The Brief

There are more than 46,000 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles and every day volunteers hit the streets with mutual aid groups to provide them with whatever is needed — no strings attached.

Some give out bottles of water, others provide glass pipes, clean needles and antiseptic wipes to help drug users avoid infection and death. They also offer necessities like food in the shape of burritos, tents and socks to Narcan, batteries and phone charging stations.

These groups try to fill gaps in immediate-term services, while people wait for the promise of a long-term solution in the form of housing.

The philosophy behind mutual aid is the idea of community supporting community, but there’s a big question: Why is this work of providing life saving services often left to volunteers?

Of the city’s 2023-24 budget, $1.3 billion has been allocated to the homelessness crisis and getting people off the street. However, basic needs like water and overdose prevention aren’t being sufficiently met.

“Some of these services are like air, like oxygen,” said Ndindi Kitonga, founder of volunteer group Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid (PUMA), which provides harm reduction services like clean needles and Narcan to unhoused people in L.A. “Everyone should just have it. And so we very much push back and critique our local governments for not doing what they have to do.”

Mayor Karen Bass told LAist that she recognizes the homelessness crisis is multifaceted and sometimes unhoused folks aren’t accessing services they need.

"If I have learned anything this year, it’s how the ability to provide services of every type is woefully inadequate," she said. "People need water, they need the ability to have basic hygiene, they need food. They need all of that."

The Band-Aid

We know the city is taking action to help people living on the streets. Same for Los Angeles County. Same for LAHSA, the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, and same for other agencies. But it’s clear, based on LAist’s earlier reporting, that unhoused people have some very basic and immediate needs that are not being met by government services.

Volunteers are applying the Band-Aids, but the answer to that “why?” is complicated.

“Part of it gets into the philosophy of the role of government,” said LAist unhoused communities reporter Nick Gerda. “Does government have responsibility, and do taxpayers have a responsibility, to provide life-saving support for people living on the streets?”

Sade Kammen distributing water to Skid Row residents.

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Noé Montes

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When it comes to government structure, L.A. is a unique place. We have a lot of different government offices and agencies, each with different budgets.

“Unlike New York City where it's all one big entity under a giant city government, L.A. is really a total mishmash,” Gerda said.

There’s L.A. city, which includes the mayor’s office and 15 different city council districts; there’s L.A. County, which includes the Board of Supervisors and other county agencies, such as the Department of Mental Health; and there’s the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, whose outreach straddles both the city and the county.

This, said Gerda, can make it challenging to track who is responsible for what.

“There's a lot of overlap in responsibility, and the idea behind that, about a century ago, was to decentralize power,” he said. "The flip side is that you have all these different government entities, and it can get really confusing. And in the past, what we've seen is a lot of finger pointing."

Water

There is a big need for water in unhoused communities, but there isn’t one government entity that’s in charge of providing it, which is where mutual aid groups like WaterDrop LA come in.

The nonprofit was founded during the pandemic when volunteers on Skid Row realized there wasn’t a consistent supply of water available to people who live there. A recent study backs that up, finding that 30% of Skid Row residents had limited daytime access to drinking water — that number jumps to nearly 70% at night.

Every Sunday, WaterDrop brings several U-Hauls worth of bottled water to Skid Row and distributes the bottles to residents.

One of those residents is a former military veteran who goes by the name of Hawk. He operates a one-man barbershop from the sidewalk.

“With them bringing out water, it assists us in a way that you just can't explain,” Hawk said. “You need water for everything.”

Skid Row resident known as "Hawk."

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Noé Montes

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LAist

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Droped off water sits outside of a tent.

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Noé Montes

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One recent, positive development in the neighborhood is something called a Refresh Spot. It’s provided by the city in Skid Row and offers water 24/7 for all sorts of uses.

“They have showers and bathrooms and a water box,” said WaterDrop volunteer Sade Kammen. “That's probably one of the best resources that the city has installed.”

But the service is not available everywhere and it’s sometimes not accessible — because of physical or mental needs — even to those who do live nearby.

“Some of these people are like me. I don't do groups of people well, and that mental thing can hold them back from many benefits,” explained Hawk, who lives across the street from Refresh.

Once a week, WaterDrop LA brings him two gallons of bottled water.

“And I'm fortunate enough and blessed enough to have a fire hydrant,” he said, pointing to a hydrant across the street that he cracks open with a utility wrench. "I'm fortunate enough and blessed enough to have a fire hydrant. That's how I survive."

“Skid Row is a very unique situation,” said Councilmember Kevin de León. “It was intentionally zoned to be the epicenter of homelessness, to be the catch-all of unhoused folks, from all over the city, from all over the county, from the state of California, and quite frankly other parts of the nation.”

De León represents Council District 14, which includes Skid Row. His office has been pressured by advocates to do more to help ease the immediate-term needs of those experiencing homelessness.

Since our first conversation with WaterDrop, one of the co-founders, Aria Cataño, said the group has had meetings with de Leon’s office to talk about water distribution.

“I will say that any organization or any entity or any group of individuals who are willing to go down to Skid Row or anywhere else … and provide bottles of water, is something that I've always welcomed,” De Leon said. “I would say, don't stop, you know, keep doing it until we get every person off the streets.”

Skid Row

The history of Skid Row is a long and complicated one. This 4-square-mile neighborhood — just southeast of downtown — goes back to the 1800s.

In the 1970s, as De León alluded to, city officials established an unofficial "containment" zone for homelessness that would allow shelters and other services.

These days, Skid Row is viewed as the national epicenter of the homelessness crisis.

Black and brown people are disproportionately represented in the neighborhood, accounting for about 80% of the total population. And many say they have been living on these streets for a long time without adequate services.

People say they get used to feeling forgotten.

Kevin Call, a volunteer with WaterDrop LA and a former unhoused Skid Row resident, says he volunteers because he wants to help people like him. However, he wishes it weren’t necessary.

“We shouldn't have to have a truck pull up here to get them water,” Call said. “The city should already had that in place.”

Sade Kammen distributing water to Skid Row resident.

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Noé Montes

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De León added that people using fire hydrants for drinking or bathing is a reflection of a broken system that’s afflicted the city historically.

Think about that “mishmash” that Gerda referred to earlier, where many government offices are responsible for different, sometimes overlapping, pieces of the problem.

De León said he’s been public about his “deep frustration” with L.A. County and the Department of Mental Health, which has traditionally overseen services for the unhoused while cities have been responsible for housing.

“We need intervention immediately to help folks who are suffering from clinical depression to bipolar [disorder] to schizophrenia,” de León said. “When you have someone who is screaming and yelling at the top of his or her lungs, running down the street naked with feces caked onto his or her skin … we know that's not normal, but what we've done in L.A. is we've normalized it. But it is abnormal and that's one of my biggest frustrations, because it's especially acute in Skid Row.”

When we shared de León’s statement with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, they agreed that they are responsible for mental health services for vulnerable populations, including people experiencing homelessness.

“These services include intensive outreach and engagement, street psychiatry, mobile medication dispensation, and other innovative field-based services, as well as funding supportive housing at every level throughout the County,” the department added.

The department also said they're currently working to expand staffing for “the ever-growing demand” in response to the county’s homelessness emergency declaration.

The housing solution

Since taking office last December, the primary goal for Bass as mayor has been to get people off the streets and into housing.

The Inside Safe program is at the center of this effort and, as of Oct. 27, 1,682 people have been moved into temporary housing, like hotels and motels. Of that group, 190 people have moved into permanent housing, according to LAist’s analysis of data provided by LAHSA.

But at least 153 other people have left the hotels and motels and returned to homelessness, and another 90 people left the program but are working with providers to find other options. Bass said her administration is focused on long term solutions but, she acknowledged, “housing without services, without food, without all of the things that people need is insufficient.”

But Bass said it’s also important to remember that L.A.’s homelessness crisis took decades to develop, and that it can’t be fixed overnight.

“I could have spent the first few months or the first year of my administration developing the world's best program, meeting with everybody under the sun and getting everybody's feedback and building a program,” she said. “But I thought that was inappropriate considering people die on these streets every single day.”

Much like Bass, housing is the main priority for many of L.A.’s city councilmembers.

Councilmember Nithya Raman said the limited availability of basic services like water is a “real indictment of the city,” but noted there are a lot of difficult choices a council district has to make based on its allotted budget.

“I also have a limited staff,” Raman said. “We had to choose between providing those services, and actually looking for housing for people where they could access those services … in the context of a motel or a hotel room or shelter site of some kind.”

Earlier this year, the mayor signed the L.A. City Council-approved budget for $13 billion. Of that, about $37 million has been allotted to all 15 city council members (roughly $2.5 million each), much of which is dedicated to salaries.  Raman, who represents Council District 4 and founded SELAH Homeless Coalition, said she’s also faced headwinds in the past from her colleagues on the council when it comes to getting support for services like sanitation near homeless encampments.

She said she hopes to work with other council districts and the mayor’s office to create a citywide response to provide interim services to unhoused communities as they continue to work on housing.

“We need a citywide response so that we can provide some of these interim services … to people so that they're not suffering when they are on the streets,” Raman said.

Raul Malo, the leader of the country band The Mavericks and one of the most recognizable voices in roots music, died Monday night, according to a representative of the band. The guitarist and singer had been battling cancer.

He was hospitalized last week, forcing him to miss tribute shows staged in his honor at the Ryman Auditorium over the weekend. He was 60 years old.

"No one embodied life and love, joy and passion, family, friends, music and adventure the way our beloved Raul did," read a statement released by his family.

Malo's group, The Mavericks, mourned the loss of their leader in a social post.

"Anyone with the pleasure of being in Raul's orbit knew that he was a force of human nature, with an infectious energy," the statement read. "Over a career of more than three decades entertaining millions around the globe, his towering creative contributions and unrivaled, generational talent created the kind of multicultural American music reaching far beyond America itself."

Over a career that lasted four decades, The Mavericks lived up to the band's name, challenging expectations and following a roadmap crafted by Malo's expansive musical upbringing as the son of Cuban immigrants in Miami.

"I grew up in a very musical household. There was all kinds of music around always," he told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1995. "We listened to everything from Hank Williams to Celia Cruz to Sam Cooke to Bobby Darin. It didn't matter."

In 1992, Malo told NPR that his widespread influences weren't always understood or appreciated in his South Florida hometown, but he said that his struggle to fit in taught him to trust his instincts. Malo had become the guitarist and lead singer for The Mavericks in 1989, alongside co-founders Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin, and his roaring, sentimental voice defined the band's sound and remained its constant as the group's catalog moved from slow, tender ballads to full-throttle rock songs. In 1995, the band released its biggest hit with "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down," a swinging country song featuring an assist from Tex-Mex accordion legend Flaco Jimenez.

As the band grew in members and devoted listeners, The Mavericks continued to push the boundaries of American music, weaving a richly layered tapestry of textures and stories. With more than a dozen studio albums, The Mavericks collected praise and recognition from the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association and the Recording Academy. Although they took a hiatus for several years, Malo never stopped making music — and returned to his bandmates with renewed inspiration.

Following its 30th anniversary, the group released its first full-length Spanish album in 2020, aptly titled En Español. The record reimagined Latin standards and folklore-tinged popular tunes; it also made an implicit political statement about Latin music's contributions to American culture.

"In our own little way, if we could get somebody that perhaps is on the fence on issues and hears us singing in Spanish and perhaps reminds them of the beautiful cultures that make up what this country is trying to be and what it should be, so be it," Malo told NPR at the time. "Yeah, I'm OK with that."

The following year, the Americana Music Association recognized The Mavericks with the Trailblazer Award. In 2024, the band released its last studio album, Moon & Stars. The release coincided with news of Malo's cancer diagnosis, which he discussed openly with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe.

Before being hospitalized last week, Malo had been scheduled to perform with The Mavericks at a pair of tribute concerts held this past weekend at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Over 30 artists, including Patty Griffin, Jim Lauderdale and Steve Earle, still gathered to pay tribute to Malo, with some of the proceeds of the night going to the cancer prevention organization Stand Up To Cancer.

According to his spokesperson, though Malo was too ill to attend, the concert was streamed to his hospital room Friday night.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has mostly blocked efforts to investigate misconduct within its ranks, according to the county inspector general, who announced his retirement Tuesday after 12 years on the job.

In an open letter, Max Huntsman cited examples of how the county has thwarted his efforts to watchdog the department, which in the past has been plagued with accusations that deputies use excessive force and lie on the job.

Huntsman said one example is former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s misuse of criminal enforcement powers to discredit critics, such as opening an investigation into former County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

Villanueva was sheriff from 2018 to 2022.

“My requests for investigation were rejected,” Huntsman’s letter reads. “Even after receiving an official subpoena, the Sheriff’s Department has failed to turn over records regarding the improper surveillance.”

He added: “Sometimes members of the public wonder if frightening new surveillance techniques will be used for improper purposes under the guise of criminal investigation. Sadly, the answer is yes.”

Before becoming inspector general in 2013, Huntsman, 60, was a deputy district attorney who specialized in public corruption. He told LAist on Tuesday that the inspector general job wasn’t something he wanted initially.

“I didn’t want to go work for politicians,” he said. “But the need to provide some kind of independent reporting and analysis was significant.”

The Sheriff’s Department issued a statement saying it valued the Office of the Inspector General and all county oversight bodies and that it wished Huntsman and his family well in his retirement.

The department said it “continues to make great strides in advancing the department in a transparent manner.”

LAist also reached out to the county CEO and county counsel for comment, but they declined.

After George Floyd

In the letter, Huntsman says the state of California has come a long way in strengthening the power of local law enforcement oversight bodies, in part because of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

After widespread protests — and lobbying by Huntsman — the state provided authority to inspectors general to enforce subpoenas requiring law enforcement agencies to hand over documents and authorized external investigation of police misconduct, including deputy gang conduct.

The Sheriff’s Department — backed by county lawyers — has resisted.

“Los Angeles County may not follow those laws, but it will not be able to avoid them forever,” Huntsman wrote. “The county refuses to require the photographing of suspected gang tattoos in secretive groups that the undersheriff has identified as violating state law.”

“Just a few weeks ago, we requested some information regarding an investigation, and a pair of commanders refused to give it to us,” Huntsman said in an interview with LAist.

Origin of the office 

The Inspector General’s Office was created by the county Board of Supervisors in 2013 in response to a scandal that included former Sheriff Lee Baca covering up the abuses of jail inmates.

Baca went to federal prison.

Since then, the office has issued dozens of reports with recommendations for improving living conditions inside jails that some have described as “filthy,” stopping abuses of juveniles inside juvenile halls and providing shower privacy for inmates as part of the requirements under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

“All of these abuses were reported by the Office of Inspector General and recommendations were ignored,” Huntsman wrote. Often, it took court orders to enact change.

“When we first blew the whistle on the torturous chaining of mentally ill prisoners to benches for 36 hours at a time, it was only a court order that ended the practice,” he wrote. “Time and time again, this pattern repeated itself.”

Huntsman wrote the county has permitted the Sheriff’s Department to block oversight and defunded the Office of Inspector General by removing a third of its staff.

“It's not surprising the county has driven out two successive chairs of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission,” he wrote.

“Government always claims to value transparency and accountability, but shooting the messenger is still the most common response to criticism,” Huntsman wrote.

Despite setbacks, Huntsman values work 

Huntsman told LAist on Tuesday that he was proud of his career as a public servant.

“I’ve really enjoyed the work and I’m sad to have it end,” he said.

It’s a sentiment he echoed in his letter, adding that despite the setbacks and roadblocks, he was proud of the people with whom he shared the office.

“It has been my honor to work with a talented, brave and tireless group of public servants to ensure that the public knows what its government is doing,” he wrote.

He noted the inspector general’s reports are fact-checked by the office and public.

“When government abuses occur, they are sometimes kept secret, but that is no longer the case for much of what is happening in Los Angeles County,” Huntsman wrote. “What you do about it is up to you.,”

Huntsman’s last day is Friday.

Topline:

The backstory: Last month, the council's Transportation Committee voted to bring a proposal forward to implement a policy change that allows the city to impound and immediately destroy abandoned or inoperable RVs worth less than $4,000. The change is inspired by new state law AB 630, which was created to prevent previously impounded RVs from ending back up on the street.

The motion, authored by Councilmember Traci Park, reports that abandoned RVs pose as public and safety hazards.

What's next: Councilmember Nithya Raman requested that an implementation plan be presented to the council's public safety and housing and homelessness committees.

Go deeper: L.A. pushes policy to make it easier to remove RVs from city streets.