The Brief

It’s now nearly impossible to pass through the majority Latino neighborhood of Oak View in Huntington Beach without being captured on camera. The city quietly signed two contracts in April to install 10 high-tech surveillance cameras trained on the main entrances, arteries and gathering areas of the densely-packed neighborhood that covers about half a square mile.

The AI-equipped cameras have 360 degree vision, night vision, and most are capable of magnifying a subject up to 32 times, like a telescope, without losing image quality. They also expose long simmering tensions in Oak View.

On the one hand, some residents of this historically neglected neighborhood told LAist they welcomed the added surveillance if it helps deter crime and catch criminals.

But others question the city’s motives at a time when local officials have pledged to support the federal government’s efforts to find and deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants. They worry the cameras could be used to facilitate racial profiling, or that they could lead to Oak View residents being targeted for federal immigration enforcement.

“The truth is we need more security in this community,” said Hortensia Villanueva, who said she’s lived in the community for more than three decades.

At the same time, Villanueva said things were already “tense” in the community since immigration agents began chasing, tackling and detaining suspected undocumented immigrants across Los Angeles and Orange County.

“What we’re seeing on television, the children are freaking out thinking their parents are going to be taken away or beat up,” Villanueva said. “That affects all of us.”

She said she has mixed feelings about the cameras, and hopes they will only be used to catch criminals, and to curb crimes like graffiti and drunk driving.

In an emailed response to questions about the cameras from LAist, City spokesperson Corbin Carson wrote that the Oak View cameras “were installed due to incidents of vandalism, gun violence, and assaults.” He said additional cameras are being installed throughout the city.

“These cameras will provide real-time officer safety information to responding officers by delivering critical, situational awareness before officers arrive on scene,” he wrote.

LAist also reached out about the cameras to City Council members Gracey Van Der Mark and Casey McKeon, who also sit on the city’s Oak View Task Force, but did not receive a response.

Split contracts, no city council vote

Public records show the city signed two separate contracts in April with the security company Convergint to install the 10 cameras in and around the Oak View neighborhood.

Rules require City Council approval for any contract for services worth more than $100,000.

The contracts, if combined, would have met that threshold.

One of the contracts was for four 360-degree cameras at a cost of $50,488; the other, at a cost of $96,058, was for six camera pairs that allow for 360-degree surveillance, 32x optical zoom, movement tracking and audio detection.

Approving the contracts without a City Council vote “raises red flags,” said Mark Bixby, a local watchdog and publisher of Surf City Sentinel, who discovered the camera contracts.

By avoiding a vote, the city also avoided a public debate about the cameras and a chance for city council members to ask questions about their intended use.

Carson, the city spokesperson, said the contracts were “completed at different times with different funding sources” and one being a grant. “Therefore, the contracts were procured separately,” Carson said.

But both contracts are dated April 3, 2025, in the city’s contract database. They were both signed by Burns and other city officials, and approved by City Manager Travis Hopkins. Burns told LAist he didn’t recall approving the cameras, and didn’t have any information about them.

A 360-degree security camera is affixed to a light pole in Oak View.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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In February 2023, the council did unanimously approve funding for five security cameras that year to address retail crime in the city at a total cost of $50,000. During the meeting, police department leaders said they hoped to install 25 security cameras around the city over the subsequent five years, focused on areas with the most retail crime. But it’s unclear if the cameras in Oak View are part of that plan. There are retail businesses around the perimeter of the neighborhood, but not in the vicinity of most of the cameras.

Oscar Rodriguez, a former City Council candidate who grew up in Oak View, said he and other community leaders have questions, including “if this type of surveillance is going to be used for immigration enforcement in some way, shape, or form or capacity? And if so, is the city of Huntington Beach and the Huntington Beach Police Department going to assist immigration officials with their immigration enforcement?”

Huntington Beach’s growing surveillance network

The cameras add to a growing surveillance network around the city, with a particular focus on Oak View. The city also has three automated license plate readers from the company Flock Safety at major exits from the neighborhood, which appears to be an unusually high density for a residential area compared to the rest of the city, according to the crowd-sourced website, deflock.me. Data from license plate readers in other Southern California cities has been shared with federal immigration authorities in the past.

The city’s most recent contract with Flock Safety, in effect as of July 2024, includes a clause stating the company “may access, use, preserve and/ or disclose the Footage to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/ or third parties, if legally required to do so” or if the company “has a good faith belief” that providing access to the footage “is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce this Agreement, or detect, prevent or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations.”

Just this week, Huntington Beach police launched a new “drones as first responders program” to deploy drones to crimes or public safety incidents. Police Lt. Chris Nesmith said Tuesday that the drones will only record footage when responding to an emergency call.

“ The citizens don't need to worry about officers spying in their backyards or surveilling them,” he said. “This isn't a Big Brother program.”

City leaders say the drones can respond to a call for service in under 2 minutes.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Jeramie Scott, who heads the surveillance oversight program at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he’s skeptical of using surveillance cameras to prevent crime, especially in neighborhoods.

“Surveillance equipment and surveillance, in general, are a lot of times a crutch for bad social policies,” he said. “They don't solve the underlying issues of crime.”

He noted that the new system installed in Oak View has the ability to analyze information and alert officers. Scott said he would be concerned the cameras could be used by police to hone in on residents or locations based on “shaky parameters,” like loitering, “as a flag for potential criminal activity.”

“People loiter all the time. It's not indicative of a crime, per se,” he said. “So if [the camera system] is being used in that way, then all of a sudden you're having increased police presence.”

Scott also questioned how the data from cameras would be stored and under what conditions it could be released to other law enforcement agencies, including federal immigration authorities.

Carson, the city spokesperson, said the city follows California law limiting data-sharing with federal immigration authorities. “Unless legally compelled through a valid court order or warrant, we do not provide non-public video footage or other records to immigration enforcement,” he wrote.

The city recently used a $5 million grant from Caltrans to make improvements in the neighborhood, including street signage, landscape, and ongoing graffiti and trash abatement.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Oak View’s history of neglect 

Oak View has long been among the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The median household income is around $74,000 compared to around $120,000 for the city as a whole, according to Census data.

Once a Japanese American settlement, the neighborhood is now majority Latino, compared to the city as a whole, which is only about 20% Latino, according to Census data.

Nearly 60% of residents living in the Census tract that encompasses Oak View speak a language other than English at home, and 28% are foreign-born.

Despite a 2016 legal settlement with trash hauler Republic Services to enclose its adjacent transfer station, the smell of ripe garbage still occasionally wafts through the rows of bungalows, two-story apartment complexes, and modest single-family homes.

Residents have historically complained about crime and gang activity in Oak View, although rates had reportedly dropped in the years leading up the pandemic. Current crime data for the neighborhood is not publicly available, and LAist was unable to obtain data from the city in time for this story.

Last year, the city invested $6.5 million ($5 million from Caltrans) to repave Oak View’s streets, improve street lighting and landscaping, and add colorful signs and crosswalks. That grant, said Carson, also paid for some of the new security cameras.

“Once that project was completed, the [police] department received numerous complaints about vandalism to the revitalized area," he wrote. "To identify those responsible and deter additional costly damage, public safety cameras were installed.”

Rodriguez, the former City Council candidate, said the relationship between the community and the city government and police department had improved over the last decade. The city also holds periodic town hall-style meetings in the community.

 ”I think it's important for the community to have that trust with the city,” Rodriguez said. “That's the goal, right?”

But that trust has been put to the test under the current local and national administrations.

All-MAGA council declares HB a 'non-sanctuary city'

Huntington Beach’s defiantly conservative city government has made national headlines in recent years — over its efforts to restrict controversial books at the city’s public library, install a “MAGA” plaque for the library’s anniversary, and implement a voter ID rule that runs contrary to state election rules.

The plaque that has generated all the controversy in this beach city.

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Courtesy Huntington Beach

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At the council’s first meeting of 2025, the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Huntington Beach City Council members voted unanimously to declare the city a “non-sanctuary city.” It was a direct challenge to the state’s sanctuary law, the California Values Act, which restricts local law enforcement agencies from assisting with federal immigration enforcement except in the case of individuals convicted of violent crimes.

The city and the police department also sued the state of California over the state’s sanctuary law, arguing that it forces the city to violate federal law. They also argued in a March 2025 court filing that the city is “harmed by the presence of increased numbers of illegal aliens,” including lowered tax revenue and property values and “increased expenditure of public funds to provide public services to illegal aliens.”

America First Legal, a law firm co-founded by Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration strategy, is representing the city.

The state has argued that the city can’t challenge a state law in federal court. The case is ongoing.

Shortly after Huntington Beach passed its “non-sanctuary city” resolution, city leaders held a town hall meeting for Oak View residents at a nearby Catholic church. At the meeting, then-City Attorney Michael Gates sought to assure the crowd that officers wouldn’t out undocumented immigrants to the federal government unless they landed in police custody. (Gates is now a deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice.)

“We can all go to the grocery store without concern,” he told the standing-room-only crowd. “We can go to church without concern, we can go to the doctor without concern. Living day-to-day, there's no concern that there's immigration enforcement in our police department.

“But if you've committed a crime in Huntington Beach and you're in police custody, they will communicate with the federal government."

Oak View residents told LAist they were unaware of any major ICE presence in the neighborhood in recent months. But there have been round-ups at some nearby car washes and Home Depot parking lots.

Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a trustee at the Ocean View School District, which includes Oak View Elementary, said she worries the neighborhood cameras — including one near the school’s entrance and a second camera on school district property near the preschool — will be used to “spy on” families.  

”People are already nervous in the community,” she said, adding that participation in the school’s summer meals program, and at the local Boys and Girls Club, had dropped precipitously compared to recent years.

“And then these cameras are magically just in the Oak View community, they're not in my neighborhood and I live a half a mile from Oak View,” she said. “So really what's going on? Really what I feel is it's like a form of racial profiling. It's a way to scare people."

Yusra Farzan contributed reporting.

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s latest attempt to sideline the L.A. region’s lead homelessness agency from a $239 million federal funding process, clearing the way for the agency to complete an application due next month.

The three-judge Ninth Circuit panel denied the federal government's request for a stay pending appeal, which would have paused a lower court's order blocking its June suspension of LAHSA.

The decision Thursday allows LAHSA to continue to function and steer funding for local service providers who rely on that money to offer services and housing for unhoused people.

“This ruling provides greater stability at an important moment for Los Angeles,” Stephanie Graves, chair of LAHSA’s governing board, said in a statement. “Most importantly, it gives our region the opportunity to keep people housed, help more people find a path home, and give people hope,” her statement continued.

The judges wrote in the latest decision that the federal government failed to adequately explain why an immediate suspension of LAHSA in June was necessary to protect the public interest.

That suspension was put on hold in August by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who ordered the federal government to restore LAHSA’s role in the region’s federal homelessness funding process while the case plays out.

Carter's injunction on LAHSA’s suspension is currently set to expire on Oct. 27.

The question of whether HUD’s suspension of LAHSA was ultimately lawful is still headed for trial, with a hearing before Carter expected in February.

What’s this fight about?

The legal dispute, at this stage, has focused primarily on who gets to control some key decisions about how $239 million in federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants are spent on housing and services for unhoused people in L.A.

The nationwide deadline to apply for that funding is next week, on Sept. 30, although HUD recently extended the deadline to Oct. 14 for L.A.-area applicants.

HUD’s rules require service providers and public agencies in places like L.A. County to form local geographic bodies called “continuums of care” and designate one agency to apply on behalf of the whole region for federal funds dedicated to solving homelessness.

L.A.’s regional body designated LAHSA as that one agency.

This year, LAHSA staff have been working since April with homeless service providers and other municipal partners to prepare a funding application according to HUD’s guidelines.

Then HUD’s June suspension of LAHSA stymied that process.

The appeals court said the timing of HUD’s suspension left the Los Angeles region in the lurch since the suspension came after a deadline to name another designated applicant had passed.

“HUD chose to suspend LAHSA at a time when it would leave the Los Angeles region particularly vulnerable,” the panel wrote.

Ben Kay works for a homeless services nonprofit and leads L.A.'s Continuum of Care Board. In a statement shared with LAist, Kay said "HUD’s attempts to impose its agenda on our community have created uncertainty and chaos in Los Angeles."

He said the Ninth Circuit ruling recognizes that there is a local legal right to set priorities for addressing homelessness.

Alternatives considered

HUD’s proposed alternative — allowing individual service providers to apply directly for federal funding — was “extremely difficult if not virtually impossible to implement,” the judges wrote.

That approach, according to HUD’s lawyers, would ignore much of LAHSA’s prior decisions about how to spend federal dollars.

“HUD, in the direct to HUD process, will not rely on any priorities set by LAHSA,” Weili Shaw, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, said at a hearing in the case held Tuesday in San Francisco. “That's expressly what HUD wants, is not to have to rely on LAHSA’s allocation and prioritization decisions.”

Thursday’s court decision means that the direct-to-HUD process is off the table, at least for now.

On Wednesday, a regional homelessness body recommended that, in case LAHSA remained suspended, L.A. County departments could handle the region’s application instead. That body, the L.A. Continuum of Care, is also soliciting applications for organizations to take on LAHSA’s key federal roles beginning next year, including the annual federal funding application and the homeless count.

LAHSA has indicated it will not compete to keep those roles itself next year. Other local government agencies, including L.A. County’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, have applied to take those roles sometime in 2027.

What LAHSA said in court

At Tuesday's hearing in San Francisco, the panel focused on the fast-approaching deadline.

Keri Curtis Axel, LAHSA's attorney, argued her client is the only entity actually prepared to make that deadline.

She also said dozens of local homeless service providers who rely on LAHSA to apply on their behalf wouldn't qualify to apply under HUD's alternative process, potentially cutting them out of guaranteed funding entirely.

Attorneys for the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, the regional body responsible for coordinating the application said that HUD never gave it a real opportunity to name a replacement for LAHSA for the process happening now.

Attorney Shayla Myers told the panel her client formally asked HUD whether it could designate a new collaborative applicant during a 30-day response window this summer. HUD never responded, she said, instead proceeding with plans for its own direct-to-HUD process.

The fight over LAHSA's suspension took on new urgency since the First Circuit Court of Appeals revived HUD’s controversial funding guidelines last week. That cleared the way for HUD to reopen this year's funding competition on a tight timeline.

Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said the agency “is moving full speed to finalize” the L.A. region’s federal funding application, due Oct. 14.

“Our priority has always been keeping frontline services running and ensuring that federal funding reaches our service providers,” O’Neill said in a statement.

LAHSA’s leader also said the agency will work with HUD to make sure that previously approved grant funding is promptly disbursed and will continue to prepare for January’s 2027 homeless count.

HUD has until Dec. 1 to announce this year's awards under a congressional deadline.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said in a statement that it “stands by the lawfulness” of its suspension of LAHSA.

“The Department will comply with the Ninth Circuit's temporary order, which was made in part due to the quickly approaching deadline for CoC applications,” a department spokesperson said.

“HUD looks forward to seeing the Ninth Circuit's full resolution on the merits,” the statement continued.

A status conference in the original case — which will ultimately decide whether HUD’s suspension of LAHSA was legal — is currently scheduled for Sept. 30 in Judge Carter’s courtroom.

The Ninth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments Oct. 19 on HUD's appeal of the preliminary injunction. The appeals court Thursday declined to pause the injunction while the case moves ahead, keeping it in effect. But the October hearing is where the judges will decide whether to uphold or overturn it.

If you're a fan of Indian food, there's a good chance you head to places like Artesia or Orange County when the craving strikes.

But there's a growing destination for Desi food you may not have heard of: Downtown Los Angeles.

Several Indian chefs have put down roots there in the past few years, and are doing their best to convince Angelenos there's more to the cuisine than the standard takeout or lunch buffet offerings.

Drawing on both street food tradition and a new confident creativity, they're producing dishes that arguably belong in a fine dining category.

Brick Lane

Take Brick Lane, a new Indian restaurant on the outskirts of the Arts District, near the 6th Street bridge, which opened earlier this year. The server arrives with a steaming plate holding what appears to be a large pie. The golden crust is topped with black sesame seeds; the server places it on the table and immediately begins carving a circle around its edges. Steam rises, and a rush of aromas and spices fills the air.

But it isn’t a pie; it’s dum biryani, a layered mixed-rice dish featuring marinated wild mushrooms, sealed and slow-baked, topped with a crispy puffed naan crust.

Executive Chef Sanjay Rawat at Brick Lane uses modern cooking techniques to execute beloved Indian flavors.

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Courtesy Brick Lane

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It’s the kind of dish that Sanjay Rawat, the executive chef, wants to showcase on his new restaurant menu. Originally from New Delhi, he left at 17 to train as a chef in Malaysia. Before opening Brick Lane, he ran Kahani at The Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel. In his Arts District space, Rawat is using a variety of techniques he’s picked up during his tenure, such as using his Santa Maria grill to prepare Malaysian-Indian branzino and offering his delicate take on dessert: Valencia-orange-cardamom tarts.

Cali Chilli

Tandoori Chicken Wings from Cali Chilli's downtown L.A. location.

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Joshua Mejia

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Cali Chili

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At Cali Chilli, on the border of Little Tokyo and downtown, owner Parveen Nair and Michelin-starred chef-collaborator Manjunath Mural have carved out their own path. They opened their Long Beach location in 2022, and their DTLA location in 2024. Mural also leads Song of India in Singapore, which has held a Michelin star since 2015. The pair experiment with their menu, which they dub "unauthentic Indian" — a series of dishes rooted in traditional Indian cuisine and expanded through the lens of a street-food narrative. Think nachos and quesadillas made with tandoori chicken alongside butter lobster in a Thai panang curry.

Baar Baar

Baar Baar's tasting menu begins with pani puris, a popular Indian street snack made with tamarind, mango, yogurt mousse, and raspberry chat masala.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Further west, a short walk from Crypto.com Arena, is Baar Baar, which has been open since 2023. Executive chef Sujan Sarkar’s restaurant portfolio spans the U.S., including a sister Baar Baar location in New York, Tiya, a restaurant in San Francisco, and Indienne in Chicago, which holds a Michelin star. Sarkar has built a career pushing the boundaries of contemporary Indian cuisine. Diners can take advantage of their $55 prix-fixe menu, including a dahi puri canapé (tamarind, yogurt mousse, raspberry chaat masala), Cauliflower 65 (a riff on Chicken 65, with carrot pachadi, peanut chutney, thecha) and beef short ribs in Madras curry.

Why DTLA

Speaking with Nair and Rawat, I found that each chef saw an opportunity in downtown’s changing character: a steady flow of travelers for Nair and a growing, still-forming community for Rawat.

“In downtown, we get 60% travelers and say about 40% ... from the neighborhood," said Nair.

He says the area’s possibilities sparked Cali Chilli's innovative approach: "There was a vacuum ... the idea [of the restaurants] was conceived pretty much at the same time."

A look inside chef Sanjay Rawat's open kitchen at Brick Lane in the Arts District.

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Courtesty Brick Lane

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Meanwhile when Rawat first visited the future site of Brick Lane, near the 6th Street bridge, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was. “Looking from the outside, it made me think, where am I going?”

But when he entered the space, he knew he’d found the right place. With high ceilings and surrounded by large windows, the interior is filled with natural light.

“It's such a beautiful space. Whatever food you put into this space, it's just gonna shine.”

Just a ten-minute walk from Crypto Area, Baar Baar offers modern Indian cuisine with a unique twist.

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Courtesy of Baar Baar LA

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He also appreciates the location, too. “Arts District is a beautiful community, which is growing. ... Plus, it's a destination too,” he said.

Still, the chefs understand they have their work cut out for them to make their menus seen as high-end dining, beyond the traditional form Indian food has taken till now.

It’s going to take Indian cuisine in L.A. time to continue to modernize, Rawat said, to a point “where it is acceptable by other cultural groups or even by Indian people.”

The Legislature is forcing the city and county of Sacramento to try something unusual in their fight against homelessness, and both critics and supporters of the controversial plan say it could have broad implications for the rest of the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 802 on Sunday, which requires Sacramento, as well as all smaller cities within the county, to coordinate and form a joint powers authority that will lead the region’s homelessness response.

“Homelessness does not stop at jurisdictional boundaries,” Newsom wrote in a signing message, “and no city or county can solve this crisis alone.”

A joint powers authority is a public partnership where two or more local governments or agencies team up to jointly manage something. In Sacramento, the idea is that this new framework will allow the cities and county to better communicate and work together on homelessness – hopefully leading to more people getting off the streets.

Supporters say it’s a no-brainer, and they hope it will be an example to fix an age-old problem playing out in regions across the state: Cities and counties must work well together to effectively address homelessness, but they often don’t. On the other hand, opponents say forcing local governments to work together sets a bad precedent: Cooperation works best if it’s voluntary.

Meanwhile, this new experiment in co-governance is highly atypical for a number of reasons.

For one thing, this appears to be the first time the California Legislature has forced anyone to form a joint powers authority. Typically, those agreements are voluntary. In Sacramento, local jurisdictions chafing under this new mandate worry the new law will embolden the Legislature to do this again in other regions.

“This would be unprecedented, so it could have ramifications in 57 other counties,” said Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, who opposes the legislation. The county is threatening to sue the state to stop its implementation.

In addition, while it’s not uncommon for local governments to form joint powers authorities to manage other things that cross city boundaries — such as sewers or public transit — it’s very rare for this type of structure to govern a region’s homelessness response. In 2020, there were only three examples in all of California, according to Joe Colletti, chief executive officer of the nonprofit research organization HUB for Urban Initiatives. The most well-known is the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which recently has been reduced to a shell of its former self as a result of one headline-making crisis after another. In the rest of the state, a region’s homelessness response usually is led by a county or nonprofit.

Squabbling between cities and counties

This legislation was controversial from the beginning. It took Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Democrat from Sacramento and former city councilmember, two years of tense negotiations and multiple amendments to get it across the finish line. The final version allows the county and participating cities to keep control of their own funds, rather than pooling everything together — a major sticking point for the local governments.

The Sacramento region needed this legislation, Ashby argued during a recent committee hearing, because its various agencies have eight boards and nearly 90 board members working separately on homelessness without coordinating. The result is duplicated and inconsistent services, leaving people who are homeless in Sacramento County with no idea where they should go for help, she said.

It’s a problem the city and county have tried to fix for more than two decades. In 2010, the county board of supervisors and city council approved resolutions that supported creating a joint powers authority, but it didn’t happen. Two separate grand jury reports, one in 2019 and another in 2023, said the region’s homelessness response was dysfunctional and recommended better coordination.

It’s hardly an issue unique to Sacramento. Across California, cities typically provide shelter beds, while counties are responsible for the other services homeless residents need, such as mental health and addiction treatment. That’s because counties receive state funding for social services, and cities don’t. So, neither can effectively address homelessness unless they work together. But, frequently, they don’t. Instead, they often squabble over who should pay for what, and who isn’t doing their fair share.

Fighting between neighboring cities is common, too. As unhoused people move across city lines, local governments argue over who should have to provide shelter beds and other resources.

It was a major frustration for former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. His constituents saw people on the street in mental health crisis, suffering. Voters demanded he do something, but his hands were largely tied, he said, as he had no control over the county’s mental health services.

“There was just a major gulf between my accountability to the people and my authority to be able to actually make the difference that the people expected,” Steinberg said.

During his time in office, which ended in 2024, Steinberg negotiated a partnership between the city and the county. But it lacked a governance structure that would have forced them to make decisions together. That’s the missing piece that this law brings to the table, he said.

Under the new law, the city and county of Sacramento, as well as Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights and Folsom, have until January 2028 to finalize their joint powers authority. They recently convened a joint task force of elected officials, and have started working together on homelessness issues.

But there’s some lingering tension. While the city of Sacramento is on board with the legislation, the county and the city of Folsom are opposed. Neither is against the idea of collaboration, but they don’t like that it’s being forced upon them.

“It’s an unnecessary cost,” county Supervisor Kennedy said. “It’s an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, it's an unnecessary burden that’s just going to slow down processes.”

Staffing and running the new joint powers authority is expected to have an annual price tag of anywhere between the mid-hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the low millions, according to a Senate analysis.

Examples in Los Angeles and Solano counties

As the Sacramento region gears up to create this new power structure, it has two main examples it can turn to.

One, in Los Angeles, is a cautionary tale. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint powers authority between the city and county, was the target of recent audits criticizing its handling of homelessness funds. A downward spiral followed. LA County pulled its funding from the authority and the Trump administration now is prosecuting homeless services providers that it alleges misused money from the agency.

Kennedy said the parallels between LA and Sacramento’s new agency worry him “very much,” and clearly show that a joint powers authority is hardly a panacea for homelessness.

But Steinberg believes the new Sacramento agency can do better. The LA agency didn’t have enough authority, and as a result, the city and county weren’t governing effectively together, he said. He hopes that will be different in Sacramento.

The other example Sacramento leaders can turn to is in Solano County, which created the current version of its joint powers authority in 2022. Local leaders pushed for a collaborative agency after hearing reports that other cities were dropping off their homeless residents at parking lots in Fairfield, assuming that services would be available because it’s the county seat, said Doriss Panduro, a Fairfield city councilmember and chair of the joint powers authority.

Now, the authority is made up of two elected officials from each city and the county, and they meet once a month to discuss how to spend money and how many people are receiving services.

“It is a big undertaking,” Panduro said. “We started the work in 2021, 2022, and here we are four years later just getting paid staff on board. It’s been a big lift.”

But, she said, it’s been worth it.

Recently, the county and all the cities involved in the joint powers authority applied together for state funding to clear one encampment along a flood control basin in Vallejo. Even though Vallejo would be the only city to get that money, it arguably would benefit everyone since it targets the largest encampment in the county, Panduro said. And Vallejo wouldn’t have had the resources to manage the state grant without the support of everyone else, she said.

“Homelessness is such a big issue, and I think finding an out-of-the-box way to approach it, for me, I can only say it’s a positive,” she said. “Everyone felt like we had been doing the same things over and over and nothing was changing.”

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