The Brief

More than 13,000 years ago, when an abundance of saber-toothed cats roamed the Los Angeles Basin, the giant mammal would hide in tall savanna grasses or behind juniper shrubs and stalk its prey.

“We think they were probably ambush predators,” says Emily Lindsey, associate curator and excavation site director at the La Brea Tar Pits museum and paleontology research site.

When it spotted its target — horses, camels, mammoths or other large animals known as megafauna — it would use its powerful forearms to leap out and pin down its prey.

Then, using its 8-inch-long curved canines — serrated like a steak knife — it would slice through a vein and let the animal bleed out.

“All of that information is based on research here because we have this incredible collection of more than 2,000 saber-toothed cats,” Lindsey says. “It’s really rare that we have the whole record. You don't usually get that in paleontology.”

L.A.'s climate past and future

The La Brea Tar Pits — home to more than 3.5 million Ice Age fossils — is one of the planet’s best-kept records of what it was like in the area we now know as Southern California over the last 60,000 years. It’s also the world’s only active urban fossil dig site.

Fossils found in the asphalt help paint the picture of the life that once flourished here during the Ice Age: saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, dire wolves, grizzly bears, bison as well as juniper and oak trees.

Emily Lindsey, an assistant curator at the LA Brea Tar Pits, places a fossil inside the fossil collection room.

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But it's not just telling the story of the region’s past. This collection of Ice Age fossils also helps scientists understand what led to the most massive extinction of megaspecies on Earth since dinosaurs, when droves of large mammals suddenly died as extreme heat, drought and large-scale wildfires overwhelmed the region.

And as we endure another period of significant environmental change, these fossils also offer a window into the future.

“There was this ‘ah ha’ moment for paleontologists,” Lindsey says. “We said: ‘Oh wait, we have a really unique insight on that story because we can actually look at these different windows of different habitats from different times and see how they respond to climate change in real time.”

It’s part of a growing field called paleoecology, which aims to use the knowledge of prehistoric ecosystems that fossils yield to predict how plants and animals will respond to environmental events now and in the future.

“The fact that we have particular species of plants, or insects, or birds, or rodents can tell us a lot about how hot or cold it was, how wet or dry it was, and how that environment changed through time,” Lindsey says.

This link between the end of the Ice Age and the global warming we’re experiencing now is a focus of the ongoing research at the Tar Pits. Particularly, scientists seek to use fossil data to make decisions about how to preserve biodiversity today.

“You can only get that by looking at the fossil record,” Lindsey says.

The tar pits

About 1,000 feet beneath the metropolis of L.A. sits the Salt Lake Oil Field.
(The Los Angeles Basin is the richest in terms of oil by unit volume on earth). That, paired with the abundance of earthquakes in the region, which create cracks and chasms in the earth, paves the way for the tar pits.

Tar pits — sticky, shallow pools of asphalt that seep up through cracks and fissures in the ground — are essentially naturally occurring preservation deposits. The asphalt is so sticky that when animals stepped into it — even enormous ones like the now extinct pre-Columbian mammoth — they got trapped and couldn't get out.

Inside Tar Pit 91, where research is currently being done.

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The result? Meticulously preserved fossils that have been embalmed in asphalt for tens of thousands of years without exposure to air.

“So we get phenomenal preservation not just of bones, but of leaves and wood, insects and shells,” Lindsey says. “That’s what’s allowed us to build up the richest record of Ice Age life anywhere.”

Researchers examine fossils discovered in the tar pits.

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Using the fossil record to inform conservation decisions

Studies from Tar Pits researchers suggest extreme heat, drought and large-scale wildfires might be at the root of the last major extinction event.

Last year, a study published by researchers there found that large-scale wildfires — possibly started by humans — wiped out many of the large Ice Age mammals. The research broke new ground in an ongoing scientific debate over what triggered the Earth’s last major extinction event.

It adds more evidence to the growing understanding that extreme heat, drought and wildfires can drastically change habitats, leading to species extinction.

“This is just one example of how we can use fossil data to inform conservation and land management decisions today,” Lindsey says.

In an ongoing partnership with the Nature Conservancy, La Brea Tar Pits is now developing a practitioner's guide for land managers, mapping out ways to use fossil data in environmental decision making.

“In other words: How do you use historical and paleontological data to help inform conservation and restoration work in urban areas?” Lindsey says. “This will help address that.”

"When planning for these types of projects, The Nature Conservancy sets goals using information from a variety of sources," says Sophie Parker, director of science for climate and land use at The Nature Conservancy. "Knowing what was present at a site at multiple timepoints in the past, including the more distant past, is useful because it gives us a broader perspective on how to craft our goals."

Asphalt can be observed flowing from the gated tar pits, allowing visitors to witness the phenomenon.

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The Tar Pits also dedicates a small section of the park as the “Pleistocene Garden,” which contains plants that grew at La Brea at different times in history found in the fossil record. With plans for a major re-landscaping of the park currently in the works, there is a focus to significantly expand plants in line with the paleontological science on the grounds.

“It’s a way to viscerally communicate that story but also bring back some of those plants and serve as seed banks and help support urban nature,” Lindsey says.

Sharing the climate story

Beyond the rich scientific research backed by tens of thousands of years of fossil data, Lindsey says the most important part of the work they do at this critical environmental moment is public education.

By presenting current climate research alongside Ice Age fossil data, the hope is that it will drive a deeper understanding of our environmental crisis and emphasize a dire conclusion: then, as now, climate changes and human activities can intersect to drive large scale extinctions.

It's all laid out for the public to see in the La Brea Tar Pits museum and across its grounds.

“To have a place in the third biggest city in North America where people can see an entire scientific process," says Lindsey, "that’s another very powerful thing.”

Remains of mammoths can be seen at the La Brea Tar Pits.

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There is one notable, but perhaps hopeful, difference between then and now, Lindsey says.

The climate change that occurred at the end of the Ice Age 13,000 years ago was purely related to the earth’s orbital cycles.

Today, it’s 100% us.

“Meaning we completely have the ability to stop it if we want to,” Lindsey says. “It’s just a matter of political and societal will. I hope this helps people understand that small human actions could push the ecosystem to a tipping point.”

If you've ever found yourself in Santa Monica at dusk, cruising along the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard, there's a good chance the bright baby blue glow of Mel's Drive-In has caught your eye.

With its imposing, tuxedo-wearing penguin perched atop the neon sign, the iconic Southern California diner is a vivid example of mid-20th-century Googie-style architecture. It also marks the official terminus of historic Route 66, the famed roadway connecting Chicago to the Pacific Ocean, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

The history

The building dates back to 1959, when it housed the Penguin Coffee Shop, serving cheeseburgers and malts — hence the penguin sign — to hungry travelers. In 1991, it was converted into a more mundate dental office, until 2016, when the Weiss family — third-generation owners of the Mel's Drive-In diner chain founded in San Francisco — purchased and restored the property.

The original Mel's Drive-In, started by Mel Weiss in 1947, was one of the pioneers the American drive-in concept, offering carhop service where food orders were delivered directly to customers in their vehicles. The restaurant made a lasting impression on many, including director George Lucas, who featured it prominently in his 1973 film American Graffiti.

Colton and Chasen Weiss, grandsons of Mel, recall hearing from their grandfather that Lucas "was always a big Mel's fan" and asked to film there. Their grandfather was reluctant but agreed.

"It made Mel's famous and made him famous," Colton said, immediately cementing the restaurant's place in Southern California's cultural landscape. There are now Mel's Drive-In locations in Sherman Oaks and West Hollywood.

Googie explained

Architectural rendering of the Penguin Coffee Shop at Lincoln and Olympic boulevards by architects Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, September 8, 1959. The Weiss family used original plans to guide their restoration.

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The style is named after the Googie coffee shop designed by the same architects, Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, in downtown Los Angeles in 1949. Ruthann Lehrer, an architectural historian and member of the Santa Monica Conservancy, describes the style as featuring "dramatic cantilevered roofs and plate glass windows...designed to attract passing motorists."

Of the 4,000 buildings Armet and Davis designed with glowing neon and angular forms, only a handful survive, most notably Norm's in West Hollywood and Pann's in Westchester.

The Penguin Coffee Shop illuminated at night in the 1960s. The building's dramatic Googie architecture was designed to attract passing motorists with glowing neon and angular forms.

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The aesthetic echoed the era's car design. "If you look at an old '55 Chevy...those big tail fins...you get that same kind of look and feel as a Googie building," Colton explained.

"Los Angeles really wanted to be a city of the future," said Nina Fresco, also of the Conservancy. Googie was the city's playful answer, distinct from Route 66's roadside vernacular elsewhere.

The restoration

In 2016, after the dental office closed, the Weiss family bought the building. They'd known about the Penguin Cafe's history because they had often driven past the building and seen the penguin sign.

But after 25 years as a dental office, "the whole infrastructure of that building was not a restaurant anymore," Colton said, with super-low ceilings and white stucco walls. It wasn't until someone used a sledgehammer to break through the drywall that they uncovered the original rock facade, which he described as "like unearthing some ancient artifact."

Realizing what they had, the Weiss family enlisted the help of Googie experts and preservationists Adriene Biondo and Chris Nichols, who secured the original plans for the Penguin Coffee Shop. This allowed them to restore as much of the authentic design as possible, including the iconic ball-and-teardrop light fixtures in the dining area and the exterior landscaping.

The original Penguin Coffee Shop interior featured a dramatic rock facade and teardrop lighting fixtures. During restoration, the Weiss family discovered this rock wall hidden behind drywall, describing it as "like unearthing some ancient artifact.

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The restoration took two years. Upon opening in 2018, the restoration immediately drew attention from preservationists and the community, earning the Santa Monica Conservancy Historic Preservation Award in 2019.

According to Lehrer, Mel's is one of the only remaining Googie buildings in Santa Monica — what Fresco calls "the last bird standing" — as others have been demolished to make way for mixed-use development.

"So many locations are getting torn down...building high rises...it's losing a lot of its aesthetic. It's sad to see," Colton said. In Los Angeles, small-scale buildings face an uncertain fate as the land beneath them becomes increasingly valuable.

Full circle

The diner has since become known for its high-quality diner food, and as a photogenic stop for tourists taking selfies at the end of Route 66. When the Weiss family first arrived, there were no signs marking its unique location. The city installed them after Mel's opened — as if the official terminus had been waiting for the right destination. Now, through a partnership with the Route 66 Society, the diner hands out certificates of completion to road trippers who've made the journey from Chicago.

The interior of Mel's Drive-In features restored ball-shaped light fixtures and terrazzo floors that echo the original 1959 Penguin Coffee Shop design.

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Colton recalls a sunburned man in his 70s who'd driven the entire route in his 1960s Corvette Stingray, bucket list complete, beaming as he received his certificate. "It's a really special place, and it is special to me," Colton said. "So that definitely means it's special to everybody else."

That baby blue glow is still doing exactly what it was designed to do all those years ago: catching the eye of passing motorists.

A taxpayer-funded program that provides unhoused people with tents, meals, bathrooms and around-the-clock security in a South L.A. parking lot will close on Jan. 31, according to the nonprofit that operates it.

Urban Alchemy is terminating a $1.2 million contract with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to run the program through the current budget year, which ends in June.

The San Francisco-based nonprofit says it’s not getting enough funding under that agreement to keep the site open.

“The economics of the contract don’t work,” an Urban Alchemy representative told LAist. “It reached a point where we started losing money on it, and we had to make the decision about what’s best for our organization.”

The Lincoln Safe Sleep Village on South Central Avenue was one of only a handful of similar government-sanctioned tent encampments operating around the state.

Regional homelessness officials and a federal judge raised concerns about the Safe Sleep Village last year after observers found the site was operating at half capacity while the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, was paying it to operate at full capacity.

Urban Alchemy said a portion of the site was closed in 2024 because LAHSA and the city of L.A. instructed it to do so.

Now that the program is closing down entirely, city and LAHSA officials are scrambling to transfer remaining residents to other shelters.

People living at the site first learned of the impending evictions late last week, according to multiple residents interviewed by LAist. One of them, Miles Johnson, said he’d been living there with his girlfriend for 10 months.

“ We just got moved,” he said. “We just got put out. All our stuff is still in bags.”

LAHSA says it has been working to secure alternative shelter placements for 25 people who were living at the Safe Sleep Village.

Ahmad Chapman, a spokesperson for LAHSA, said the agency expects to make housing offers to all remaining participants before the closure.

The main entrance to the Lincoln Avenue Safe Sleep Village, located in a parking lot in South L.A.

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Residents displaced

The Lincoln Safe Sleep Village is located near the intersection of South Central Avenue and East 25th Street in a parking lot next to the historic Lincoln Theater. It’s in Councilmember Curren Price’s ninth district.

A South L.A. nonprofit called the Coalition for Responsible Community Development purchased the property in 2020 using state Project HomeKey funds. It has plans to build a 60-unit affordable housing complex there soon.

Price’s office told LAist this week that news of Urban Alchemy ending its contract to run the site came as a surprise.

“Until this recent news, our expectation was to transition any remaining residents by the end of this year,” Price’s communications director Angelina Valencia-Dumarot told LAist. “This sudden change disrupts that plan and creates uncertainty for unhoused neighbors currently at the site.”

On Tuesday afternoon, city of L.A. crisis response teams were transporting several residents and their belongings from the Safe Sleep Village to other nearby open shelter beds.

“They dumped me off at a place and I almost didn't get a bed,” James Rudy told LAist. “This was all last minute. I was afraid they were going to screw me.”

He said he was forced to throw away most of his clothing and belongings during the move. Rudy is now staying at a shelter 5 miles away called Testimonial Community Love Center, where clients are required to leave each day between 8:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., he said, adding that he preferred the tent village.

“The place we left wasn’t that bad.” Rudy said. “I was in a tent, but at least I was able to do what I needed to do. Here it’s not really practical.”

Tracy Wallace told LAist on Tuesday that her husband had been transported to another shelter, and she was waiting to reunite with him there.

“We're gonna be apart, not sleeping together,” she said. “Because one side is for men and the other side is for women, but that's still fine.”

Urban Alchemy said it was making former residents’ well-being a top priority. The organization estimated that, as of this Wednesday, there were seven residents still waiting on alternative placements.

“As we wind down our operations at this site, we appreciate the efforts underway to help guests move to safe, supportive places.” spokesperson Jess Montejano said in a statement.

Urban Alchemy told LAist that five of its 15 workers were laid off this week. Ten have been transferred to work in other Urban Alchemy projects, and the organization is working to connect the laid-off employees to other jobs, Urban Alchemy said.

The nonprofit bills itself as a social enterprise, hiring mostly formerly incarcerated people.

Some displaced residents from the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village were transported to alternative shelters on Tuesday.

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Cutting ties with LAHSA

LAHSA had contracted with Urban Alchemy to operate the Safe Sleep Village since 2022. Annual funding for the site was reduced from $2.3 million last budget year to $1.2 million this year.

The latter amount was supposed to pay for 46 tent spaces. But Urban Alchemy said the contract didn’t cover its fixed costs.

“We have to provide the staff no matter what, per the terms of the contract, whether it’s one person or 46,” an Urban Alchemy representative said. “We tried to work with [LAHSA] often, to try to find a way for it to pencil, and it just wasn’t the case.”

Urban Alchemy said LAHSA “arbitrarily changed its funding formula,” resulting in the nonprofit losing nearly $1 million on the contract.

The nonprofit first notified LAHSA on Dec. 22 that it planned to terminate the contract, both parties confirmed to LAist.

According to LAHSA payment records, Urban Alchemy spent about 69% of its budget on personnel for the 2022-23 budget year. Payroll records for February 2024 showed an average of eight staff members working at the site around-the-clock.

Last Thursday, one month after notifying LAHSA about the closure, Urban Alchemy’s director of operations in L.A. emailed city and LAHSA staff, demanding help rehousing residents.

“Given the urgency of the closure date, ongoing uncertainty places guests and frontline staff in an untenable position,” Tim Kornegay wrote in a Jan. 22 email. “Leadership action is critically needed now to prevent avoidable harm.”

The next day, LAHSA representatives told Urban Alchemy about a transfer plan for the people still living at that Safe Sleep site, the agency said.

Early this week, Mayor Karen Bass’s office and Price’s office told LAist they were aware of the situation and supported LAHSA’s work to prevent people from winding up with nowhere to go.

City of Los Angeles crisis teams helped transport residents to new shelter locations before the closure.

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A federal judge weighs in

Months before Urban Alchemy announced it would shut down the South L.A. site, questions about its funding and capacity made their way to a federal judge.

The situation emerged as the city of L.A. is under a court order to provide more shelter for unhoused Angelenos and LAHSA is under scrutiny for having failed to properly manage hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with service providers like Urban Alchemy.

Last year, LAHSA paid the nonprofit $2.3 million based on inaccurate data about the site’s capacity, records show. On paper, Urban Alchemy had 88 available beds on site. In reality, half that many were available.

Officials from the Homeless Services Authority had instructed the nonprofit in April 2024 to close down operations in one of two converted parking lots, according to emails reviewed by LAist. Dozens of plywood tent platforms were removed, but LAHSA did not update the capacity data or funding for the site until more than one year later.

The city of L.A. and LAHSA continued to report outdated capacity data about the South L.A. tent program to a judge overseeing a settlement that requires the city to open 13,000 new shelter beds by next June.

In November, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter described the situation as “obvious fraud.”

Michele Martinez, a special master appointed to help enforce the terms of the settlement, visited the site in June and found that it appeared to be operating at half capacity. She then tried to verify the number of beds available at the site with city officials, but did not get an answer, Carter said at a November court hearing.

The city of L.A. corrected the information reported to the judge after one member of LAHSA’s governing board, the LAHSA Commission, visited the site and reported what he saw there.

Commissioner Justin Szlasa said he had voted to approve millions in funding for Urban Alchemy last year with the understanding that the South L.A. space could accommodate 88 people. But when he visited in May 2025, he saw that half of it was closed.

Szlasa filed a public records request with LAHSA in September to obtain the contracts and payment details for the Urban Alchemy site, but he has not yet received a full response, he said.

He told LAist he’s been asking for an evaluation of the contract to be put on the LAHSA Commission’s agenda.

Urban Alchemy does not have any remaining contracts with LAHSA, but the organization runs a tent village in Culver City and has some other contracts with the city of L.A.

The organization recently pulled out of operating a large homeless shelter in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district after city officials said the nonprofit had knowingly overspent its budget at the shelter.

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, groups of three and four people headed out from the El Toro Public Library in Lake Forest for the last day of Orange County’s biennial count of unhoused people. The survey helps officials decide what services are needed and keep track of changing demographics and trends.

The last point in time count in Orange County saw a spike of around 28% in the number of unhoused people, with around 7,300 people experiencing homelessness. Results for the point in time count usually come out in May.

What volunteers observed

Rocio Palafox and Cameron Pastrano from Orange County’s Office of Care Coordination together with volunteer Mike Kimball went out to survey Irvine on Thursday morning. All the unhoused people they encountered were living in their cars parked at places like Irvine’s Metrolink station and long-term parking lots.

They were just waking up as they answered the anonymous survey.

Rocio Palafox and Cameron Pastrano navigate to a canvassing area during Orange County's biennial count of unhoused people.

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One of the people surveyed — who asked that LAist not identify her as she is in the process of applying for jobs — was 59 years old and said she has been sleeping in her car for over a year.

“ Lost my job and lost my place to live because of it,” she said. “ Rent is crazy, can't afford it. You need more than one job.”

Another person, 61, also said she’s living in her car because she has trouble finding work. She also asked that LAist not use her name as she is hoping to land a job soon.

“ I got laid off from two jobs at the same time right before Christmas, which was really hard,” she said.

Becks Heyhoe-Khalil, executive director of United to End Homelessness, tallied people experiencing homelessness in Costa Mesa, where all the people she encountered were sleeping on the streets.

“ Over and over again, what we heard was financial, loss of a job and the challenge to be able to continue paying rent and it sort of began this spiraling effect,” she said.

When wages are stagnant and do not increase with the rising cost of living, Heyhoe-Khalil said, it’s “ a really dangerous recipe for people to fall through the cracks and end up experiencing homelessness.”

Challenges with the count

Heyhoe-Khalil said she’s been part of the counts for many years. This year, for the first time, she noticed there was "a little bit more hesitancy around responding and participating in the survey itself.”

Many people declined to take part in the survey, she said, worried about entering some of their information into the system.

Even in Irvine, Palafox and Pastrano encountered a handful of people who declined to answer the survey, but they still entered the data as observational.

Doug Becht, director of Orange County’s Office of Care Coordination, which leads homelessness efforts, said in south Orange County cities, most unhoused people live in their cars, which can make it challenging to engage with them.

 ”Vehicles move quite often, so that care can sometimes be choppy,” he said.

South O.C. also has the fewest number of shelter beds, he said, so finding supportive housing can be a challenge. And those cities have long resisted plans to build temporary shelters.

Instead, the county has tried to engage South O.C. cities to develop other forms of support, Becht said. In San Juan Capistrano, the city hall is now only located on the bottom floor. The rest has been converted to supportive housing.

Why the point in time count matters

The point in time count — required to take place during the last 10 days of January — helps the federal government allocate funds toward addressing homelessness. State and county officials use those funds to assess what programs and services are needed on the ground.

Becht said the count also helps the county engage with people experiencing homelessness. Once they have a person on the radar, it will allow outreach teams to go back out and try to get them off the streets and into temporary housing.

 The biggest takeaway from the last count in 2024, he said, “was that we have a bottleneck in our shelters.”

“We just don't have places to put them. And the longer they are in the shelter, that means the longer I have to wait to help people on the street move into the shelter,” he added.

L.A. County is considering plans to remove potentially thousands of unhoused people from areas around sports venues ahead of the Olympic Games in 2028.

County officials issued a strategy report last week advising local governments on how to clear people from encampments near major events and move them into temporary housing. However, the same report notes that there are concerns there won't be enough beds and there's no new funding for such an effort.

Sarah Mahin, L.A. County's director of Homelessness Services and Housing, submitted the report at the direction of the Board of Supervisors. It’s one of the first indications of how homelessness in the region might be approached ahead of and during the Olympic Games.

Shayla Myers with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles said the plan is aimed at eliminating visible signs of homelessness for the Olympics, rather than addressing the root causes of the housing crisis.

" You're not actually getting people off the streets. You're simply attempting to make specific locations clear," she said of the county's approach. "It is about taking resources to clear encampments in the most visible locations when you have cameras and tourists all putting their focus on Los Angeles."

L.A. County's Homeless Services and Housing Department did not immediately return requests for comment.

Efforts to remove unhoused people will focus on the security perimeters of Olympic venues, according to the county's report.

"The County will use any established security perimeters…to identify and coordinate with host jurisdictions to prioritize encampments that may be affected," Mahin wrote.

LA28, the private nonprofit planning the Olympics, also told the county that those security perimeters would be its focus, according to the report.

“In the event that LA28 is advised that relocating unhoused individuals may be necessary for their own safety, we will ensure that the appropriate local government stakeholders have sufficient time to plan for the necessary services and housing support,” LA28 wrote in a statement to LAist. 

A spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said her office was in touch with the report's authors to "discuss next steps in continuing efforts to address this humanitarian crisis."

As part of the regional strategy, the county has developed a tool to estimate costs for cities looking at removing encampments around venues. That tool allows local jurisdictions to enter the expected number of people, the percentage of individuals who will go into shelters, and how many people will need long-term housing support.

Myers with the Legal Aid Foundation said she appreciated the county's focus on moving people into shelters, but that the plan would open up unhoused people to possible criminalization.

"The first round is to offer shelter, and the second round is often to bring in cops or to put up fences or to invest in citations," she said.

The report includes the latest "point in time" count of people living outside in the council districts of Los Angeles hosting Olympic events, as well as other host cities like Long Beach and Pasadena. In total, that number is more than 5,300 people.

"However, the number of unsheltered individuals in the areas immediately surrounding event venues should be reassessed closer to event dates to ensure an accurate estimate," the report states.

County supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn introduced a motion asking for the report in 2024, referencing concerns about public perception of local government's approach to homelessness ahead of many major events coming to Los Angeles.

"Efforts to address homelessness in advance of international sporting events in other jurisdictions have had uneven results, leading to accusations that governments are busing unhoused individuals to the outskirts of host cities without addressing the underlying lack of shelter capacity," the motion states.

The county's guidance points out that additional resources for plans to clear encampments at this point don't exist.

Representatives for Long Beach, for example, told the county that it could be challenging to secure motel rooms for interim housing at typical rates around the Olympics. The city also expressed concern about unsheltered people and at-risk tenants being displaced. 

Clearing encampments without enough housing resources could lead to displacing more unhoused people and those at risk of homelessness, Mahin wrote.