The Brief

If you follow any cat rescue groups online, you know this time of year is rough.

You’ll see messages like these, from local nonprofits like Boyle Heights Cats, Luxe Paws and The Cat’s Meow:

“Fosters Needed Urgently”

“9 times out of 10 your garage, bathroom or basement can save a life.”

“This is an urgent plea for fosters to… help out during the 2 most challenging months of the year.”

The combination of more people taking summer vacations and the height of kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile — means organizations are overwhelmed trying to find fosters to care temporarily for rescues, trappers available to catch them and vets able to spay/neuter and vaccinate cats. It’s a difficult time for animal shelters too.

“So if you find kittens, if your neighbor finds kittens, if you find a cat, see what resources you can access or what resources the shelter has, and do your best,” says Dr. Kate Hurley, director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis. “That's a great contribution if you can help keep even one cat or kitten out of the shelter so that they can have room for one that has absolutely no other choice.”

L.A.’s ‘community cats’

There are, according to LA Animal Services, about 960,000 “community cats” living throughout the city. These are free-roaming, stray cats that are often described as “feral” or “unsocialized."

(“Community cats” has become the preferred terminology among many animal welfare organizations because some of these cats can be more socialized than others.)

These free-roaming cats are a part of life in any city, but it's easy for populations to get out of control if not managed. Cats reproduce quickly. A female cat can have three litters per year, with the average litter being about four kittens. And cats as young as four months old can get pregnant.

That’s where TNR comes in.

What is TNR?

UC Davis’ Kate Hurley is also a leading authority on “trap, neuter and return” (or TNR) — a practice that is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.

The process involves cats being trapped (in rectangular wire cages that shut behind the cat when they enter) and taken to a shelter or clinic to be spayed/neutered and vaccinated for infectious diseases. During the process, one of the cats’ ears is “tipped” so they are identifiable as having been fixed after they are returned to their outdoor homes.

The result, Hurley says, are cats that are less likely to fight, spray and roam. It’s also considered a more practical and humane option than trapping and euthanizing cats, but it does have its critics.

Some cities and counties support TNR efforts — by providing traps and spay/neuter appointments or vouchers to cover part of the cost — and some don’t.

The city of L.A. was prohibited from supporting TNR for many years but in 2020 the city council signed off on the “Citywide Cat Program” to help stabilize the population by allowing TNR. It’s been in place since 2022.

Still, even in the places where there is government support, the amount of work that volunteers take on to save cats and do TNR can be daunting.

The cat crusaders

Christopher Askew (L) and Marisol Ramos (R) outside a L.A. business where workers have been feeding about a dozen community cats.

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Monica Bushman / LAist

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On a warm Thursday afternoon in April, around the start of this year’s kitten season, Marisol Ramos of “Boyle Heights Cats” (“Boyle Heights Gatos” on Instagram) was already fielding many more requests for help than she could handle.

“Today I got like seven [requests] in the last three hours from people saying, ‘Help, I need to get this cat fixed.’ And it's just adding up. I have about 600 cats on a list that need to get fixed.”

Ramos’s focus is mainly Boyle Heights, where she lives, and surrounding neighborhoods. She started doing TNR in L.A. in 2021, and has since helped get more than 1,000 cats spayed or neutered.

What’s involved is a lot of communication with cat feeders and potential fosters, early mornings and late nights setting out traps and waiting for them to work, time spent fundraising for supplies and food, and the effort it takes to find spay/neuter appointments and vets that will accept vouchers the city of L.A. offers through the Citywide Cat Program. Then, when cats have been fixed, she’s back 24-48 hours later to pick them up.

Ramos does all this in addition to her day job as a researcher and grant administrator. At first she took on a second job to pay for her TNR work, but has since formed a 501(c)(3) and received a small grant.

She started doing TNR with her family in New York when she was 15 years old.

“We learned about TNR,” Ramos says, “did a community training and certification, and then we would take the subway to the city to get them fixed.”

The ‘front lines’

Now Ramos trains other people to do TNR work. Christopher Askew is one of them. He worked at a cat rescue/sanctuary and while he found that work fulfilling, he says, “it was kind of like being at an Army hospital, way back behind the enemy lines or something … [Doing TNR] is more like being right out in the front lines on the street where there's not enough being done for street cats.”

He lives in downtown L.A. and plans to do trapping there: “Downtown seems like it needs a lot of help and there's not really many people covering it. So hopefully I can maybe help fill that gap.”

Askew joined Ramos out on a call out to a business near railroad tracks, where workers were feeding about a dozen cats, to learn about what it takes to do TNR.

Marisol Ramos with Boyle Heights Cats takes a photo of some community cats she'd been called out to TNR.

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Ramos had been able to secure three spay/neuter appointments for the next day, so she was there with three traps and wet food to lure the cats in. She’d be back on Saturday to hopefully trap seven more that she’d take to appointments at a spay/neuter clinic on Sunday.

She also spends time finding adopters for kittens and other cats that can’t be returned to where they came from — if, for example, they’re sick and by the time they recover they’ve been away from the streets for too long.

But for all the work involved in doing TNR in L.A., Ramos said the situation in Orange County is much harder.

TNR is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.

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Monica Bushman / LAist

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In Orange County there isn’t a large animal welfare organization doing TNR or providing low-cost vouchers. The county-run shelter doesn’t provide vouchers either, and stopped its TNR program in 2020.

In June of 2023, a Grand Jury report called on Orange County to reinstate its TNR program, saying that ending the program “increased the rate of euthanasia of cats, especially kittens.”

In a response to LAist, OC Animal Care said they’ve “been advised by counsel that the release of unowned cats into the community is prohibited by law. Since not all municipalities share this same understanding, we continue to monitor litigation processes happening around the state for rulings that may impact the penal code.”

OC Animal Care also faced a threat of legal action over their TNR program by detractors of trap-neuter-return and, more recently, was sued by supporters of TNR, who want the program reinstated. In reference to the litigation, OC Animal Care told LAist: “It is widely acknowledged that TNR plays an important role in animal welfare, and we, like the local community, look forward to clear direction on this issue, whether it be through resolution of the pending litigation or a legislative fix at the state level.”

On the question of whether TNR violates of the section of the California penal code that prohibits animal abandonment, the city of L.A.’s position is that “abandonment laws, defined by intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence leaving an animal behind, do not apply to community cat practices.”

“I've met a lot of folks from Orange County who drive up to Sun Valley to fix the cats because they just couldn't find appointments in Orange County, or help there,” Ramos says. “Or they drive to San Diego, but they try to trap a lot so it's worth their time.”

The cats of Orange County

Meredith Kirby, the volunteer coordinator for OC Community Cats, says, “When we had the shelter as a resource, that was great, because it didn't cost anything.”

Kirby has been with the nonprofit organization since it was founded in 2015. They feed and care for about 25 community cat colonies in North Orange County, which includes doing TNR and providing medical care.

In addition to the volunteer work Kirby does, she also works as a high school ceramics teacher.

In the almost 10 years she’s been with OC Community Cats, Kirby says the situation has gotten much more difficult — largely because the county shelter ended its TNR program, but also because of the shuttering of some low-cost veterinary clinics they used to rely on. There’s also a shortage of veterinarians that has grown worse.

As a result, Kirby says they’re forced to rely on donations and have to find workarounds to get cats fixed outside Orange County.

“Our transport team is a lot of retired people,” mostly women, Kirby says, who “can take 10 to 15 cats up to L.A. in the morning and go pick them up.”

But the shortage of vets is a problem in L.A. too, and across the country.

Not enough vets and vet techs

A kitten named Blizzard, up for adoption at Pasadena Humane on June 24, 2024.

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Monica Bushman

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Hurley with the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis says the shortage of veterinarians didn’t start with the pandemic, but COVID did exacerbate it.

“The fewer vets there are, the harder it is, the more burnout there is, the more vets leave,” Hurley says. “And we're really in a negative cycle, it feels like right now, where the few vets that are standing are really stretched thin.”

That in turn has had an impact on spay/neuter rates.

“Spay/neuter in general took a huge hit during the early days of COVID,” Hurley says. “And it not only hasn't caught up, it hasn't even recovered to the baseline level that it was operating at before COVID in most places, in my experience.”

Chris Ramon, who heads up the Community Cats Program at Pasadena Humane, says another issue is a shortage of veterinary technicians and registered veterinary technicians (or RVTs).

“I have seen some of the most talented surgeons who can do a cat neuter in probably 20 seconds, no exaggeration,” Ramon says. But without a support team of technicians to help with surgery prep, anesthetization and recovery, “that veterinarian who can do a 20 second neuter is now investing 10 or 12 minutes into one case.”

The longer an appointment takes, that means fewer cats overall who can be fixed.

What can you do to help?

Even with the shortage of vets, technicians and the lack of support for TNR in some cities and counties, those who work to care for cats on Southern California streets say there are things you can do to help if you would like to get involved.

For one thing, Ramon says people often overestimate the amount of space that’s needed to foster cats and kittens. Even a bathroom, when you think about it, he says, “is a penthouse compared to a kennel at a shelter.”

There’s also lots of opportunities to volunteer or donate if fostering (or adopting) isn’t something you think will work for you.

Meredith Kirby with OC Community Cats says her number one request to those who’d like to help cats in their community is “be somebody who does something.”

“If you see an animal in need, help it. Don't go on Facebook or Instagram and go, ‘Oh, I saw this cat … Somebody go save it.’ You're somebody,” Kirby says. “If you don't know what to do, reach out to some of the local nonprofits and ask for guidance.”

Editor's note: This post has been updated to add information about the nature of the lawsuits that have been brought against OC Animal Care.

Facing growing public backlash and a pivot from his own past vetoes, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping package of seven bills on Monday that aim to force the data center industry to pay its own way in California.

Three of the new laws shift electric infrastructure costs away from residential customers and toward data center operators, three more mandate disclosures of water usage and other resources, and the last one makes data centers ineligible for environmental review exemptions.

Newsom, in a written statement, contrasted the new regulations with President Donald Trump’s hands-off approach to data centers and artificial intelligence.

“We know that we don’t have to sell out Californians or sacrifice our well-being to innovate and succeed,” the statement read. “California has proven that time and time again. With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense.”

Trump has aggressively pushed to accelerate data center development nationwide, arguing that they represent a significant economic opportunity for states that embrace them. He said last week at the All-In Summit, an invite-only conference for business leaders, that the industry is the “oil of the next 20, 25 years.”

Newsom’s signature on the new laws represents a significant departure from his actions on data centers last year, when he vetoed a water disclosure bill over concerns that regulation could stifle AI growth and signed into law only a single stripped-down environmental study bill.

Environmental advocates and the lawmakers behind this year’s bills previously told CalMatters that intensifying public backlash to data center construction propelled the legislation this year, despite a flood of lobbying funds from Big Tech and other business interests that aimed to soften the proposals.

“When you’re looking down the barrel of public outcry that says we don’t want [data centers] at all, and you’ve got localities that are saying they’re going to ban them, then you know the atmosphere has changed,” Assemblymember Diane Papan, a San Mateo Democrat who authored two of the bills which were signed into law on Monday, previously told CalMatters.

Other state legislatures as well as Congress are also advancing new measures to regulate the industry. In May, a Gallup poll found seven in 10 Americans oppose data center construction in their communities, while a July Public Policy Institute of California poll found similar opposition statewide. Hundreds of cities nationwide — including Monterey Park and Bay Area cities like Pittsburg — have either passed data center bans or walked back approvals following public outcry.

Arnab Pal, the executive director of Deploy Action, a nonprofit that promotes clean energy, told CalMatters the new laws are a good step toward preventing data centers from harming consumers through utility rate increases or environmental damage. Still, Pal said, more can be done to ensure such projects actually benefit everyday people through advancements to the electrical grid and the acceleration of clean energy infrastructure.

“I don't think these bills are the end of this fight; I think we're gonna have to do a lot of implementation on the back end and, as other states roll out their policies next year, I think California is going to look back and be like, ‘maybe we should have done more,’” Pal said. “I'm interested to see what we do next year on this.”

Business interests that oppose the measures, like the Data Center Coalition — which counts companies like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI among its members — warn that further regulation could push the data center industry out of California. According to the latest figures from the Data Center Coalition, the industry contributed 665,500 jobs, more than $159 billion in economic activity, and $14.1 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in California in 2024.

Khara Boender, the director of government affairs west for the Data Center Coalition, told CalMatters that “the data center industry shares the goal of ensuring growth of this critical infrastructure is responsible and well managed,” but more work needs to be done “to promote responsible data center growth while maintaining California as a key, competitive market in the global economy.”

Newsom signed the following bills:

• Senate Bill 1168, SB 886 and Assembly Bill 2383, which shift electric infrastructure costs away from residential customers and toward data center operators
• AB 2469, AB 1577 and AB 2619, which mandate disclosures or estimates of water usage and other resources
• SB 887, which makes data centers ineligible for blanket environmental review exemptions, and offers fast-tracked approval for facilities that meet state standards for water and energy conservation

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

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a pair of bills that will create a new system for approving community college bachelor’s degrees.

Senate Bill 960 and Assembly Bill 2694, which were sent to Newsom as a two-bill package, will let community college districts create between two and 12 new bachelor’s degrees to fill local workforce needs.

The bills take effect Jan. 1, 2028, and will create a five-tiered system determining how many bachelor’s degrees each district can offer. Districts will be placed into tiers based on the percentage of students who complete a degree or certificate or transfer to a four-year university. Districts with higher graduation and transfer rates will be allowed to create more bachelor’s degrees — up to the maximum of 12.

The tiered system, which was among several last-minute amendments to the legislation, has drawn backlash from community college presidents and chancellors, who say the system will pit colleges against one another.

However, the legislation does make at least one significant change supported by the community colleges: It only prohibits degrees that duplicate CSU programs offered in the same local service area as the community college proposing the degree. In the past, duplication wasn’t tied to location, and community colleges sometimes faced duplication objections from CSU campuses located in different regions of the state.

The legislation also allows for certain circumstances when community colleges can create bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby CSU campus has a similar program. That will be permitted if the CSU program has had a transfer acceptance rate of less than 75% for three consecutive years.

It’s back!

Pasadena Humane’s popular “poorly drawn pets” fundraiser is returning for another year, and the artists are already deep into drawing as of Monday.

Here’s how it works: you’ll be asked to make a donation through this Facebook post, comment on the post with a photo of your pet, and volunteers will respond in about a day with their best attempt at your four-legged friend. If you don’t have a Facebook account, you can also participate here via email.

“There’s just one tiny disclaimer: we’re much better at caring for animals than drawing them,” Pasadena Humane shared on social media. “Some of our artists are genuinely talented. Others… well, let’s just say your pet may come out looking artistically interpreted.”

Last year, officials said the fundraiser exceeded expectations, raising around $11,000 for the shelter from more than 450 submissions. Dogs and cats are most common, but people have also sent in photos of their birds, turtles, hamsters and horses in years past.

LAist takes you inside the artists’ studio at Pasadena Humane.

Both volunteers and staff signed up to draw the pets people are submitting - for good and for bad.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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The table was fully stocked with markers, colored pencils, pens and sharpies to choose from.

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LAist

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Meet the people behind the 'poorly drawn pets'

Volunteers and staff filed in and out of what’s been turned into the official drawing room Monday morning. Pens, colored pencils, markers and Sharpies were scattered all over the table in between pieces of paper and small printed photos of pets.

I asked Julie Nakahara, Pasadena Humane’s director of partnerships and events, how she would describe her artistic ability as she sketched out a lounging cat.

“That of a toddler,” Nakahara replied. “All right, maybe fourth grade.”

Her strategy was to outline the pet first in pencil before thickening the lines with a Sharpie, adding pops of color through the small details in the photo.

“[The cat’s] enjoying the sunshine, and so I tried to reflect it in my drawing,” she said. “Not sure if that's a true reflection, but I did the best I can.”

Julie Nakahara, Pasadena Humane’s director of partnerships and events, sketches out submission #49.

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Makenna Cramer

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Robbin Huntingdale, a Pasadena resident and volunteer, had a colorful, Lisa Frank-style approach to her picture of two pups.

“I kind of felt like the more I add, the more interesting it'll be, and the less you'll notice that it doesn't look like the photo,” she said to a roar of laughter in the room.

But markers seemed to be a bold choice among the artists. As Mia Dunn, chief philanthropy officer, put it: “I'm a colored pencil girl, because they can be erased.”

Some of the portraits have been turned into tattoos in years past.

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The artists would often share their work with the room when they were done.

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Some artists focused on nailing the vibe, while others narrowed in on the details.

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Kevin McManus, PR and communications director, was trying to do justice to the two dogs he was drawing. He said he came up with a story as he sketched, describing one dog as the older brother and the other as its young punk with a look of “what did I do wrong?”

“It's a really fun way for us to raise money for the shelter,” McManus said. “Ultimately, that's what we're here for. To raise money for the pets in our care, for the programs that we do year-round.”

The fundraiser raises money to support the shelter's work and the animals in their care.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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Volunteers and staff said it's a great way to give back to Pasadena Humane.

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This LAist reporter was also invited to get in on the artistic action.

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You have until 12 p.m. Wednesday to submit your pets for the fundraiser.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Cynthia remembers the sound of her 1-year-old daughter’s cries as she tried to desperately explain to a caseworker over the phone how the Lineage warehouse fire had affected her family financially. 

She had stopped working as a sidewalk vendor because of the unhealthy air, and her family was unsure how they would pay rent that month. 

“I felt like, I don’t know, I was going insane,” said Cynthia, who chose not to share her last name due to immigration concerns.

When the 32-year-old mother reached out to Lineage for assistance, she was told she didn’t qualify for relief, even though her East L.A. home was less than 1.5 miles away. The company said its relief was only intended “for those closest to the warehouse.” 

“We were close enough to receive the smoke and ash but not to receive aid,” she told Boyle Heights Beat. 

Cynthia is among many residents who say they were left out of assistance from Lineage because of where they live. Residents outside the established boundary say they breathed the same smoke, smelled the same stench and suffered through headaches, nausea and high utility bills as their neighbors who qualified for help.

Their question has been simple: If the air has no border, why did we? 

Cynthia holds her daughter while cooking next to her air purifier and air monitor.

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Who qualified for Lineage assistance?

Nearly 800 homes inside a designated area were eligible for assistance from Lineage during its recovery operations, according to the company. The support included free air purifiers, masks, air conditioners, temporary housing, grocery vouchers, utility assistance and cash assistance that were often delivered door-to-door by the company. 

Earlier this month, Lineage said it had provided support to 90% of the 797 households within the designated area and spent over $3.3 million on the recovery and relief effort. Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl told Boyle Heights Beat that the company had made multiple attempts to reach the remaining households.  

“Our bilingual hotline remains open,” said Lehmkuhl. “We remain committed to supporting the community.”

Lineage first presented a map outlining the area closest to the warehouse as it announced a new wave of assistance at a community town hall on July 9. 

The map was later expanded to include all 797 homes and a larger part of East L.A. after L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis pushed for more support, according to her office. 

Now, the map covers households located between Union Pacific Avenue and the 5 Freeway, Los Palos Street and Herbert Avenue, all less than one mile from the Lineage warehouse. 

The map with the outlined resources was presented by Lineage at an AQMD hearing on Aug. 6.

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Why the boundary matters

The expanded map still left out residents like Cynthia, who lives with her husband and baby just one block north of the 5 Freeway. 

But it meant residents like Joaquin Angeles, who lives near Eastman Avenue Elementary School, would qualify. 

Angeles, however, said the support has been lackluster. 

“We haven’t been given what we really need,” Angeles said.

Angeles said his family received an air purifier with no filters and a faulty air conditioner that turns off after just five minutes. He has not yet received the $200 Southern California Edison credit Lineage promised. 

On Aug. 25, more than two months after the warehouse caught fire, his family was able to move into an Airbnb for nearly three weeks. While it allowed them a chance to finally breathe and not worry about what chemicals may be lingering in the air, the support came far too late, Angeles said. 

By then, his wife and son had already racked up medical bills of more than $1,300 each for emergency room visits for shortness of breath, respiratory infections and painful skin rashes. 

“We don’t have money to spare. We’re renting and living paycheck to paycheck,” Angeles said. “Aside from the illness itself, it’s a psychological blow. You feel discriminated against; you feel like they don’t care.”

Joaquin Angeles’s wife, Aurora , shows scarring from a rash on her arm after being exposed to smoke coming from the Lineage fire at her home in East Los Angeles.

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Who created the boundary? 

It remains unclear who initially identified the 797 homes. 

Lineage said it did not create the map. A company spokesperson said the map originated with the Boyle Heights Unified Recovery Command, a centralized body made up of city departments established to coordinate updates during the remediation process. 

The command operates under the city’s Emergency Management Department and was created at the direction of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ executive orders to speed up the Lineage cleanup and recovery. The Emergency Management Department did not respond to multiple inquiries about the map’s origin. 

Supervisor Solis’ office told The Beat it had no say in the original map but advocated for the area to be expanded. 

Navigating help hasn’t been easy

Residents outside the boundary have had to find alternative resources on their own. 

“The wind doesn’t have a boundary, why would you make a map?” Cynthia recalls asking herself as she navigated long lines at city and county resource centers.

City and county agencies initially offered temporary shelters, air purifiers and masks, and later added mobile health clinics, grocery gift cards and resource centers in Boyle Heights and East L.A. But residents also reported being turned away at distribution sites depending on whether they lived in Boyle Heights or unincorporated East L.A. 

A resident picks up air purifiers from a pop-up resource center in Boyle Heights on July 13, 2026.

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Many often turned to nonprofit organizations already working in the community.

In her search, Cynthia managed to secure an air purifier from InnerCity Struggle, a $500 prepaid Visa card from El Centro de Ayuda and had her July rent covered by Proyecto Pastoral. She bought a $250 air conditioner to manage the unbearable summer heat and a $300 personal air monitor to track the air quality outside her home. 

Others haven’t been so lucky. 

Maria Duran, a Boyle Heights resident who lives outside Lineage’s assistance boundary, said she called 311 to receive an air purifier but was told they had run out. She later learned Proyecto Pastoral had stopped accepting applications for rent and utility assistance because of a waitlist of more than 1,500 people. 

“We are all being harmed. I feel frustrated. I feel down,” Duran said. 

Three months after the fire, Duran is struggling to pay a utility bill that nearly tripled over the summer. She continues to deal with stubborn eye irritation that has disrupted her daily life. 

Cynthia bought an air purifier following the Lineage fire.

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Nonprofits have been unable to keep up with the demand

Angela Gutierrez, a community organizing coordinator at Proyecto Pastoral, says the demand for relief reflects the scale of the disaster. 

Gutierrez lives about one mile from Lineage and said she was also frustrated that she didn’t qualify for assistance from the company. 

“To me, it was like we were abandoned because of our ZIP codes,” Gutierrez said. “But for Proyecto — for me — there is no ZIP code. To me, everyone is equal. The help is the same.”

Proyecto Pastoral received about 1,500 requests for assistance before closing its application in the wake of the fire. The organization helped cover rent and utility bills for residents living primarily within a 3-mile radius of Lineage, with emergency funds extending to families living as far as Monterey Park. Its fire relief funds were exhausted last week.

“It makes me sad and angry, because people were affected by the fire — and it wasn’t just in the immediate area,” Gutierrez said. 

Cynthia holds her daughter’s hand in her home.

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Is more help on its way?

Lineage said it remains committed to providing resources to the roughly 80 households that have not yet received assistance. 

“We’ve been working for weeks to make sure that we support everybody in this area that the county and city determined were impacted,” Lehmkuhl said. 

The company did not indicate whether it planned to expand its assistance boundary. 

District 14 Councilmember Ysabel Jurado is pushing for additional funding for the Lineage fire recovery. On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council approved a motion to explore creating a fund of up to $10 million to support the affected community. 

For residents like Cynthia, the need is urgent. She is already behind on rent and is using a credit card to pay for basic necessities.

In unincorporated East L.A., Angeles said more should be done to help the families affected. 

“It is not asking for a favor; it is simply asking for justice,” he said. 

Correction, Sep. 21, 2026 4:49 pm: This story was updated at 4:48 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2026, to clarify that Proyecto Pastoral received about 1,500 requests for fire assistance. An earlier version incorrectly stated that the organization had helped cover rent and utility bills to 1,500 people