen this, I was like, I got to try this.”

Cueva was on the go and said he’d eat it in his car. He texted me later to say he loved the crepe. I took that message to Li.

She says when her family first came to the U.S. more than a decade ago, it was impossible to find authentic jianbing – the way it was made in their hometown. That prompted her husband to come up with a recipe, which he taught Li.

“While supporting our family, we want to promote Chinese food culture,” Li says. “The delicacy has hundreds of years of history. It’s a testament to the wisdom of our ancestors.”

A list of ingredients for the Chinese crepes sold at Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes in Rowland Heights.

(

Fiona Ng

/

LAist

)