The Brief

On a hot summer day, sometime in June 1973, I was picking peaches at Mr. Oliver Bowman’s ranch near Modesto. I had been picking all morning, and I felt tired and physically exhausted. I was dehydrated. I started throwing up and felt like passing out.

I sat down for a bit when my father happened to glance at me. He came over and berated me, saying not to be lazy, to get up and act like a man. I must have been 12-years-old.

From an early age, I worked.

I did not mind working hard. I had a strong and positive attitude toward whatever life threw at me. The way I saw it, working and carrying that weight — peaches or other fruit — up and down the ladder was good exercise. It made my legs stronger, and it made me stronger.

Plus, when the day ended, we got to swim in the irrigating canal, which was big and refreshing. I loved swimming. That was also our bath because at that time, we were living, sleeping and eating in the storage barn, along with the rats, right next to the fertilizer that was used on the crops we were picking.

Like I said, it made me stronger.

Shining shoes in Ensenada 

I started working when I was a young boy in Ensenada, Baja California. I worked as a shoeshine boy to help my family, which was poor.

I was around 7-years-old. I worked with my older brother Salvador; he was around 10, and I became his trainee. Sal taught me how to work and took care of me in the absence of a father figure, since my dad was working in the U.S. My mom had joined him there, along with our baby brother and sister, while the older siblings — my sisters Olga and Eva, brothers Sal and Armando, and me — stayed in Mexico with our grandmother.

The author, second from left, with siblings in Ensenada. Left to right: Eva, Arnulfo, Alfredo, Martha, and Armando.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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My father used to send money home all the time, but it wasn’t enough for our large family. Back then, it was Sal and me against the world, watching each other’s backs, shoe shining, selling gum, newspaper, handcrafts, fruit from door to door, even washing and waxing cars.

Weeknights, after school, and on weekends, we would hit the town to work.

Sal and I would go to the Malecon, the fishermen’s landing, and offer our services to the gringo tourists coming back from a long day at sea, helping them carry their fish, ice boxes, and fishing rods.

I could say, with a strong accent, “Can I help you?” and “thank you” and a couple of other English words. They would give us a couple of quarters, a buck or two if we were lucky. On one occasion, someone gave me a $20 bill. The word spread among the rest of the kids doing the same odd jobs, and soon I had a line of kids wanting me to teach them English — which I did, as much as I could.

We used to dive between the boardwalk and a floating restaurant called the Kon-Tiki. There was a small arched bridge where the tourists would cross, and they would throw us coins. We dove for them, retrieved them, and the crowd would cheer us on. More coins would follow. It was just a couple of us kids, and we would end up with a pocket full of coins.

My siblings and I would help Olga, the eldest, make empanadas and popcorn that Sal and I sold at night at the local baseball stadium, a few blocks from the house. Olga gave us a cut of the profit. My sister was like a second mother, who along with my Grandma Casimira, helped raise my siblings and me until she turned 16 and left home for the U.S.

Luckily by then, Olga had taught us how to live and work in any place with whatever resources we had. She was a resourceful young woman who presented a strong role model for what someone could accomplish. Both she and Sal were very influential in my upbringing.

Up to L.A.

Around 1969 or 1970, my father decided to bring the rest of us to the U.S. Sal worked out a deal with a teacher at a school that organized humanitarian school trips to Disneyland; included on this trip were Sal, my sister Eva, and me. We came to the states via Disneyland and remained in Long Beach, where my parents were living.

I remember upon our arrival we were not allowed to go outside or sometimes even look through the window curtains for fear of “La Migra.” I was around 11 then. During the day, I attended Garfield Elementary School. Some evenings, my father would take us all to work.

The author as a boy in Long Beach, back to visit after he and his dad left to go north to the fields.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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He was working at a potato processing plant called Joy Potatoes, and he had a contract to clean the plant after hours. Most times, the employees would complete the orders at night or in the wee hours of the morning, then we would help him clean. After three to four hours of work at the potato plant, I would not go to school that day.

We moved to Paramount for a while, then to L.A., where we lived close to downtown, near 2nd Street and the 110 Freeway. When I was around 12, I was robbed while going to the grocery store, by local gang members. They continued to harass me afterward. Little did my father know the trouble he saved me from when he and I left for Modesto and the fields.

Learning business in the fields

There was no real time for school in Modesto. “School is for pot smokers and worthless lazy people, you have to learn to work to become a real man,” my father would tell me.

My father’s first journey to the U.S had been to Texas when he was 11 or 12, after which he ran away from home and went back to Mexico. The next time, he came back as an adult under the Bracero labor program. He kept coming back until one day he stayed.

I learned a lot about business from my father. He was an unlicensed farm labor contractor, doing business in whatever field work was available throughout the year, in whatever town, all around California.

He used to rely on me to translate for him, and from this, I learned how he negotiated his contracts. Little did I know that through this, along with the shoe shining, cleaning and washing cars, and selling knick knacks at an early age, I would learn about work, responsibility, and the art of negotiation, skills that would last me a lifetime.

The author circa 1975 at 14. His dad, a farm labor contractor, occasionally bought and sold cattle that the author helped raise.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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For five years, we picked just about any fruit or vegetable that was grown in California, from Porterville to Ukiah, living around Fresno, Clovis and Selma. While picking grapes, we met Cesar Chavez and joined the farmworkers union. We joined the boycott for the causa, went on marches and attended conventions. I remember seeing some ranchers pointing shotguns at the workers marching to intimidate us.

During that period I must have gone to well over 10 to 12 different schools, whenever I had the chance, as we migrated to wherever there was work.

At one point, my dad ran boarding houses for field workers in the San Joaquin Valley towns of Exeter and Farmersville. He provided them with jobs and rides to and from work, along with room and board. My mother and siblings had joined us by then. We would get up around 5 a.m. to make flour dough, and then hand-made tortillas, so we could make lunch burritos for the workers. Then we would come home after a hard day’s work and make dinner for as many as 20 workers, depending on the season.

I have vivid memories of some of the migrant camps we lived in, on the outskirts of towns like Parlier, in Fresno County, and San Juan Bautista, east of Monterey Bay. We lived with migrant families from Mexico, Texas and California, people like us, who chased work throughout the West.

The summer that changed everything

In the summer of 1976, when I was in the 8th grade in San Juan Bautista and already 15, I was invited through my school to participate in something called the Migrant Education Program. My parents agreed to let me attend.

The author's Stanford student identification card from when he attended the Migrant Education Program there.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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It was a pilot program for around 50 migrant students from all over California to attend a summer session at Stanford University. Most of us were Latino boys and girls between 13 and 18, along with three Portuguese kids and a Filipino student. A goal of the program was for us to get a feel for university life.

At that time, in the mid-1970s, the school dropout rate was excessively high among Mexican Americans — and especially among migrant students.

The experience at Stanford was eye-opening for me. We took classes in Mexican American studies and culture, art, drama, and music, along with academics. We took field trips, one of which influenced me the most: We went to NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, where we saw an early model of the Space Shuttle being tested in a wind tunnel. I was fascinated by the idea of flight, especially to outer space.

The author when he attended the summer program for migrant worker kids at Stanford University.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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This was the first time I did not work the whole summer in the fields. Attending Stanford that summer changed something in me.

Onward and upward

The experience sparked my desire for higher education, and pushed me to continue my high school education so I could get there. It was not going to be easy, having missed so much school with all the moving and migrating. But I was determined.

Starting at 16, I spent two years at San Benito (now Hollister) High School, where I completed my freshman and sophomore years.

The author, bottom row, far right, with members of the Club Estudiantil at San Benito High. His brother, Sal, bottom row second from left, was club president. Several club members also attended the Stanford summer program.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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From there we moved back to Long Beach. I was already 18 then, so I went to night school at Wilson High School for my GED. I started a full-time job as a mechanic at the Neill Aircraft Company in Long Beach. I was working toward my dreams.

After graduating from night school with my GED, I attended Long Beach City College, where I studied mechanical and aerospace engineering.

It was 1979 when I started working at Neill as a sheet metal mechanic. Meanwhile, in school I learned basics like drafting, tool and die design, and engineering. Eventually, I worked my way up to the office. Then in 1982, I was hired — then right away fired — by McDonnell Douglas Corporation in Long Beach, let go once they found out I was not a U.S. citizen. Immediately, I went to downtown L.A. and began the process of eventually becoming one.

Over the years, at Neill and other companies, I had the opportunity to work as an engineer on important contracts, including newly developed fighter planes, the International Space Station, and even the Space Shuttle.

The author, center, with brother Armando and nephew Ismael, circa 2006 shortly after founding his aerospace company.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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All the experience I gathered through the years eventually put me in a position where I could start my own company — in Long Beach, where I had my humble beginnings as a newcomer to the States.

After an aerospace career that has spanned 44 years, I still own and operate my own company, A&A Aerospace, Inc., which makes airplane parts for commercial aircraft.

The author in the photo at left; the clipping is from a 2014 Long Beach Business Journal article featuring his company.

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Courtesy of Arnulfo Puentes

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Mine is a story of success despite adversity. The young shoeshine boy who went north to toil in the fields of California made it, and he did so by believing and investing in himself.

The immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles has placed dozens of people in solitary confinement each month since June, according to the most recent data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In May 2025, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center had 14 people in isolation. When the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort revved up in June 2025, the number of detainees in solitary confinement there more than tripled. By July, it was 73; by August, 105.

The most recent data available shows that number went down slightly in January, to 74 people.

Ranked by percentage of the detainee population in “segregation,” as it is called at immigrant detention centers, Adelanto is among the U.S.’s top 10 facilities as of January, according to an LAist analysis of the most recent ICE data.

The data shows that of 229 ICE facilities that reported holding people since October 2024, between 50 and 60 usually reported putting at least one person in segregation in a given month. Out of the facilities that did place people in solitary confinement, Adelanto tended to do so less often than others until June 2025. (The facility held just a few people from October 2024 into January 2025.) When ICE’s presence increased in L.A. in June, the number of people sent to isolation in the facility also shot up — three to five times as many people have been isolated in Adelanto compared to the average facility that used any solitary confinement.

Since June, only two facilities have sent people to solitary confinement more times than Adelanto: one southwest of San Antonio, the other in central Pennsylvania.

Both of those facilities held twice the number of detainees as Adelanto on average from October 2024 through September 2025; but the number of people held in Adelanto since then has tripled, growing larger than either of the other facilities to hold an average of 1,800 people a day since October.

More on solitary confinement  

According to ICE, detainees may be placed in segregation for “disciplinary reasons,” or because of:

• “Serious mental or medical illness.”
• Conducting a hunger strike.
• Suicide watch.

The agency also says it might place detainees “who may be susceptible to harm [if left among the] general population due in part to how others interpret or assume their sexual orientation, or sexual presentation or expression.”

Not only is ICE holding more people in solitary confinement, but the agency's data also shows that detainees across the country are being isolated for longer periods of time. Detainees ICE considers part of the "vulnerable & special population" spent an average of about two weeks in solitary confinement each time they were isolated in 2022, when ICE first made the data available. By the end of 2025, the average stay in isolation had risen to more than seven weeks straight.

The GEO Group Inc., a private company that operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, has not responded to requests for comment.

How isolation can affect immigrant detainees  

UN human rights experts consider solitary confinement placements that last 15 days or more to be torture, though the U.S. Supreme Court has held that isolation doesn’t violate the Constitution.

The UN also maintains that solitary confinement should be prohibited for people “with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures.”

In January, a coalition of immigrant rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of current detainees, calling for conditions at Adelanto to be improved. In addition to an unsanitary environment and a lack of healthy food and clean drinking water, detainees say solitary confinement is frequently used to punish those who speak out about conditions at the facility.

People held in immigrant detention centers are technically in “civil detention,” meaning that they are being detained to ensure their presence at hearings and compliance with immigration orders — not to serve criminal sentences.

According to the immigrant rights groups’ complaint, one detainee was placed in solitary confinement after complaining about the showers being broken. Another detainee said that, after asking a guard to “use more respectful language toward him, he was ridiculed, written up and given the middle finger by a guard who shouted, ‘Who the f--- do you think you are?’” Then, the detainee was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.

Alvaro Huerta, the director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing detainees at Adelanto, told LAist that when people are placed in isolation at the facility, they’re typically in the same cell for 23 hours per day, unable to receive visits from their families.

For clients who are experiencing mental health challenges — especially those with suicidal thoughts — being placed in solitary confinement “can really exacerbate their condition,” he added.

In multiple statements to the media, ICE has said that the agency “is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.” The agency has also said that detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” and that all detainees “receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility.”

Huerta called that “laughable.”

“We have countless examples of people who have said that this is not true, that they're not getting the medication that they're requesting, that they're not being seen for chronic conditions and emergency conditions,” he added. “And we know it's not true because 14 people have died in ICE custody this year alone.”

Lori Rovner of Manhattan Beach is a big sports fan, so there was no question that when tickets for the Olympic Games went on sale, she'd be signing up.

She scored a slot in the first ticket drop, which launched Thursday, and logged on right at 10 a.m., hoping to score tickets to the Opening Ceremonies and some finals too. After battling her computer to get through "access denied" screens and a lost shopping cart due to a 30-minute time limit, she bought 16 tickets.

It was only when she was about to purchase that she noticed the service fees, which were around 24% of each ticket. One $2,100 ticket had a $505 service fee, bringing the total cost to $2,604.63.

"It's insane," she said of the fee. "I don't understand what the service is."

As the locals-only sale kicks off and Southern Californians have their first chance to buy tickets to the Olympic Games, some fans are wide-eyed at the high fees on all tickets and the prices in general, which start at $28 but go up to more than $5,500 a pop. Opening Ceremony tickets start at $328.68

The service fees aren't a surprise add-on. The price fans see when browsing the site is the total cost, including the fee. Still, some who bought in the first phase of sales were surprised when they saw the fees add up.

One user on Reddit of shared their cart of 10 tickets, which added up to $11,264. That included $1,038 in fees alone. Commenters responded in shock and awe.

Service fees are standard in ticket sales, but the percentage they charge can vary widely. High fees have been a source of ire for music and sports fans for years. A 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the average fees on a primary ticket market were 27%.

LA28 did not respond to LAist's requests for details on the service fee, like what it pays for or why it's a percentage rather than a flat rate.

Not everyone seemed bothered by the prices. Some people LAist spoke with opted for only $28 or similarly priced tickets, even if it meant missing some of the biggest Olympic events. One user on Reddit said they purchased 18 tickets for around $550.

"I went with all $28 tickets," they wrote in the online forum about the Olympics. "I got women’s soccer, gymnastics, beach and regular volleyball, track and field, baseball and a few others."

For some, the ticket process, the prices and the dense web of events to choose from made it too hard to pull the trigger.

Jeff Bartow of Sierra Madre made a spreadsheet with some competitions he was interested in seeing before he logged on to buy tickets Friday.

"So many times, so many schedules, so many events," Bartow said. "I think I initially thought I was going to go to a bunch, but thinking about how crazy it's going to be … I might be a little more limited."

This is just the first ticket drop. There will be more opportunities to buy tickets in the months to come — and on a resale market that launches in 2027.

Some ticket-buyers told LAist they already were contemplating which tickets they'd keep and which ones they'd re-sell, just minutes after buying them.

In the more than two months since the Department of Justice released its latest batch of files on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors have not brought any new charges based on the documents, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.

The more than 3 million pages of documents include accusations by alleged victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's abuse and thousands of emails and photos showing Epstein associated with prominent figures. The files indicate that many of these people maintained contact with the disgraced financier long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to sex crimes that involved minors. Appearing in the files is not necessarily an indication of criminal wrongdoing.

The release of the Epstein files came after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all documents it held related to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison about a month after a 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Since the release of the files in 2025 and 2026, there have been no related arrests in the U.S. However, the disclosures have led to some resignations and other reputational repercussions for some high-ranking Americans.

The lack of arrests in the U.S. contrasts to the fallout in the U.K., where investigators have pursued charges related to corruption, not sexual abuse, in their dealings with Epstein. Two former government officials — former Prince Andrew and ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson — were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, has denied wrongdoing and has not been formally charged. Mandelson has also not been charged, and lawyers for Mandelson have said that the arrest was prompted by a "baseless suggestion."

In the U.S., top Justice Department officials have said that they found no evidence compelling enough to pursue further charges related to Epstein, and that the public can make their own assessments based on the disclosed documents.

In a statement to NPR, Justice Department spokesperson Katie Kenlein said that "there have not been additional prosecutions beyond Epstein and Maxwell because there has not been credible evidence that their activities extended to Epstein's network. However, if prosecutable evidence comes forward, the Department of Justice will of course act on it as we do every day in sexual trafficking and assault cases across the count[r]y."

On Thursday, President Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out of the top job at the Justice Department, following bipartisan criticism over her handling of the Epstein files.

NPR asked four former prosecutors and one former law enforcement officer why there may not have been enough evidence to levy additional charges. Here's what they said.

Prosecutors must prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt"

Prosecutors must prove to a jury that a person committed a crime "beyond a reasonable doubt," according to Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

"One of the biggest misconceptions people have is how difficult it is to charge and convict somebody for a criminal case," said McQuade, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A prosecutor's ethical responsibility is to charge cases only if they believe there is enough evidence for a conviction, McQuade said. Documents, including emails, jokes, and even plane itineraries, can be a place to start, but, alone, they are not enough to prove guilt, McQuade said.

"What you would need [is] rock solid evidence," McQuade said. "You can't charge someone for a crime without sufficient evidence, and I have yet to see evidence of a crime involving an Epstein associate that has gone uncharged."

Based on his understanding of the case, Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown Law, said he agreed that prosecutors who investigated Epstein's alleged associates "may have believed that they couldn't persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." He said problems with witness credibility or certain forensic evidence can prevent a case from moving forward.

The U.K. cases are focused on corruption 

In the U.K., the two people arrested are being investigated on suspicion of "misconduct in public office." McQuade said the U.S. does not have a single equivalent federal law. Instead, the U.S. prosecutes public corruption through statutes that focus specifically on crimes such as bribery and extortion.

After the release of the latest files, British police began investigating Andrew's correspondence with Epstein when Andrew was a U.K. trade envoy. At that time, Andrew allegedly shared government itineraries, investment plans and notes from official foreign trips with Epstein. The information may have been covered by the United Kingdom's Official Secrets Act.

Similarly, Mandelson has been accused of passing confidential government information to the late sex offender when Mandelson was a U.K. Cabinet minister.

Meeting the burden of proof is especially challenging for sex crime cases

Victim statements are essential for establishing basic elements, such as the timeframe of events, required to build sexual assault cases, said Diane Goldstein, a retired police lieutenant from California and the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. But a victim may be reluctant to come forward because of a fear of retaliation, not believing the police can help, believing it is a personal matter, or not wanting to get the perpetrator in trouble.

McQuade noted that in some sex trafficking cases, especially those in which a perpetrator is in a position of power, victims may experience intimidation or threats that prevent them from speaking out.

Victims also may be hesitant to move forward with allegations because they fear having to testify at trials where defense attorneys may attempt to poke holes in their allegations, McQuade said.

Goldstein said that for sex crime cases to advance, investigators need to follow certain policies and procedures. "If you don't have a legitimate police investigation to start, you're not going to get any type of criminal filing," Goldstein said.

Other potential charges are also a difficult path

Prosecutors may have considered pursuing charges of criminal conspiracy related to sex trafficking against people associated with Epstein, said Jessica Roth, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. FBI documents in the files relating to its investigation into Epstein's crimes identify certain people as "co-conspirators."

But Ankush Khardori, a senior writer and columnist at Politico magazine who worked as a federal prosecutor on financial fraud cases, told NPR those identifiers are not "formal accusation[s]" and are simply part of "interim documents."

"The FBI does not determine who is a co-conspirator," Khardori said. "That is a legal judgment that prosecutors make."

But for those conspiracy cases, "criminal intent," in particular, is difficult to establish, said Roth, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York for seven years. Criminal conspiracy charges "would require knowledge and intent on the part of each individual who was charged," Roth said. If a person who communicated with Epstein had some suspicion that he was engaged in illegal activity, that alone would not be sufficient evidence to press charges, she said.

Investigators may have considered charges related to criminal tax violations, McQuade said. But the statute of limitations has likely ended on those cases, she said, meaning that prosecutors can no longer bring charges.

The current evidence lacks context

Legal experts say the haphazard way the documents were released and redacted makes it difficult for the public to understand why no additional charges have been filed.

Roth, the Cardozo law professor, said the information is in "isolation," without the appropriate context. "We'll see an individual photograph that looks perhaps incriminating. We'll see an email that looks incriminating, but we don't necessarily have everything that was said before and after that email and that exchange," Roth said.

One document that could explain why no charges were pursued, according to Butler, is a heavily redacted DOJ memo naming "potential co-conspirators" of Epstein. "The parts that should indicate why the department declined prosecution on any alleged co-conspirators other than Ghislaine Maxwell [are] redacted," said Butler, the Georgetown law professor and a former federal prosecutor.

Butler said those redactions are "unusual" because they do not appear to follow the permissible reasons for redactions in the Epstein documents. Those reasons include confidentiality for Epstein's alleged victims, or anything that would compromise an ongoing investigation, Butler said.

"When the Justice Department grudgingly releases information when pressed by politics or forced by Congress, it also creates the impression that they have something to hide," Butler said. "That there is some cover-up going on."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nearly 30% more students in Los Angeles County experienced homelessness from 2022-23 to 2023-24, making it the county’s highest rate in the past five years and far outpacing the rate of homelessness across the state in the same timeframe, as the resources to identify and support this student population have decreased.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools published two reports on Wednesday on the state of student homelessness in the county: “Rising Numbers, Fading Resources: Students Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles County” and “Hidden in Plain Sight: Fear, Underidentification, and Funding Gaps for Housing-Insecure Students in Los Angeles County.”

Researchers found that Norwalk-La Mirada Elementary Unified School District had the highest rate of student homelessness in the county — 1 in 3 students, meaning that over 4,700 students were identified as experiencing homelessness during the 2023-24 school year out of a total cumulative enrollment of about 15,600.

The city of Norwalk, where the district is located in the eastern region of the county, was sued by the state in 2024 for banning emergency shelters and other support services for people experiencing homelessness. Last year, the state reached a settlement with the city, which was forced to overturn the ban and put $250,000 toward building affordable housing.

Student homelessness is defined differently under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law that requires every public school to count the number of students who are living on the street, in shelters, in motels, in cars, doubled up with other families, or moving between friends’ and relatives’ homes.

As a result of this expanded definition, McKinney-Vento includes doubled-up students in the count of homelessness. Doubled-up is a term used to describe children and youth ages 21 and under living in shared housing, such as with another family or friends, due to various crises.

There were a few other patterns seen in the L.A. County data analyzed by the UCLA researchers:

• Latino students were disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness: they represent 65% of the county’s student population, but 75.5% of student homelessness
• A third of homeless students were in high school
• Many districts with the highest rates of homelessness had higher school instability but lower dropout rates

While McKinney-Vento has an expanded definition that includes more types of homelessness than several other definitions, identifying students remains difficult.

The second report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools focuses on the lack of dedicated funding for school staff to identify and support homeless students. Students and families facing homelessness do not always self-identify, whether due to fear, shame or being unaware that their housing situation is considered homelessness under McKinney-Vento.

“A lot of these young people are dealing with a lot of trauma, so they don’t want to be identified. They don’t want to be pointed out; sometimes it’s scary for them, because they think we’re going to report them to the Department of Children and Family Services,” said L.A. County Office of Education staff interviewed for this report.

School staff, known as homeless liaisons, who work with homeless students received a historic influx of federal funds during the Covid-19 pandemic — $98.76 million for California, out of $800 million nationwide, from the American Rescue Plan-Homeless Children and Youth.

That funding has since ended, and there is no other dedicated, ongoing state funding set aside solely for the rising number of homeless students. This has led districts in California to “heavily depend on highly competitive and unstable federal streams,” the UCLA researchers wrote. Those federal streams have become increasingly precarious as the federal administration last year sought policy changes that would shift how they are structured.