By Elly Yu | LAist and Elisabeth Gawthrop | APM Research Lab
Updated June 20, 2024 4:38 PM
Published September 20, 2023 5:00 AM
(
Dan Carino
/
LAist
)
Topline:
All over California, people with serious mental illness are living in nursing homes that experts say weren’t meant to care for them — an investigation by LAist, APM Research Lab and The California Newsroom reveals. Some call it "warehousing" and say the practice might violate federal laws. The consequences have been deadly.
Cases we identified through public records:
A 68-year-old woman with schizophrenia was found face down and barely alive in the rain by a passerby, 12 miles from her nursing home a day after she wandered off. She died of hypothermia.
A 46-year-old with schizoaffective disorder who’d recently attempted suicide walked out of a nursing home and jumped from an overpass onto the 101 freeway after hearing his dead father’s voice telling him to join him. He broke multiple bones, damaged organs, and had to have a kidney removed.
Another man with schizoaffective disorder who needed antipsychotic medication was released without a safe transition plan to an unlicensed group home, where he wound up eating his own feces; he died of sepsis.
Hyde Park Healthcare Center is a one-story building with a pink stucco and flagstone facade about 10 miles from downtown L.A. Seen from the street, it’s just another unassuming nursing home.
But inside, “It’s a sanitarium,” said Travell Jackson, a nurse with two decades of experience who worked at the facility in 2022. On any given day, she said, there were “patients running around, screaming, yelling, disrobing, defecating in the hallways, on themselves.”
Last year, 7 in 10 residents at Hyde Park had a serious mental illness — defined as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or psychotic disorder — according to an investigation by LAist, APM Research Lab and The California Newsroom.
Our investigation found that in 2022, hundreds of nursing homes across California — facilities that typically help people rehabilitate after surgery or provide round-the-clock care for the elderly or physically disabled — admitted and housed thousands of people with serious mental illness, often for a year or longer.
Listen
3:42
Listen: What we found in our investigation of seriously mental illness and California nursing homes
Nearly 100 of these nursing homes filled more than half of their beds with residents who have a serious mental illness; at some facilities, nearly every resident had a serious mental illness.
Our analysis also shows that the percentage of residents in California nursing homes who have a serious mental illness has been increasing over the past decade.
Experts say that keeping so many people with serious mental illness in nursing homes — rather than in community settings with appropriate services — amounts to “back door institutionalization” and “warehousing,” similar to what has happened in California’s prisons and jails for decades.
Last year, 7 in 10 residents at Hyde Park Healthcare Center, an L.A. nursing home, had a serious mental illness, according to federal data analyzed for an investigation by LAist, APM Research Lab and The California Newsroom.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
The consequences — documented in state records — have been horrific. Without proper supervision, residents with serious mental illness have slipped out of nursing homes and gone missing for weeks, and been released with little regard for their needs. Just a few examples:
A 68-year-old woman with schizophrenia was found face down and barely alive in the rain by a passerby, 12 miles from her nursing home and a day after she wandered off. She died of hypothermia.
A 46-year-old with schizoaffective disorder who’d recently attempted suicide walked out of a nursing home and jumped from an overpass onto the 101 freeway after hearing his dead father’s voice telling him to join him. He broke multiple bones, damaged organs and had to have a kidney removed.
Another man with schizoaffective disorder who needed antipsychotic medication was released without a safe transition plan to an unlicensed group home, where he wound up eating his own feces; he died of sepsis.
Beyond the shocking anecdotes, experts say the failure of local and state governments to provide community-based care for people with serious mental illness could be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
We shouldn’t have this many people [with serious mental illness] living in institutions for months or years.
— Lewis Bossing, senior attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
“It’s appalling,” said Eve Hill, a former deputy assistant attorney general with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, who also spent 30 years as a disability rights lawyer. “It’s very disappointing that this is still happening in spite of all the barriers we’ve tried to put up to prevent it from happening.”
Lawyers and academics also say that by allowing so many people with serious mental illness into nursing homes, the state of California could be violating a federal Medicaid law meant to prevent the institutionalization of people with psychiatric disabilities.
Our analysis also shows that the practice of housing people with serious mental illness in nursing homes brings down the average age of residents. And that has ripple effects. Nurses we spoke with said that being responsible for younger, more able-bodied residents makes it difficult to provide safe, quality care to older and less mobile people they were trained to help.
How we reported this story
Nearly a year ago, we began the process of requesting and analyzing complicated federal data to examine our starting question: How many people with serious mental illness are residents in California nursing homes?
“That may not be the best compatibility,” said Rachel Tate, who heads L.A. County’s ombudsman’s office for long-term care. “That can be gravely concerning for a multitude of reasons.”
Speaking more broadly about the number of people with serious mental illness who are in nursing homes for extended periods, she said, “We as a society have failed them because there isn't necessarily a better option at this moment. Where else do you go?” Nursing homes, Tate added, have become “de facto mental health centers — but they don’t have the specialized training.”
(
Dan Carino
/
LAist
)
Our shocking findings and the data behind them
We analyzed federal data
for California’s 1,146 “skilled nursing facilities,” known commonly as nursing homes, which federal code says are “not primarily for the care and treatment of mental diseases.” None of these nursing homes are certified by the state as “special treatment programs” for psychiatric patients.
We found that in 2022:
Nearly 22,000 nursing home residents had a serious mental illness; that’s 25% of all nursing home residents in California.
Nearly 1 in 3 residents who’d been in a California nursing home for over a year had a serious mental illness.
Almost 100 California nursing homes filled at least half their beds with people who had a serious mental illness; in several facilities, at least 8 in 10 residents had a serious mental illness.
In 2022, nursing home residents with serious mental illness had spent nine months longer in their facility than those without serious mental illness.
Less than 1% of long-term nursing home residents with serious mental illness received any psychotherapy in the week leading up to their annual assessments.
Nearly one-third of residents in L.A. County nursing homes had a serious mental illness — the highest rate of any county in California.
We brought these findings to the California Department of Public Health, which handles licensing for nursing homes, and the Department of Health Care Services, which helps oversee community mental health care, for comment.
Responding jointly, the agencies asked us for the source of our data, which we provided. They followed up with findings from their own “initial analysis,” and concluded that the number of nursing home residents with serious mental illness is “likely lower than asserted” by our investigation. However, their analysis relied on a different dataset that covers a narrower population of nursing home residents than ours.
The agencies also noted that the presence of mental illness does not negate the potential need for skilled nursing care for people experiencing a range of conditions, from “advanced wound care” to “monitoring and management of chronic health conditions” such as diabetes to “dementia requiring safety monitoring (fall avoidance, wandering behavior mitigation).”
“It is important that individuals who are experiencing [serious mental illness] can access [nursing home] care when needed,” they wrote.
A possible violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act
We also brought our findings
to leading academics, advocates and attorneys who specialize in nursing home policy and disability rights. Several of these experts told us that California could be violating Olmstead v. L.C., a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision stemming from the Americans with Disabilities Act. Issued in 1999, the ruling says that state and local governments need to offer community services to people with disabilities so they aren’t unnecessarily institutionalized and segregated from the rest of society.
“Nursing homes generally are not the right setting for people with serious mental illness,” said Kevin Martone, a former New Jersey mental health commissioner who is now executive director at the Technical Assistance Collaborative, a nonprofit that works with states on mental health policy and Olmstead compliance. “People can generally be served in community-based settings with the right types of supports,” such as housing, case management and mental health services, he said.
Books in the office of Rachel Tate, L.A. County’s ombudsman for long-term care.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Many states and local governments have come up short, including California and L.A. County, which for years have struggled with limited resources for community services along with an affordable housing crisis. As a result, people with serious mental illness and nowhere else to turnhave ended up in institutions like hospitals, jails or nursing homes.
“If there’s nowhere to bring them into [the] community, then they’re stuck in the institutions,” said Jonathan Sherin, M.D., former director of L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health.
Sherin said people with serious mental illness often wind up in hospitals because they have co-occurring medical issues as they age, and don’t get great medical care to begin with. But when their hospital stay is up, their options are limited.
“If there was enough housing and enough support in [the] community,” he said, “we wouldn't be jamming up the streets, the jails, and things like [nursing homes].”
Our data found that 90% of California nursing home residents with serious mental illness came straight from hospitals.
[The state] should be investigating, because [nursing homes] certainly shouldn't have that large of a population unless they’re a special treatment facility.
— Charlene Harrington, professor of nursing at UC San Francisco
Travell Jackson, the nurse who worked at Hyde Park Healthcare Center, said many new arrivals were unhoused. “People didn't have clothing, people didn’t have shoes,” she told us. “I'd ask them, ‘How did you end up here? Where’s your family?’ Some were just too far in their mental illness to give me a straight answer. It’s just sad.”
LAist Investigates: The Truth Inside California's Nursing Homes
Hear more from Jackson in this episode of our podcast series Imperfect Paradise.
According to Tate, the L.A. County ombudsman, there’s a name for the most vulnerable people with serious mental illness — those with no reliable caretakers, no official conservator, no legal representation or ability to self-advocate — who end up in nursing homes as an alternative to the streets. They’re called the “unbefriended.”
“They don’t have the ability to protect themselves really, and they don’t have anybody to stand up and do it for them,” she said, “so they can sometimes get shipped and moved around.”
Rachel Tate, L.A. County’s ombudsman for long-term care, says the most vulnerable people with no reliable caretakers, conservators, legal representation, or ability to self-advocate are called the "unbefriended."
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Tony Chicotel, senior attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, put the problem in even starker terms. “For most residents with a serious mental illness, the nursing homes just serve as a warehouse — keeping them alive, keeping them fed and sheltered and out of the streets and out of people’s way,” he said. “We’re not accomplishing all that was hoped for with the Olmstead decision and the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
To stop states and local governments from segregating people with mental illness, the U.S. Department of Justice regularly investigates possible Olmstead and ADA violations. In 2018, the DOJ sued the state of Louisiana for the alleged segregation of residents with serious mental illness in nursing homes. The rate of serious mental illness in nursing homes in Louisiana was nearly identical to what we found in California
in 2022.
Map: How nursing homes compare
The DOJ declined to comment on our findings.
We presented experts’ concerns about a possible Olmstead violation to the California Department of Health Care Services and the California Department of Public Health. In their joint email, they wrote: “DHCS and CDPH perform several functions aimed at protecting the rights of Californians with disabilities to receive services in the least restrictive setting.”
Experts agree that people with serious mental illness should be able to get other types of care at nursing homes. But they say frequent and long-term stays look a lot like institutionalization — and a civil rights violation. “We shouldn’t have this many people [with serious mental illness] living in institutions for months or years,” said Lewis Bossing, senior attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, who has has been part of several lawsuits against government entities related to the Olmstead decision. California’s high rate of residents with serious mental illness in nursing homes, he said, “seems to be a failure of a system, a failure of any effort to rebalance a system — and an Olmstead problem.”
(
Dan Carino
/
LAist
)
California lacks a full accounting of residents with serious mental illness
The California Department of Public Health told us
it doesn’t keep track of all nursing home residents with serious mental illness.
The Department of Health Care Services, the other state agency in charge of mental health care, told us it keeps track of people with serious mental illness who have been through a federally mandated pre-admission screening process that’s supposed to steer residents with mental illness toward community services when appropriate. Yet our investigation found approximately 5,000 long-term residents with serious mental illness who in 2022 were not identified as such through the screening process.
“They’re looking the other way. They're just ignoring the problem,” said Charlene Harrington, professor emeritus of sociology and nursing at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It’s negligence,” said Kim Swain, former senior counsel at Disability Rights California, a nonprofit that has brought major disability rights lawsuits against local governments and the state. “No one’s paying attention to something that is having dire consequences.”
The pre-admission screening process has been so flawed that the state was deemed out of compliance by the federal government in 2015, at which point the feds compelled the state to create a corrective action plan. It wasn’t until June of this year, just weeks before the state’s deadline, that the feds gave California its stamp of approval.
Experts say the state’s failure to keep a complete count of the number of nursing home residents with serious mental illness could put them in violation of federal Medicaid requirements. That’s because the feds set a threshold for how many people a facility is allowed to accept because of their mental illness. Once nursing homes exceed that limit — 50% — they cannot get federal Medicaid funding for many residents. The state is responsible for identifying those facilities.
Swain said the state has little incentive to know which nursing homes have too many residents with serious mental illness. “Their Medicaid dollars would get yanked,” she said. “It would be chaos.”
In response to our findings and criticism from experts, the departments of Health Care Services and Public Health wrote, jointly: “We dispute the implication that DHCS and CDPH have little or no information” about nursing home patients with serious mental illness. The agencies explained that “both departments review extensive individual, patient-level data that includes diagnoses and service needs” as required, but said they “do not routinely perform data analytics for the express purpose of ‘counting’ or ‘tracking.’”
Toby Ewing thinks they should. He’s the executive director of the state’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, which reviews how mental health services funds are spent. When we showed him our findings, Ewing told us, “You’ve done more work on this probably than the state of California has done.”
“It’s clear that we don’t have the data infrastructure that we need in order to better understand these trends as they’re happening,” Ewing said, “so that we can get in front of these challenges and really understand how we can intervene so that we don’t have inappropriate placements.”
The 101 freeway overpass where in March of 2019, a 46-year-old man with schizoaffective disorder, who’d recently attempted suicide, jumped after slipping out of Hollywood Premier Healthcare Center.
Source: California Department of Public Health
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Few nursing homes are certified as special treatment programs
There’s a special category of nursing homes
meant for patients with serious mental illness who aren’t ready to live on their own in the community: a “special treatment program,” or STP.
Under state requirements, STPs must have specially trained staff and therapeutic services that either help prepare patients for a more independent life, or prevent them from becoming less functional.
But only 31 of California’s nearly 1,200 nursing homes have STP certification, according to CDPH’s database.
One reason for the small number of facilities has to do with money. For starters, counties receive a limited amount of state dollars to put toward STPs, said Connie Draxler, acting chief deputy director of L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health. “There’s only so many dollars available,” she said. “So funding is an issue.”
And there’s another financial complication: Generally speaking, STP facilities that fill at least half their beds with seriously mentally ill patients can’t get federal funding.
According to [one citation], a resident with schizophrenia “elope[d] from the facility undetected” and was missing for 23 consecutive days before being found 18 miles away in a vegetative state with blunt-force head trauma.
On top of that, said Draxler, there’s the challenge of finding space and getting buy-in from community members to put new facilities in their neighborhoods. As a result of all these hurdles, she said, “The number of providers that do that type of care is rather limited.”
State regulations require that people who qualify for special treatment services should not be in regular nursing homes; yet CDPH told us that since 2012, they’ve only cited one facility for violating that rule.
Our data could not help us determine how many California nursing home residents need STP services.
We asked CDPH how many residents with serious mental illness need STP services but are not getting them; a spokesperson for the agency said it did not have this information.
Tony Chicotel, with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, is not surprised. He said CDPH’s lack of information is consistent with the “hands-off policy” of mental health regulation in nursing homes. “To me, the spirit of the law and the [regulations] are clear,” he said. “Nursing home residents with mental health problems should get special services to treat those mental health problems. And I think what we’re seeing is the system is not addressing those needs.”
A 68-year-old woman with schizophrenia wandered out of Hollywood Premier Healthcare Center (above) in 2019 and was found face down and barely alive in the rain by a passerby 12 miles away. She died of hypothermia.
Source: California Department of Public Health
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
How citations fall short
While the state doesn’t keep tabs
on exactly how many residents with serious mental illness are in a particular nursing home, they do respond to complaints and check on facilities during the re-licensing or re-certification process. In their joint email, the agencies told us, “If facilities are found to be out of compliance with requirements, CDPH takes enforcement action within its authority.”
Typically that means issuing citations and fines. For example, Hyde Park Healthcare Center, where Travell Jackson worked, has been cited 16 times by DHCS since 2016 for “A-level” infractions—violations that caused an “imminent danger” or “substantial probability of death or serious harm to patients.”
According to one citation, the facility failed to monitor the whereabouts of a suicidal resident with schizophrenia for 32 days.
According to another, a resident with schizophrenia “elope[d] from the facility undetected” and was missing for 23 consecutive days before being found 18 miles away in a vegetative state with blunt-force head trauma.
In yet another citation, Hyde Park employees failed to supervise a resident with schizophrenia who attacked two other residents and staff members, sending one person to the emergency room.
Hyde Park was fined a total of $280,000 during that seven-year period, but has been allowed to operate.
The number of residents with serious mental illness at Hyde Park, coupled with the lack of training, “created an unsafe environment,” said Danielle Sharber, another former employee. “It’s dangerous and unfair.”
Until this past June, Hyde Park was owned by ReNew Health, which LAist wrote about in 2021; ReNew still helps operate the facility, according to Dan Kramer, a spokesperson for the company. Kramer said ReNew’s “principal focus is and will continue to be, providing the best patient-driven health care, and providing a safe environment for our patients and staff.”
Dozens of other facilities are also regularly cited and fined for equally severe infractions. Our investigation found that facilities with a high number of residents who have serious mental illness are on average cited more often than facilities that have fewer residents with serious mental illness.
Charlene Harrington, the professor of nursing at UCSF, said that rather than just hit these facilities with fines when something goes wrong, state regulators should pay closer attention to nursing homes that have a high number of residents with serious mental illness and take more meaningful action.
The state “should be investigating,” she said, “because [nursing homes] certainly shouldn't have that large of a population unless they’re a special treatment facility.”
Can Newsom’s new mental health plan help?
In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom
stood before a podium inside a hospital in San Diego, flanked by local and state officials, to speak about the state’s ballooning homelessness and mental health crises. The state’s lack of housing for people with mental illness and substance abuse disorders are “the most acute challenge the state faces,” he said.
Moments later, Newsom unveiled a new “mental health housing” plan. Endorsed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness California, business groups and city governments, the plan has two parts, one of which would put a decision before voters in March 2024 for a bond measure to create 10,000 new “behavioral health” beds. (A 2021 study by the RAND Group estimated the state was short about 7,700 psychiatric beds.) The plan also calls for funds from a millionaire tax for mental health services to be used for housing programs for people who are unhoused or living in tent encampments.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, at podium, speaks at a news conference announcing a proposed a 2024 ballot initiative to improve mental health services across the state, at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, Sunday, March 19, 2023.
(
Adriana Heldiz
/
The San Diego Union-Tribune via AP, Pool
)
The governor’s proposal comes just a year after he introduced another sweeping plan, called CARE Court, which is meant to compel people with untreated, serious mental illness into treatment.
His new plan called for building more “campus-style” facilities and other residential settings staffed with mental health services. A press release later described them as “unlocked, community settings.” Newsom made clear they would not be “institutions of the past, but locations where people can really heal.”
Disability and civil rights advocates are skeptical. “There wasn’t a lot of talk about recovery, about people having careers, about people kind of building their lives back. There was talk about beds — ‘We need more beds’ — and I just think that’s a dangerous way to frame it,” said Andy Imparato, executive director of Disability Rights California, who lives with bipolar disorder. “It's like, ‘Let’s find places for these people to go so we don’t have to look at them on the street.’”
Last week, lawmakers added an 11th-hour amendment to the bond measure that alarmed advocates. The addition removed language that the money must be used toward “voluntary, unlocked” settings. The measure passed the legislature overwhelmingly.
Rachel Bhagwat, legislative advocate with ACLU California Action, called the last-minute maneuver a “red flag.”
“There’s a concern that California may be funneling funds toward more institutional settings at the expense of investing funds in less restrictive levels of care,” she said.
We shared our nursing home findings with the governor’s office and asked them to comment about concerns that Newsom’s new mental health plan could lead to more people being institutionalized. The governor’s office forwarded our email to the Department of Health Care Services. “This characterization is inaccurate,” wrote DHCS’s Anthony Cava. “The measure will fund the entire range of treatment sites, residential care settings, and supportive housing.”
He noted that the “Governor’s plan is specifically aimed at people with serious mental illness… to provide the treatment and housing that best suits the individual.”
Imparato, with Disability Rights California, said he agrees that everyone needs housing, but “beds” — like those in nursing homes — aren’t the best placement for people with serious mental health conditions.
“If the best we can do is just find somebody a bed in a place where they’re gonna be isolated, not have much of a life, not have much connection to their family or friends, not be able to hold down a job,” he said, “that’s not a great goal for public policy for people with long-term disabilities.”
Listen
Elly Yu and Elisabeth Gawthrop joined LAist 89.3's AirTalk show on Sept. 20 to discuss their findings and take listener calls. Also appearing: Rachel Tate, vice president of Ombudsman Services at WISE & Healthy Aging, and Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.
Listen
41:38
Listen: Report Finds CA Nursing Homes Treating More Serious Mental Illness, Lacking Sufficient Resources To Do So
To prevent a future crisis, here's how to help someone make a safety plan.
Credits
This story is a collaboration between LAist, APM Research Lab and The California Newsroom (a collaboration of public media news outlets throughout the state).
Note: Kessler served as the main story editor and Hill edited the audio reporting.
The Jane and Ron Olson Center for Investigative Reporting helped make this project possible. Ron Olson is an honorary trustee of Southern California Public Radio. The Olsons do not have any editorial input on the stories we cover.
Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published January 2, 2026 5:00 AM
Stewart tests out the herding instincts of the author's dog, Ace.
(
Joshua Letona
/
LAist
)
Topline:
Is your dog a natural herder? Several ranches around Los Angeles will let your pup satisfy their instincts with actual livestock.
How do I know if my dog would like herding? The American Kennel Club lists 33 herding breeds that “share an instinctual ability to control the movement of other animals.” That doesn’t mean your pet will or won’t have that instinct. “The dog will tell us,” said longtime herder and trainer Jerry Stewart.
Easy’s Place: JerryStewart has been training dogs for nearly 40 years, mostly on a patch of land next to the 710 Freeway in Long Beach. But in October, he was abruptly told he could no longer lease the land. Now, he’s trying to keep his business going at a new location in Moreno Valley.
I knew it was a gamble taking my mutt, Ace, to herd sheep. He had a little Australian cattle dog in him, but that was it in terms of traditional herding breeds.
Still, one of my neighbors had told me about this place that lets urban dogs test out their sheepherding instincts. I thought Ace’s habit of running at me full steam at the park, then swerving at the last minute, might stem from a deep-seeded urge to mind the flock. So I decided to give it a shot.
Jerry Stewart of Easy’s Place herding greeted us as we pulled up next to the sheep corral on a ranch at the base of the Box Springs Mountains in Riverside. With his cowboy hat and shepherd staff, you’d never know this 76-year-old is a former surfer from Huntington Beach. Unless, of course, you recognize him from an episode of the Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan or one of his other media appearances over the years.
Stewart has been training dogs for 36 years, mostly on a patch of land next to the 710 Freeway in Long Beach. But in October, he was abruptly told he could no longer lease the land.
The author tries to get her dog, Ace, to take an interest in the sheep.
(
Joshua Letona
/
LAist
)
Now, he’s trying to keep his business going in a new location that while much more peaceful, is not as convenient for him and most of his clients.
“I’m retired so I don't need the money,” Stewart said. But he also doesn’t want to lose money training other people’s dogs.
Herding instinct
Stewart holds classes twice, sometimes three times a week. Many of the dogs and their owners are there to let loose behavior that can be destructive at home or annoying at the dog park. But Stewart also trains dogs and their owners for herding competitions, known as trials. (Yep, that’s a thing, and extensively documented on YouTube. You’re welcome.)
The American Kennel Club lists 33 herding breeds that “share an instinctual ability to control the movement of other animals.” These include Australian and German shepherds, as the name suggests, as well as border collies and corgis.
The main motivation for Stewart’s business, he told me, is to help city dogs with herding instincts live their best lives.
“In the backyard, they have nothing to do but chase a bird’s shadow when it flies overhead,” he said. “They get a little neurotic.”
Stewart has a well-worn answer for people wondering whether their pet would like herding: “The dog will tell us.”
Jerry Stewart and his sheep in Moreno Valley.
(
Joshua Letona
/
LAist
)
My not-so-herder dog
Ace was clearly nervous when I took him out of the car and headed toward the corral. He sniffed the air apprehensively. There were the nearby sheep, of course, but also horses and wild donkeys — all unfamiliar smells for my suburban, condo-bound dog.
We let him loose in the corral and he immediately scoped out the perimeter, which Stewart said was normal. We then led him toward the sheep. He seemed mildly interested, and even caused the small herd to move to another corner of the corral.
But Ace soon turned and headed straight for the exit. Round 1 was over. We tried again later with not much more luck. Ace seemed very relieved when I let him jump back in the car.
“If it's not there, you ain't doing nothing,” Stewart said of a dog’s herding instinct, or lack thereof. “It ain't happening.”
Stewart's seasoned herding dog, Sunny.
(
Jill Replogle
/
LAist
)
The herders
A couple of other dogs at the class couldn’t have seemed happier to be herding. Tir, a 16-year-old blind border collie, is so fragile that her owner Kimberly Schreyer had to lift her out of the car.
Kimberly Schreyer brings her 16-year-old border collie, Tir, to herd sheep weekly.
(
Jill Replogle
/
LAist
)
But once in the corral, Tir raced around like a pup, keeping the flock in constant motion. “ She's just so happy,” Schreyer said of the dog’s weekly herding sessions.
Kathleen Wang’s 7-year-old Australian cattle dog, Wally, had been off the herding scene for a few months. But he seemed to jump right back in, easily guiding the flock through a set of barriers, which gets you points at competitions.
“ He's learning the commands and stuff, so I'm pretty proud of him,” Wang said.
She doesn’t plan to compete with Wally, but Wang said herding gives him an outlet for behavior that is less welcome elsewhere.
“At the dog park, he would herd the little white Maltese poodles, like push them into the corner,” Wang said. “And he would be reactive towards other dogs because he wants to control the movement. But coming here, this lets him get his instincts out.”
Where to herd in SoCal
There are multiple herding classes offered around the Greater L.A. area. Here are three:
One year after the devastating 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, multiple events and volunteer opportunities happening throughout January will remember the losses, honor the survivors and provide chances to help with the ongoing recovery.
Highlights:
The band members of Dawes have been some of the most visible survivors and supporters of the Eaton Fire community since the 2025 wildfires. They are putting their notoriety to good use and planning A Concert for Altadena, featuring some major musical talent, including Jackson Browne, Mandy Moore, Ozomatli and Jenny Lewis.
The UCLA Labor Center will host a panel discussion at the Lawson Worker Justice Center (adjacent to McArthur Park), focused on impacts on and protections for workers.
Join local leaders for a candlelight vigil in Altadena. The community will “gather in solidarity as we look toward healing, rebuilding, and a brighter tomorrow."
It’s been a tough year in these parts. Many communities affected by the Palisades and Eaton fires are still reeling, whether directly as homeowners continue to rebuild, relocate and remediate, or indirectly, as communities fight insurance logistics, navigate political processes and recover from mental health implications and job losses. Despite these challenges, the resilience of our city is astounding — and that is worth celebrating, even when it’s bittersweet.
Across the region, events marking the one-year anniversary begin in early January and continue throughout the month. Many organizers have told LAist they would love to have volunteers to help out, so reach out directly to organizers if you are interested in doing more than just attending. All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Events
With Us: Walk with fire survivors through sight, sound and story
Sunday, Jan. 4, 12 to 4 p.m., through Jan. 7, noon to 7:30 p.m. City Market Social House 1145 S. San Pedro St., downtown L.A. MORE INFO
(
Department of Angels
)
Continuing to tell survivors’ stories is key to recovery. That’s the thinking behind the project With Us, an audio and visual storytelling installation focused on “remembrance and recovery.” The event, put on by Department of Angels and Extreme Weather Survivors, aims to bring the community together at City Market Social House on Jan. 4; the art will be available to check out through Jan. 7.
Altadena Candlelight Vigil
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 6 p.m. 5400 N. Lake Ave., Altadena MORE INFO
Join local leaders for a candlelight vigil marking one year since the Eaton Fire. The community will “gather in solidarity as we look toward healing, rebuilding, and a brighter tomorrow.”
A Concert for Altadena
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 6:30 p.m. Pasadena Civic Auditorium COST: $150; MORE INFO
Indie band Dawes has been one of the most visible survivors and supporters of the Eaton Fire community since the 2025 wildfires. They are putting their notoriety to good use and planning A Concert for Altadena, happening Jan. 7 and featuring some major musical talent, including Jackson Browne, Mandy Moore, Ozomatli, Jenny Lewis, Lord Huron, Rufus Wainwright and many more. Hosted by John C. Reilly, the show benefits the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, which is spearheading long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Songs of Remembrance: A Memorial Service of Hope and Renewal
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m. Lake Avenue Church 393 North Lake Ave., Pasadena MORE INFO
Best-selling Christian author and speaker Philip Yancey will speak at a special community memorial service led by Lake Avenue Church’s Chamber Orchestra and members of the Sanctuary Choir, featuring sacred hymns, choral anthems and classical works that invite reflection, comfort and renewed hope. “This will be a meaningful opportunity to come together and find something redemptive in the midst of tragedy,” said Yancey. “Ironically, it’s often tragedy that brings people together.”
Eaton Fire anniversary community art gathering
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 3 to 5 p.m. John Muir High School 1905 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena MORE INFO
Artist Cynthia Lake, Side Street Projects and the John Muir High School Alumni Association will come together to make art and share stories on a day of remembrance honoring the first anniversary of the Eaton Fire. The afternoon includes art activities, music, resources, performances and more, plus Lake will launch her "Eaton Fire Bowl Series," giving away free handmade ceramic bowls to people affected by the fire — each piece a symbol of hope and comfort.
Community Prayer Services and Concerts of Remembrance, Healing and Renewal
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. St. Matthew's Episcopal Church 1031 Bienveneda Ave., Pacific Palisades OPEN TO ALL, SUGGESTED DONATION $45; MORE INFO
Grammy-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers joins members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by Grant Gershon, with music by Bach, Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre. Each concert will be preceded by a prayer service at 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. Donations will benefit Chamber Music Palisades, Palisades Symphony and Chorale, St. Matthew’s Music Guild and Theatre Palisades.
Dena United is hosting this all-day festival at Altadena’s historic Zorthian Ranch to celebrate the community’s diverse culture and commemorate one year since the devastating Eaton Fire. Expect to see a wide range of performances from acts including Bobby Bradford, Dwight Trible, Baba Onochie Chukwurah & the Rhythms of the Village Family Band, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Earthseed Band and the Whispering Giants with MCs Medusa and Myka 9.
Writers Bloc presents: Firestorm author Jacob Soboroff
Palisades native and MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff has a new book out in January on the L.A. fires, Firestorm. He’ll be in conversation with Mariana van Zeller at Writers Bloc to discuss.
Construction workers begin to rebuild a business destroyed by the Palisades Fire on May 07, 2025.
(
Justin Sullivan
/
Getty Images
)
The UCLA Labor Center will host a panel discussion at the Lawson Worker Justice Center (adjacent to MacArthur Park), focused on impacts on and protections for workers. Please RSVP; space is limited.
Out of the Ashes: Benefit Concert and Hero Award
Saturday, Jan. 17 Private residence, Malibu COST: $750; MORE INFO
Hosted by Mission Project CEO Erik Rock, the event features a performance from Grammy winner Andy Grammer. Expect other big-name speakers and guests to participate too.
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published January 1, 2026 6:21 PM
Conditions along the Santa Ana River can become dangerous during heavy rains.
(
Courtesy Orange County Public Works
)
Topline:
An unidentified body was recovered from the bed of the Santa Ana River just before noon on Jan. 1, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
What we know: Officials said a witness called 911 to report a person in the riverbed near the intersection of Warner Avenue and Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. The person traveled about two miles downstream before the search and rescue crew recovered their body in the city of Fountain Valley.
The response: About 60 firefighters from OCFA and the Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa fire departments contributed to the water rescue effort.
The danger of moving water: With more rain in the forecast this weekend, keep in mind that just six inches of fast-moving water can knock down most people, while 12 inches can carry away most cars.
How to stay safe: Emergency officials recommend limiting travel as much as possible during heavy rain and floods, including by car. If you see flooding in your path, remember the slogan, “Turn around, don’t drown.” LAist also has a guide on driving safely in the rain.
Manny Ruiz strikes alongside other workers with Teamsters 2785 at Amazon Warehouse DCK6 in the Bayview District in San Francisco on Dec. 19, 2024. Amazon workers at multiple facilities across the U.S. went on strike to fight for a union contract.
(
Jungho Kim for CalMatters
)
Topline:
Under a law taking effect Jan. 1, California seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
Where things stand: The new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
Why now: The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum. President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
California under a law taking effect today seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.
But the new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.
The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum.
President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.
Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, the Inglewood Democrat who wrote the bill, said when the governor signed it in September that “California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction.”
The NLRB sued California over the law in October, saying in its lawsuit that the state is trying to assert authority over “areas explicitly reserved for federal oversight.”
On the legal challenge to the law, Terry Schanz, McKinnor’s chief of staff, referred CalMatters to the state attorney general. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is responsible for defending the law in court. A spokesperson for Bonta said the office would have nothing to say about it.
With the NLRB unable to fulfill its duties, states are trying to fill the gap in enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which Congress passed in 1935. But labor experts contacted by CalMatters do not have high hopes for the California law, which is similar to a law passed in New York this year. They said courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled that states cannot decide matters pertaining to federal labor law because of preemption, the doctrine that a higher authority of law overrides a lower authority.
“It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the courts do not overturn these (state) laws,” said John Logan, professor and chairperson of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University.
William Gould, a former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board during the Clinton administration and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, agreed: “In the courts the matter is a dead letter unless (the Supreme Court) shifts gears.”
That’s what the California and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with other business groups, are hoping, according to their amicus brief in support of the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California: “Under California’s view, every state could have its own labor law for private-sector workers. Dozens of laws would overlap and collide.”
The California Labor Federation, an umbrella organization for unions that represents about 2 million California workers, said in an amicus brief that even before Trump fired the NLRB chief, the federal agency’s backlog had been a problem, leading to companies being able to delay bargaining in good faith with their employees’ unions without consequences.
If the California law is overturned, employees who have formed unions but have not succeeded in securing contracts with employers such as Amazon and Starbucks — which are among the companies seeking to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional — may continue to face delays, according to Logan. Or, he said, it’s not clear what would happen if other workers tried to organize and their companies simply fired them.
“The NLRB defunctness is a scandal which cries out for political reform,” Gould said.
![A white sign with red text reads "We [love] u beautiful Altadena" is affixed to a tree on a sidewalk. A two story home can be seen in the background with yellow caution tape hanging down from the roof towards the left.](https://scpr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0c0cf5b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5000x3296+0+20/resize/1414x932!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fscpr-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F24%2F47%2F1345aa6b4b3b9c943ea58dbdad8a%2Fgettyimages-2193703889.jpg)
