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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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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Droped off water sits outside of a tent.

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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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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.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

In the face of the nation's highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.

Assembly Bill 2046, dubbed the “Access to Affordable Gas Act” by its author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Stockton Democrat, advanced through the Assembly on a 59-0 vote with no debate or opposition.

The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amid the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.

“Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Ransom said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”

If approved in its current form, the measure would exempt manufacturers of E85 converter kits from an approval process by the state’s primary climate regulator, the California Air Resources Board, which requires companies to demonstrate the devices do not increase a vehicle's emissions. The bill would leave in place a separate federal certification process run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Members in Sacramento are looking for ways to try to reduce costs — or appear to reduce costs of driving — and so this is a way to do that,” said Aaron Smith, a UC Berkeley economist and fuels expert.

The converter kits, which cost between $800 to $1,250, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, would let drivers convert their cars to run on both gasoline and E85 fuel.

E85 is a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; the share of ethanol typically is between 55% and 85%, said Smith, the Berkeley expert.

Jeff Wilkerson, government affairs manager for Pearson Fuels, the largest E85 fuel provider in the state and a bill supporter, said E85 — much of which is made from Midwest corn — is largely insulated from overseas oil shocks that drive California gas prices. The ethanol blend has sold for $2 or more less per gallon than gasoline during recent price spikes.

While E85 is typically priced lower than gasoline and can reduce petroleum dependence and carbon emissions, it delivers 20% to 30% fewer miles per gallon, according to the air board, meaning drivers only save money when E85 is priced at least 20% to 30% below gasoline.

About 1.3 million vehicles in California can currently use the fuel, which is sold at about 640 stations statewide — just 3% of the state’s more than 15,000 fuel pumps, according to the bill analysis.

Ransom said more E85 pumps would be built if the state loosened restrictions and encouraged demand for the fuel blend. She stressed that her bill would present E85 as an alternative.

“For some people, it may not be a wise choice, but at least now it’s going to be a choice,” she said.

Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Smith, the Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.

The state’s own certification record offers a cautionary tale. Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the board, said the agency has received only five applications from companies for E85 conversion kits since 2008 and that none has cleared the certification process, which is designed to ensure modified vehicles still meet their original emissions standards. Supporters of the proposal argue the board moves slowly and its regulations are burdensome.

But loosening that standard carries its own risk, cautioned Aaron Kurz, senior consultant on the Assembly Transportation Committee, especially now.

As the federal government has stripped scientific expertise from regulatory decisions, he wrote in his analysis, “this committee should consider if the state should cede authority over an inherently scientific process and set a precedent for transferring approval authority to the federal government.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google is changing what it means to Google.

The company this week announced significant changes to its search box — that austere, single-line input field on its homepage that has been the world's most popular entry point into the web for around two-and-a-half decades.

The new version looks similar to the old one-line text box, but it's dynamic, expanding with longer queries. Users can also drop videos, pictures and files into it for what Google calls "multimodal" search.

Behind the scenes, a bigger shift is under way. Google is merging artificial intelligence and traditional web search in a move that Liz Reid, who oversees search at Google, said brings "the best of web and the best of AI together."

Critics say folding AI deeper into search risks further muddying the waters around the provenance of information gleaned from the web and could take agency away from users. A chatbot is likely to return a summary with only a few links to further information, unlike a web search that returns many pages of links.

But the shift is, in some ways, not surprising, given Silicon Valley's hard pivot toward AI, with Google and others investing billions in the technology and refocusing corporate strategies around it.

For about a year, Google has put "AI Overviews" — short summaries — at the top of some search results. "What we've seen with AI Overviews is that people don't want either just an AI or the web. They want a mix of both," said Reid.

She said she's noticed that users have started to ask longer questions, with more natural language, rather than fragments or key words. "They're asking the question that they really have," Reid said.

For Google, that potentially unlocks new understandings of user intentions. "If you start using more natural language, if you're having a conversation, when you've shifted from researching into buying, you've sort of indicated that. And so we can put better ads because we understand what that is," Reid said.

Google is also introducing agentic functionality to search, so that users can ask it to do tasks over time — like search for theater tickets at regular intervals or send shoppers a notification when something goes on sale or conduct a weekly scan of the internet for local events.

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click.

"Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said.

Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from.

"If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and, therefore, came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

Sarah T. Roberts, director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, said the algorithmic underpinnings of Google's web search results have long been "by design, inscrutable to end users," and there's more to it than simply the best of the web floating to the top of any given search. Adding AI will only make the system more opaque, she said.

"What's happening now with AI is that that complexity that already existed will be further obfuscated and even more difficult to unpack," she said.

She noted episodes where Google's AI has provided bad results, including advising putting glue in pizza and eating rocks. "Those gaffes shouldn't be forgotten as Google makes this transition," she said.

And critics say that driving more Google users from web searches to interacting with AI will exacerbate the risks of the so-called "Google Zero" scenario, where the growth of AI queries kills off web search and suffocates the internet click economy as we know it. That includes online shops, web advertisers and news organizations that all depend on referred traffic from Google.

While the redesigned box will be the same for all Google users, there are various tricks and tips online for people who want to disable or avoid some AI functions when using Google.

Google is a financial supporter of NPR.

Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.

Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.

“You’re a part of living history,” said Campbell, who is dressed in an orange and black waistcoat and bow tie, and wears a bowler hat with a monarch butterfly on top. There’s a reason for that, he said mysteriously.

Angels Flight on Bunker Hill.

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Today, I am the first rider. Soon after, I am joined by a family visiting from Texas.

“I was just looking at a local tourist place, and I just saw this small, cute railway,” said Michael Nguyen, who was alongside his mother and sister. “I was like, oh, this looks interesting. And I saw that you can actually go on it. I was like, OK, that’s pretty dope.”

Masterminded by lawyer, politician and engineer Col. James Ward Eddy, the Angels Flight “hillevator” opened on New Year’s Eve 1901 as a way for people to travel up and down Bunker Hill, which was then the place where the city’s wealthy population lived.

The journey took them down to the streets and stores below and from 1917, Grand Central Market, with the first passengers paying just a penny fare for what was billed as the “shortest railway in America,” traveling just 298 feet.

When he’s not working his weekday full-time day job investigating animal cruelty and abuse, Campbell spends his spare time looking through online newspaper archives for any information about Angels Flight.

Angels Flight Railway.

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Angels Flight Railway.

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Originally located by the 3rd Street Tunnel — at the end of the block from where it is now — the train has been through several changes, as has Bunker Hill itself.

“All the wealthy people moved to Beverly Hills, and Brentwood, and Bel Air, and beyond. And all their wonderful Victorian mansions were turned into boarding houses, and it attracted a lower income, more diverse population, which resulted in blight and crime — at least according to the city,” Campbell said of Bunker Hill's transformation.

City officials authorized Bunker Hill to be all but razed in the 1950s and '60s, and Angels Flight was put into what was promised to be temporary storage for a year or two, despite protests from singer Peggy Lee and others.

The year was 1969. And it took nearly three decades for its return. Angels Flight welcomed passengers again in 1996 to its current location after test runs were made with cases of beer and soft drinks weighing 9,000 pounds. The cable cars were rebuilt exactly as before, but with modern safety requirements, such as Sinai having wheelchair space.

A 2001 accident in which one person died and seven were injured saw another long closure until 2010, and there was a derailment in 2014, which saw another short shuttering. But Angels Flight has been running ever since 2017, save the odd mechanical problem.

William Campbell.

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Angels Flight keepsakes made by William Campbell for riders to take.

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Campbell describes himself as a cheerleader for Angels Flight, and you can easily see why. During his shift he pins up a 1904 photo of the city’s landscape taken from an 80-foot-high observation tower at the original location, so people can compare it to the skyscraper skyline of today.

“At one time you could see all the way to Catalina,” he noted.

There is also a display about near-forgotten Bunker Hill folk artist Marcel Cavalla, and Campbell gives away Angels Flight bookmarks, stickers and maps, all of which he researches, designs and prints out of his own pocket.

One of his projects, old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s, is displayed in the panels above the seats, and was installed a couple of months ago.

Interior of Angels Flight, showcasing old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s that Campbell installed.

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One of the vintage ads for Catalina Carrier-Pigeon Service.

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There's everything from old Market Basket supermarket ads, to Barbara Stanwyck shilling for Lux toilet soap, to a standard power mower from John Bean manufacturing, to one for the Catalina Carrier Pigeon Service, which operated from 1894 to 1902, taking messages from Avalon to Bunker Hill.

And the monarch butterfly on his hat? That’s related to his Angels Flight “holy grail,” the one question he can’t definitively answer: why were they painted orange and black?

With that, Campbell grabs his binoculars and sees there are passengers waiting for a ride up, so I get into Olivet and wave goodbye as I travel down to Hill Street.

A group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been clearing overgrown weeds for free on fire survivors' empty lots in Altadena.

They’ve finished 10 with many more to go. They’re keeping at it not just to keep things tidy, but to avert another disaster as the region enters fire season — and their efforts are spreading. More than 200 homeowners have signed up, after hearing about the group from its Facebook page and through word of mouth.

“I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall, but there were weeds 6 and 8 feet tall,” said Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, the ringleader. She is also a co-founder of Altadena Talks Foundation, a nonprofit started in the wake of the Eaton Fire.

Bailey-Raines lives in San Dimas but grew up in Altadena. Her parents and sister all lost their homes in the Eaton Fire.

“I went to my parents' lot one day,” she said. “I loaded up the back of my car with my lawnmower, my blower, my rake, because I wanted to make sure their lot was cleaned up.”

It took seven hours, but she figured all that overgrown vegetation can't be good for Altadena with the fire season just around the corner.

And just like that, the idea for Neighbors Helping Neighbors was born.

Preventing another disaster

Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, founder of Neighbors Helping Neighbors.

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Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines at one of the cleared lots.

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The very first lot, just south in Pasadena, was cleared in mid-April. Bailey-Raines said the property was getting notices from the city to clear the lot or face escalating fines. Pasadena conducts brush clearance inspections every spring and summer.

Toni said the family had moved to Mississippi after the Eaton Fire.

“You lost everything, and then somebody's gonna tell you they're gonna give you a fine because you have weeds on your lot and you're not even here to see that?” Bailey-Raines said.

That day, she rounded up a group of nine people, including her son and his friend. A neighbor across the street was suspicious at first, but eventually told her, "You have me for about an hour." He stayed for two.

The job took less than four hours.

A growing movement

On May 13, dozens of volunteers showed up in Altadena to clear seven lots in one morning.

One of them — a 14,000-square-foot lot — belongs to Sarkis Aleksanian and his family. He had reached out to Bailey-Raines in late April, after learning about the group from a neighborhood WhatsApp chat.

“I was looking into cleaning up the lot and really daunted by the prospect,” he said. “I was worried that the lawn would dry up and be a problem.”

Aleksanian and his wife were on hand to help out. It’s the one thing that Bailey-Raines requires — for the homeowners to be there.

“I've asked them that if they're able-bodied to be here and help,” she said. “You're here. You're encouraging people, and you're helping on your lot. [Sarkis] was doing everything from weed-eater, to chainsaw, to whatever, and that's what it's about.”

This 14,000-square-foot lot in Altadena was cleaned up in less than two hours on a recently Saturday.

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“It was just remarkable, I tell you,” Aleksanian said. He said he recognized some of the volunteers that morning — folks he sees in the community.

And he did encounter someone he knew — a high school acquaintance from years back. “It's neighbors helping neighbors, just like she called it, you know?” Aleksanian said.

His lot was finished in 90 minutes.

More is needed

With a growing waitlist, what is needed are people and equipment — from gloves and trash bags to the hardware.

“I have six brush cutters and two chainsaws and a couple trimmers, but I need, like, triple that at least,” she said.

Same goes for rechargeable batteries that power these tools — which Bailey-Raines juices up with generators they bring on-site.

A number of organizations — including Neighborhood Survants, Altagether, Project Passion, My Tribe Rise, Dena Heals — have granted money and donated equipment and manpower. Bailey-Raines has also put in her own money.

“My dream is one Saturday morning to have 500 people and that we clear a whole street, a whole block — so that this list of 200 can go down, and as others hear about it, they get on it, and we as a community do this as neighbors to help one another,” she said.