The Brief

After eight days of being closed, traffic is once again flowing in both directions of the 10 Freeway through downtown Los Angeles.

The 10 Freeway from Alameda Street to the East L.A. interchange reopened Sunday evening, far ahead of schedule. Last week, officials announced that repairs could take up to five weeks.

At a news conference Sunday, Mayor Karen Bass, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Senator Alex Padilla offered thanks for a speedy reopening of a key artery which typically handles 300,000 vehicles a day.

Some surface street and on-ramp closures were expected to linger as longer term repairs remained ongoing.

The 10 Freeway opened lanes to vehicles Sunday night ahead of a Monday morning commute.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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Vice President Kamala Harris, right, walks on the 10 Freeway Sunday morning with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass before a news conference announcing the freeway was just hours away from opening.

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Alex Gallardo

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AP

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Local businesses that have had to deal with the closure are welcoming its reopening.

Edgar Jimenez’s Mexican food truck, Quesadillas Ja Ja Ja on 8th and Alameda streets, is close to where the fire erupted and said his otherwise regular customers were reluctant to stand in line or brave the traffic, which also affected his operations.

“Even if it's around the corner it will take half an hour to get back to where I am,” he said. “It impacted me, like, really bad.”

The Shell gas station on Alameda and 14th streets that provides a vantage point to the repair work saw an 80% drop in gasoline sales last week, said morning manager Alexander Shenouda.

“We just relied on the construction workers coming to our market,” he said.

A resource center for businesses also opened Monday on Central Avenue, where people can learn about city and county programs, including grants, that can help offset some of the financial effects of the closure.

According to the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District, some businesses lost 40% to 50% of their revenue during the shut down.

How we got here

After initial fears that the bridge near downtown L.A. would need to be demolished and rebuilt — a process which would have taken months — structural testing instead pointed toward repairs. Still, that work was thought would take three to five weeks.

Instead, Sunday morning, authorities said the freeway would open within hours, in time for the Monday morning commute.

In all, that means the freeway was back in operation eight days after a devastating fire began last Saturday, burning through pallets, vehicles and other flammable material store under the roadway.

"The good news is there was more good news," said Gov. Gavin Newsom at an early morning news conference.

Vice President Kamala Harris joined the group making the announcement. Harris said she was "acutely aware" of how serious the shutdown of the 10 Freeway was for the city and region.

"The work that happened here was extraordinary," she said praising the union contractors who worked around the clock. "Tomorrow the commute is back on."

Where things stand

• The Alameda Street off-ramp, as well as Lawrence Street between 10th Street and 14th Street, will still be closed.
  
• Newsom said on Sunday that permanent repairs will continue, during episodic closures that will take place likely at night.
  
• Bass said Metro ridership jumped 10% during the closure.
  
• Authorities are seeking a person of interest in connection to the arson investigation.
  

• Newsom said Thursday that the fire damaged 10 Freeway was “in better shape than anticipated” and will open no later than Nov. 21, far sooner than initially expected and before the busy Thanksgiving holiday.

  “What a gift for Los Angeles to have right before a holiday to know that your commute will be better," said Bass, who joined Newsom at the burn site to make the announcement.
  

• On Thursday, the L.A. Department of Transportation added an additional left turn lane in each direction along the Alameda corridor to improve traffic flow. 
  
• Additional white-glove traffic officers continue to be stationed throughout the closure area. And With rain expected through the end of the week, Bass directed the Department of Transportation to increase the amount of white-glove traffic officers in the downtown area so commuters can get through intersections faster.
  
• The Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration made $3 million of emergency relief funding immediately available to Caltrans on Wednesday to help repair the freeway. The “quick release” federal funding will go towards traffic control, removing hazardous waste, and temporary shoring of the damaged structure.
  
• On Wednesday, Metro added additional buses to Line 66, which runs along Olympic Boulevard, and Line 251 along Soto Street. These lines saw the most delays Tuesday.

• LAFD is now inspecting all state property under freeways for fire hazard material to make sure they’re safe and that the 10 Freeway “tragedy will not be repeated,” Bass said.
  
• Newsom also said crew would install cameras so that the public can monitor the project's progress, on fixthe10.ca.gov (which currently appears to have photos and a highlight-reel video of repairs.)

The following reporting preceded the reopening.

Why drivers were asked to stay off surface streets

Bass and other top officials had pleaded with drivers to stay off surface streets if they’re trying to get around the 10 Freeway closure.

After taking a helicopter ride over the damaged freeway, Bass said all the surface streets around downtown look like parking lots as people try to find their own detours. Officials are still encouraging commuters to stay on the freeways, or take public transit whenever possible.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley added that fire trucks and ambulances have been having trouble getting through the congestion.

“Every second counts when it comes to our emergency responders,” she said. “So please keep that in mind when you are trying to make that decision of where you're going to go.”

What we know so far

• We learned Monday that the fire was likely started by arson. Newsom said CalFire — which finished its investigation 12 hours early — made a preliminary determination that there was malice intent. “That it was arson, and that it was done and set intentionally," Newsom said. "That determination of who is responsible is an investigation that is ongoing.”
  

• While the fire remains under investigation, Mayor Bass told LAist 89.3’s AirTalk earlier this week that speculation on social media and elsewhere is not helpful.

  "There's a lot of accusations against the homeless people that were in the area,” she said. “There is no reason, at this point in time, to associate the encampment with the fire that took place there.”
  

• The company that leased the space under the freeway from CalTrans, Apex Development Inc., is facing lawsuits for subleasing the site to at least five other tenants without authorization, according to Newsom. Officials are now checking to see if the Calabasas-based company is out of compliance with the other leases it holds in the area.

  "So to say the whole thing is a mess is an understatement," Bass said Tuesday, "but this company is going to have its date in court at the beginning of the year."
  

• As for why flammable material was stored under a major freeway in the first place, Bass said: "It's not just flammable materials, it's materials, period and it's also oversight and accountability and all of that I think is going to come the question now because — just in our city alone — you were talking about miles and miles of property underneath the freeways that the state leases out.

  "And so all of that needs to be scrutinized and the governor has assured us that it will be, I mean, especially pallet storage of all things, given the number of pallet fires we have in pallet yards each year in Southern California."
  

The backstory

An aerial view of cleanup crews working beneath the closed 10 Freeway Monday.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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The massive fire that shut down both directions of the 10 Freeway between the East L.A. connector and Alameda Street was sparked over the weekend.

Los Angeles city leaders immediately warned of major traffic congestion after "extensive damage" to the bridge near downtown. Before this shutdown, the key regional connector handled about 300,000 vehicles a day — a number that underscores the dramatic effect of the closure.

Crews have been shoring the bridge — adding in temporary supports — and determined by Tuesday that the bridge could be repaired, rather than demolished and rebuilt. That's a major relief to authorities and the commuting public, with more relief coming Thursday when the reopening timeline was greatly accelerated.

Initial timeline on reopening was 3 to 5 weeks

Authorities say work will continue 24/7 until repairs allow the reopening of the stretch of the 10 Freeway that typically handles 300,000 vehicles a day.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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On Sunday, Bass called for patience from Los Angeles drivers — a call she made again Monday and Tuesday. The mayor invoked the Northridge earthquake in 1994 in terms of the severity and consequences of Saturday's damage.

"For those of you that remember the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Caltrans worked around the clock to complete emergency repairs to the freeways," said Bass. "And this structural damage calls for the same level of urgency and effort."

"Unfortunately, there's no reason to think that this is going to be over in a couple of days," she said.

Newsom said Tuesday that with 24/7 work on repairs, the timeline to reopening would be three to five weeks. Officials were greatly relieved that it wasn't longer — and even more pleased when word came that the major freeway would be opened before the Thanksgiving holiday.

When the 10 Freeway was damaged in the Northridge earthquake, a private construction firm — operating with generous incentives in place — was able to rebuild two bridges in just over two months — 74 days earlier than projected.

Newsom, who declared a state of emergency on Saturday to help with cleanup and repairs, had said Sunday that incentives could come into play.

“The state is mobilizing resources and taking steps to ensure any necessary repairs are completed as soon as possible to minimize the impact on those traveling in and around Los Angeles,” Newsom said.

"We are approaching this issue with absolute urgency," Bass said.

How Caltrans assessed damage

This photo provided by the California Department of Transportation shows an early morning fire along Interstate 10 near downtown Los Angeles, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.

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Richard Vogel

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Caltrans District 7 via AP

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Damage under the I-10 overpass after a huge fire on Saturday morning in downtown.

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Courtesy Caltrans

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An emergency contract to begin restoration of the structure has been secured by Caltrans, according to Toks Omishakin, California's secretary of transportation.

What we know about the assessment so far:

• Crews took hazardous material samples for lab analysis and then removed debris from under the overpass.
• At that point, structural engineers from the department were able perform a thorough assessment.

"I want to emphasize that our efforts on this are going to have to be 24/7 to get this roadway back open. But I'm not going to understate the challenge here. It is significant," Omishakin said.

About the fire

The fire started at a pallet yard just north of the 10 Freeway near the intersection of East 14th Street and South Alameda Street at around 12:22 a.m. Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The blaze quickly spread to a second pallet yard, affecting nearly eight acres of the area at one point.

More than 164 firefighters fought the blaze, which was largely contained within three hours. But some hotspots remained in hard-to-reach areas underneath the freeway and robotic equipment was brought in. The fire was fully knocked down later Sunday.

On Monday, officials provided more detail about the damaged infrastructure: About 450 feet of the freeway was affected by the fire, said John Yang, deputy district director for construction for Caltrans District 7. He said that includes more than 90 concrete support columns, each 3 feet in diameter and nearly 16 feet tall.

“We’re inspecting every aspect of it,” he said.

Omishakin said inspectors had been able to take concrete and rebar samples from the underside of the bridge and columns, which they then analyzed.

“Once we analyze these samples, we will get a clearer idea of our repair strategy,” he said.

There were no reported injuries to firefighters — or to others. The cause of the fire is under active investigation.

Officials at Sunday's news conference described treacherous conditions that made getting the fire under control a challenge. At one point, after electrical lines were knocked down by the fire, authorities at the scene were concerned that the water being used to knock down flames could be electrified. That forced them to pull firefighters back and turn to heavy equipment.

Newsom said that the state has begun litigation with the lessee of the pallet yard where the fire started.

"In fact, our inspectors have been out there on a consistent basis with citations," Newsom said at the press conference. "Their lease has expired, they're in arrears, we believe they've been subleasing the space, and we actually have a court date in the early part of the new calendar year."

Newsom said that he could not provide further details on any violations the lessees of the lot may have incurred, but that more updates would be forthcoming.

How to commute

Traffic backed up along a closed Interstate 10 after a fire that severely damaged the freeway in downtown Los Angeles.

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Richard Vogel

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AP

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California Highway Patrol warns that traffic diverted from the 10 Freeway closure will impact the 5 Freeway, the 60, and the 101.

Drivers

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation said it is working to establish dedicated detours on surface streets.

"If you are driving on the freeway through downtown, we ask that you do not exit the freeway onto surface streets to bypass the affected area," said Laura Rubio-Cornejo, general manager of LADOT, adding that drivers should stay on the freeway and transfer to the 5, 110, or the 101.

The city has more information on alternate routes here.

Public transportation

The LADOT announced Tuesday that commuter express buses are now free. Commuter express buses connect areas like Northeast Valley, Thousand Oaks, the South Bay and Long Beach with downtown Los Angeles. DASH buses that provide short local trips continue to be free. Riders do not need a tap card.

Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins said public transit users can take the E line from Santa Monica through downtown Los Angeles to the San Gabriel Valley. The J line parallels a portion of the 110 Freeway completely avoiding the closure area. Another option is the A line from Long Beach all the way to downtown Los Angeles.

Metrolink, Wiggins said, is increasing service from Covina all the way to downtown.
 
“There will now be 30-minute service all day, additional trips, six round trips in total that Metrolink has added starting this morning to give people more choices to ride,” she said.

Remote work

Transportation and city officials also asked anyone who works in downtown L.A. to work from home if at all possible — at least for now.

City officials are also hoping businesses in downtown L.A. will lean into work from home policies for the time being to help alleviate traffic.

“I know we've spent this time trying to encourage people to come back downtown, back into their offices,” Bass said at a news conference. “But while we are going through this crisis, we would like for employers who can have their staff work remotely to do so.”

Schools impact

All LAUSD schools were open Monday, but Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said parents and employees should expect delays. Carvalho said in a statement that families who have questions about district transportation should call (800) 522-8737 (1-800-LA-BUSES).

The district said the following schools may be “significantly impacted” by the closure:

• Para Los Niños Elementary
• 9th Street/Para Los Niños Middle
• Inner City Arts
• St. Turibius Catholic
• Metropolitan High  
• 20th Street Elementary
• 28th Street Elementary

Carvalho said Monday that about 42 bus routes felt the impact, out of 1,300; the average delay was anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes. The delays affected 13 schools.

St. Turibius Catholic School is blocks away from the now-closed section of the 10 Freeway. Principal Audrey Blanchette said her commute from Montebello tripled from 15 to 45 minutes.

“There's just a lot of big rigs on the regular streets that we usually see on the freeway,” Blanchette said. She got off the 60 at Whittier Boulevard and crossed the 6th Street Bridge to get to Central Avenue.

Blanchette said most of the school’s nearly 100 students live nearby and walk or take public transportation. Most of her staff and students made it to school on time Monday, but she’s bracing herself and staff to expect delays for weeks to come.

How we're reporting on this

Reporter Yusra Farzan is reporting from Union Station on commuter experiences. Susanne Whatley, who hosts Morning Edition for LAist 89.3, interviewed Mayor Karen Bass Monday morning and Karina Gacad is our AM Editor. Our AirTalk show has a number of experts on Monday morning's show that will be added as that information becomes available. Over the weekend, Associate Producer Kevin Tidmarsh and Weekend Host Julia Paskin anchored coverage with contributions from Weekend Editor Fiona Ng, PM Editor Tiffany Ujiiye Reporter Makenna Sieverston and Nick Roman, who hosted special coverage Sunday afternoon. Additional reporting Monday by Mariana Dale and Frank Stoltze. Additional editing by Ross Brenneman, Redmond Carolipio, Megan Garvey, Jason Wells and Tony Marcano.

This is a developing story. We fact check everything and rely only on information from credible sources (think fire, police, government officials and reporters on the ground). Sometimes, however, we make mistakes and/or initial reports turn out to be wrong. In all cases, we strive to bring you the most accurate information in real time and will update this story as new information becomes available.

What questions we asked

• What is the timeline for rebuilding?
• Can the freeway segment be repaired or do we need to demolish and start over?
• How does this compare to the damage and rebuilding efforts following the 1994 Northridge earthquake?
• What are the environmental impacts of the smoke and debris?

Your questions or ideas

For six days over a holiday weekend, a chemical tank in an Orange County aerospace plant threatened to explode, and more than 50,000 people had to leave while crews figured out how to stop it. The tank kept getting hotter. A valve in the tank’s cooling system had failed. Officials used drones to read the tank’s temperature from the outside. Ground crews set up an “unmanned ground monitor” — a portable water cannon — blasting water across the tank’s side.

At the height of the emergency at GKN Aerospace — which makes cockpit windows and shields for military aircraft in Garden Grove — officials feared the tank could explode. California deployed more than 700 people to the city, the governor’s office said.

The company’s tank cooled only after it cracked just enough to relieve pressure without unleashing a chemical explosion. By Tuesday night, the evacuations were lifted — but the questions remained.

The near-disaster exposed gaps among multiple regulatory systems that state and local agencies have not fully addressed.

Air quality regulators had flagged compliance problems years before the crisis. Prosecutors are investigating whether the company violated any laws. And community advocates and chemical-safety experts say residents still deserve a clearer accounting of what state and local regulators knew, what safeguards existed and why the tank came so close to catastrophe.

A history of violations

Even as GKN Aerospace worked to resolve environmental compliance notices, regulators and local planners began considering an expansion of the facility that would increase its capacity to manufacture components for military F-35 fighter jets.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has inspected GKN three times in the last decade. For much of that time, the facility was classified as a “minor source” of emissions within the district’s permitting program, a designation that meant that regulators weren't required to inspect the facility frequently.

That limited oversight may have contributed to what records show was a yearslong compliance problem.

Those violations did not involve the problematic storage tank that holds methyl methacrylate, regulators said.

But in 2020, GKN self-reported certain issues that led South Coast air regulators to inspect the facility and review its records. The air district’s investigation found that the company was out of compliance with multiple rules stretching back to 2017. The facility, located within a mile of homes and schools, had failed to maintain required records about its emissions, was operating new equipment without permits and was using equipment that didn’t match the description in its existing permits, according to regulatory reports.

It took until April 2021 for the air district to issue a formal notice of violation, and until late 2024 for the agency to sign a settlement requiring GKN to pay more than $900,000. The company did not admit liability in the settlement, which resolved 14 alleged violations.

The district now treats GKN as a “major source” of emissions – a type of facility that the South Coast air district inspects yearly. A spokesman said that the company has applied for a more comprehensive permit, at the direction of regulators.

A community seeks answers

For Tracy La, the timeline told its own infuriating story.

“That delay and allowing GKN to operate with pretty much impunity has caused so many tens of thousands of residents of Garden Grove to pay for it,” said La, director of VietRISE, a nonprofit that supports Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County. Displaced residents have had to pay for housing, replace medication, seek transportation and rack up other costs associated with evacuating their homes, she added.

“It's just frustrating that regular everyday people are constantly having to pay the price for our government officials unwilling to hold these powerful, rich corporations accountable,” La said.

Garden Grove is a cornerstone of Little Saigon, one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the United States — a community that includes immigrants and refugees from the Vietnam War.

Some residents know methyl methacrylate not as an aerospace chemical but as a workplace hazard — one they spent years fighting to eliminate.

Lisa Fu directs the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, which represents Vietnamese manicurists across the state. Her members waged a long campaign against the chemical, documenting its effects on workers' lungs, skin and eyes.

In 2015, the state banned the chemical from nail salons and cosmetology schools after workers flagged health concerns. Now the same chemical was leaking from a tank a few miles from Little Saigon. Fu says collaborative members and their neighbors reported nosebleeds, itchiness and the deaths of pet birds.

Air monitors deployed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the South Coast air district around the facility have shown pollution levels within normal ranges. But Fu said the gap between those readings and what residents experienced has deepened distrust of regulators and their enforcement record.

“You hear in the press conferences that there's no fumes, no vapors, no leak, no contamination,” Fu said. “They are saying it is safe. Safe for who? We believe the community when the stories don't stop coming.”

Community advocates are now asking Garden Grove city leaders to shut the facility down and adopt a moratorium on military manufacturing facilities and expansions in the city.

GKN has an application for a more comprehensive permit under consideration at the South Coast air district, and the public may soon have the opportunity to weigh in. A district spokesperson told CalMatters it had aimed to release the permit for public comment by year’s end, but the timeline may shift because of the emergency.

A potential chemical safety gap

California's toughest accidental-release prevention rules do not cover the chemical that nearly exploded in a Garden Grove tank and forced 50,000 people from their homes.

Methyl methacrylate is a volatile compound and one of the most widely used chemicals in plastics manufacturing. Officials feared the GKN tank would rupture as the liquid overheated, spilling thousands of gallons of chemicals or even exploding.

“It’s like a soda can that you left in your car in the middle of a hot summer,” said Andrew J. Whelton, a Purdue University environmental engineering professor. “The pressure built up within the can exceeds the capacity of that metal can.”

When the tank started overheating, it triggered a chemical reaction that responders could not stop — in part because the reaction had “gummed up” the valves they needed to inject a neutralizing agent, Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said at a May 22 press conference.

Brandon McBride stands outside his tent at an evacuation shelter at the Elks Lodge in Garden Grove, on May 26, 2026. The site was set up for those who were living near a damaged hazardous chemical tank.

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Jae C. Hong

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AP Photo

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Methyl methacrylate is not a regulated chemical under either the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program or California's parallel system, known as CalARP. That may mean the tank was regulated under an alternate or lower-tier hazardous-materials program — leaving regulators with fewer tools to oversee its storage.

“If you’re living there — you’re a neighbor — can you go see what chemicals they have stored on site?” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “No, you can’t.”

The federal program’s chemical list has not added reactive chemicals to its list of covered chemicals, despite recommendations from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical accidents. The Trump administration aims to eliminate funding for the chemical safety board after October and proposes to roll back the 2024 Risk Management Program amendments that had begun to expand chemical safety requirements.

The same gap exists in California.

The California Environmental Protection Agency confirmed to CalMatters that methyl methacrylate is not a regulated substance under the state's Accidental Release Program.

Orange County health officials confirmed to CalMatters that GKN had a hazardous materials business plan on file — a lower-tier document listing chemicals stored on site — but no risk management plan. The agency said CalARP does not apply to the facility because methyl methacrylate is not a listed chemical under the program.

CalMatters also asked the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health whether worker-safety rules for high-hazard industrial processes applied at the facility — which would have made it eligible for the accidental release program under a separate pathway. The facility had been the subject of multiple workplace safety and health inspections before the tank emergency. Cal/OSHA did not answer that question by deadline.

Chemicals that fall outside federal and state accident prevention programs may also be left out of community emergency planning and drills, Williams said. That means nearby residents may not know what risks they face or how officials would respond.

GKN did not respond to written questions on deadline. In recent days, the company’s statements have emphasized gratitude for the community and first responders. “We recognize there is more work ahead,” said GKN Senior Vice President Steve Carlin, who oversees the Garden Grove site’s programs.

Angela Johnson Meszaros, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice, said neighbors to companies like GKN have every reason to think someone’s enforcing rules.

When something like this happens, people “get angry because they were like, ‘Wait, nobody was paying attention to this and now I'm sleeping on the sidewalk?’”

The system, she said, was built around the wrong goal entirely. “We have a system that's built on the notion of getting facilities to return to compliance, but we need to have a system that's about making sure facilities are operating in a way that is safe — and some facilities may not have a culture that allows us to put our lives into their hands.”

A district attorney may prosecute 

Whether any single institution will provide a comprehensive accounting of what went wrong is unclear.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has opened a criminal inquiry, spokesperson Kimberly Edds confirmed to CalMatters. Prosecutors sent letters to GKN ordering the company not to destroy or manipulate evidence.

At an anonymous tipline, the office is seeking information about the chemical release, the facility’s operations and the maintenance of the tanks and systems involved.

Water is sprayed on a damaged tank at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, on May 24, 2026, after the tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday.

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Ethan Swope

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AP Photo

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California law makes it a crime to knowingly or recklessly handle or store hazardous waste in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of fire, explosion, serious injury or death. Edds declined to say what areas of the law the investigation would cover.

In a similar case in 2024, Alameda County prosecutors indicted a scrap metal company after a fire exposed years of hazardous materials violations. They later said they could not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and dropped it.

On the regulatory side, no single agency has the task of producing a comprehensive account of the event. Rather than one joint review, each agency involved in the emergency will produce its own separate findings, released according to its own policies and timelines, said Brian Yau, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Hazardous materials officials, air regulators, environmental officials and the company were developing a site cleanup plan, Yau said. On Friday, the fire authority handed over cleanup and remediation oversight to the county health care agency, said Greg Barta, a spokesperson for the fire authority.

Asked whether he was concerned about industrial facilities operating near dense residential neighborhoods, Gov. Gavin Newsom praised local and state first responders and said the state is reviewing the facility's safety records. Then he offered a candid assessment of the limits of state action.

“As it relates to industrial facilities in and around urban centers,” Newsom said at a press conference Thursday, “that’s a more challenging issue of geography.”

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat from Santa Ana, said there will be new proposed laws in response to the narrowly-averted disaster.

Williams, of California Communities Against Toxics, said the incident should force a broader look at California’s rules for hazardous industrial sites – not just at GKN, but at every facility storing chemicals that fall outside the state's toughest oversight programs.

“Everyone wants to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, because their nervous systems are all on fire, and the way in which you calm your nervous system is to be in your house and sit on the couch and hold your cat,” she said. “But in a situation like this — where you had a massive near miss — you really need to make sure that the safety systems that failed are not the only safety systems there at risk.”

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

The number of people with nowhere to call home decreased both in California and nationwide last year, according to a long-awaited federal report.

The data, showing the first decrease in homelessness in years, provided fuel for activists challenging the Trump administration's narrative that current homelessness policies are failing and need to be overhauled.

There were 181,934 homeless Californians counted last year — a 2.8% decrease from 2024, according to the new federal report. Overall, the country saw a 3.3% drop in homelessness, marking the first decrease since 2016. Nationwide, an estimated 745,652 people are homeless.

Those numbers come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which released its annual homelessness report to Congress on Friday after an unexplained five-month delay. As the country’s main barometer for how efforts to combat homelessness are working, the report plays an important role in allocating funding and shaping policies — and is a major political tool.

The Trump administration used the report to promote its policies, including its crackdown on immigration and efforts to direct funding away from permanent housing. Meanwhile, the National Homelessness Law Center was quick to point out that the decrease in homelessness happened while former President Joe Biden was still in office.

“Homelessness is down because President Biden funded things that we know work, like housing and support,” law center spokesperson Jesse Rabinowitz said in a news release. “Sadly, the Trump administration is doing everything they can to backtrack on this progress.”

The federal government downplayed the small one-year decrease in homelessness, instead focusing on the fact that homelessness has increased 27% nationwide since 2013. That’s when the country started following a practice called “housing first,” which moves people into housing right away instead of requiring them first to get sober or meet other conditions.

"The data is clear that the status quo of ‘housing first’ has failed to meaningfully reduce homelessness, resulting in crisis levels of people living on the streets," said HUD Secretary Scott Turner. "HUD is restoring its programs to advance recovery and self-sufficiency and to ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits serve American families.”

The Trump administration wants to end housing first and instead prioritize housing that requires people to stay sober. The administration also has tried to divert homelessness funds away from permanent housing and into temporary shelters. California is one of 19 states suing the Trump administration over that change.

The federal administration tied the 2025 drop in homelessness to immigration, saying in a news release that it was “attributable to decreases in sanctuary cities.” The full report never mentions sanctuary cities, but it says some communities in New York and Illinois attributed their decreases in homelessness “in part” to changes in federal immigration policy.

Where homelessness declined

California was among the five states that reported the largest decreases in homelessness last year, though there were more significant drops in Illinois (44%), Hawaii (41%), Florida (11%), and New York (8%).

In California, 17 communities reported decreases in the number of people who were “chronically homeless,” meaning they have a disability and have been homeless for a year or longer. Los Angeles County reported 2,394 fewer such people. Officials from communities that saw those declines attributed the trend to opening new housing, placing people in housing more quickly, using a coordinated system to match people with available units and increasing street outreach, according to the report.

The data comes from the federally mandated homeless point-in-time count, which tallies people sleeping in shelters and outside on a given day in January. Volunteers count people they see sleeping on the street, in cars or in other places not meant for habitation. The effort is generally viewed as an undercount, as it’s easy for volunteers to miss people tucked away in hard-to-reach areas.

The federal government requires each community to count the people sleeping on its streets every two years. Counts are conducted by “continuums of care,” which include a county (or multiple counties), cities and local service providers. In California, 14 of the state’s 44 continuums of care did not count last year. HUD used 2024 data for communities in which no 2025 data was available.

Each community is required to submit its point-in-time count data to HUD, which reviews, verifies and analyzes the data before publishing a report. That report typically comes out in December of the year of the count.

How Trump changed point-in-time report

When the federal report finally came out Friday, the Trump administration put its stamp on it in several ways, including by scrubbing all references to gender. The prior report from 2024 broke out homelessness by gender (39% of people counted were women and 60% were men), and included categories such as transgender, gender questioning and non-binary. The 2025 data includes no such breakdown.

And while the previous report referred to “people experiencing homelessness,” the new report instead referred to “homeless persons.”

While the drop in nationwide homelessness last year is a “relief,” there is trouble on the horizon, according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“So much of the progress reflected in the 2025 (point-in-time) count is due to targeted housing and service resources that were available in 2024 to rehouse people,” she said in a news release, “including the highly successful Emergency Housing Voucher program, and new funds to address rural and unsheltered homelessness. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has largely deprioritized these tools and worked to dismantle the very systems that drove these reductions.”

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

When a candidate invests their personal fortune in running for public office, does it represent a rich person trying to buy a seat or does it grant them independence from powerful special interests? Voters will decide on Tuesday in an election that has seen candidates spend more of their own money than any previous election.

Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer put up $213 million to fund his campaign for governor. All together, more than 200 candidates have contributed about a quarter billion dollars of their own money this year. That’s an eight-fold increase since the last time Californians voted for governor in 2022 and the most since California started keeping digital campaign finance records in 1999.

The last time a candidate spent anything close to Steyer was in 2010 when Meg Whitman gave over $140 million to her own unsuccessful campaign for governor, setting a record at the time.

Previous statewide races also saw big spenders: Steve Poizner gave $14 million to his campaign in 2006 running for insurance commissioner; Eleni Kounalakis shelled out upwards of $8 million when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2018; Yvonne Yiu dropped nearly $6 million on her campaign for controller four years ago.

Candidates running for state Senate this cycle have given nearly $4 million to their campaigns – the highest amount recorded for the chamber and more than double the $1.7 million candidates put up 20 years ago. Likewise, current congressional candidates have contributed more than $29 million to their campaigns, the most of any cycle in the past two decades.

And this year, some congressional candidates have set records for self-funding their campaigns.

Two of the five congressional candidates who contributed the most money to their campaigns over the last 20 years are running this election. In the competitive contest to succeed Nancy Pelosi in her San Francisco-based congressional district, Democrat Saikat Chakrabati gave nearly $9 million to his campaign, the most of any congressional primary candidate in state history. Eric Jones, who wants to oust fellow Democrat Mike Thompson from his district representing the North Bay, transferred over $5 million of his personal fortune.

Chakrabarti said the money he’s putting up is to counter the millions being spent against him by opponents and that self-funding his campaign is his best choice in a bad system.

“To go up against that kind of money I have two options,” he said. “I could either spend my time calling big donors for money and then I can go to DC and owe a million people a million favors…so I chose to put in my own resources.”

The increase in self-funding may reflect the need for more money to compete after the Supreme Court in a 2010 decision known as Citizens United lifted restrictions on campaign spending by wealthy people and corporations, said Jeremy Mack, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group The Phoenix Project.

In other words: more money in politics begets more money in politics.

“In California," he said, "it’s often been corporations, real estate and police unions that have often worked together to [fund] similar candidates.”

Maria Colon, a voter in Sacramento who attended a Steyer rally last week said she views corporate donations as implicit corruption, and while self-funding might be a reason to warrant further scrutiny of a candidate, she understands why some like Steyer are pouring money into their own campaigns.

“Frankly, I think there needs to be caps on how much money needs to be raised,” Colon said. “[Corporations] are not giving you their money for free, bro.”

Money is critical for political campaigns and so candidates who can contribute their own cash might have an advantage, said Dr. Wesley Hussey, a professor of political science at Sacramento State University. “A candidate who’s able to put in enough of their own money to start off is a great way to be a viable candidate.”

Andrew Coolidge, a Republican running for Assembly District 3 in the northern part of the state who is the biggest donor to his campaign, said voters should be skeptical of candidates who can fund their own campaign but chose not to.

“I think a candidate who doesn't have some skin in the game is a candidate you have to worry about," he said. "I can feel very comfortable making every decision based on my conscience rather than based upon the opinion of someone else.”

Chris Anderson, a candidate for Lodi City Council who has contributed to his own campaign and attended the Steyer rally, said he likes candidates who can self-fund while raising some questions at the same time.

“There is a part of me that likes the fact that a person is funding their own campaign because they’re less likely to be beholden to a special interest,” he said. “But on the other hand, what special interests got them to where they are?”

Money doesn’t buy everything. Hussey said voters will look at other factors in deciding how to view candidates who spend their own fortunes on their campaigns.

Take Steyer and Whitman. Both had different degrees of involvement in politics before they ran for office. Whitman was involved in both Mitt Romney's and John McCain's 2008 presidential runs, while Steyer has been active in environmental causes for over a decade.

Voters might get more suspicious when a rich candidate shows up without a political track record, Hussey said. “Tom Steyer gave a lot of money to politicians for a long time and tried to kind of enter the political world himself for a while.”

When asked if voters should view his hundreds of millions of dollars as a rich person trying to buy a political office, Steyer said at last week's rally that he believes voters should judge him by the amount of money being spent against him and not as much by the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s put into his campaign.

“In this race there is only one person who isn’t conflicted by taking money from corporations,” he said. “That’s me.”

At a recent public event at Stanford University, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter said she doesn’t think being rich means you’re immune to lobbying.

“That is the same argument that Donald Trump made,” she said. “'You can trust me not to take special interest money because I'm so rich'–I find that unsettling in a democracy.”

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

Starting July 1, a new state law will push cities to increase housing development in neighborhoods located near major transit stops.

When the law was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, Southern California cities began taking their best guess at where exactly those sites would be.

Now, the list is out. On Monday, the Southern California Association of Governments, known as SCAG, published its official map showing where new housing density will be allowed under Senate Bill 79.

Elizabeth Carvajal, SCAG’s deputy director of land use, said local officials sought many clarifications from state leaders in order to be sure that the map would accurately reflect the Legislature’s intent.

“There were a lot of questions after the statute was signed,” Carvajal said. “The clarifications helped further define bus service, as well as pedestrian access points.”

SB 79 has become a political lightning rod

The law’s impact on neighborhoods near transit lines — including those zoned only for single-family homes — has been heavily debated, especially in the race for Los Angeles mayor.

Mayor Karen Bass asked Newsom to veto SB 79, and she continues to oppose adding apartments within the nearly three-quarters of city land reserved for single-family homes.

City councilmember Nithya Raman, who is challenging Bass in the upcoming election, declined to oppose SB 79 and has said some single-family neighborhoods will need to accept more density.

Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV star running for mayor, made waves on social media when he falsely claimed last year that SB 79 would bring high-rises to the Pacific Palisades, where his home burned down. The official SCAG map confirms that SB 79 will have no impact on the neighborhood.

In response to SB 79, housing opponents in some areas have started focusing their efforts on killing plans for expanded public transit. Responding to public pressure, Burbank officials have stalled construction plans for local portions of a rapid bus line from North Hollywood to Pasadena. L.A. Metro is now suing Burbank over that move.

Where will new housing go? And how much will be allowed?

The rules of SB 79 are complex.

The tallest buildings allowed under SB 79 will be nine stories, as long as they are located within 200 feet of a Metro B or D-line stop. These stations qualify as “Tier 1” stops under SB 79, which puts the tallest buildings near heavy rail lines, which in L.A. only applies to the B and D-line subways.

More common will be the “Tier 2” zones around light rail and dedicated bus lane stops, which will allow buildings up to eight stories tall within 200 feet of those stops.

Height limits step down in areas further out from the station. In “Tier 2” zones, buildings up to six stories tall will be allowed within a quarter-mile of the stop, and buildings up to five stories will be allowed within a half-mile.

Neighborhoods near two Metrolink commuter rail stations, in Burbank and Glendale, will also qualify as “Tier 2” zones.

Change won’t necessarily come overnight

New housing won’t necessarily be coming to those zones immediately. Under SB 79, cities have the ability to put off full implementation until 2030 by making their own choices about where to allow more housing.

“Cities can develop alternative plans and delay implementation,” said Philip Law, a SCAG deputy planning director. “The map is not intended to reflect those situations.”

The city of L.A. has taken the delay approach, with the City Council recently voting to allow buildings up to four stories tall around 55 targeted transit stops. This would let the city put off full implementation of SB 79.

The new SCAG map shows no impact in Orange County. The region does not yet qualify as an “urban transit county” under the state law. However, the impending completion of the OC Streetcar through Santa Ana and Garden Grove, expected later this year, will make Orange County eligible for SB 79.

Once the OC Streetcar opens, SCAG plans to update their map to include Orange County, Carvajal said.