Rev. Brendan Busse greets a parishioner in front of Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles.
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Jeremy Lindenfeld
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Capital & Main
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Topline:
Dolores Mission is in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, an unmistakably Mexican American area. In the summer, attendance at the Catholic church plummeted, according to the Rev. Brendan Busse, Dolores Mission’s pastor, who said the pews were about half as full as usual.
Immigration enforcement hits home: In the months after ICE aids began in the L.A. area, multiple Dolores Mission congregants told Capital & Main that their friends or family members were detained by DHS and later deported. Among them were two nephews of Dolores Mission’s pastoral assistant; they didn’t return home from their work as gardeners one day. By the time church members tracked them down days later, they were at separate ICE detention centers in California, and were later deported to their home country of Guatemala, according to the pastoral assistant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of being targeted by authorities.
Why it matters: As for church attendance, Boyle Height’s Dolores Mission is far from the only heavily Latino parish to see faltering numbers as a result of immigration enforcement. In Chicago, the Rev. Carmelo Mendez, pastor of St. Oscar Romero Parish on the city’s South Side, told NPR in November that attendance at Mass had fallen by 40%. In Washington, the Rev. Emilio Biosca Agüero, pastor at Shrine of the Sacred Heart, estimated that one out of five parishioners had stopped going to Mass after federal agents were deployed on the city’s streets. The climate in California’s Southland is such that Bishop Alberto Rojas excused parishioners in the Diocese of San Bernardino from Mass if they feared immigration enforcement.
To outside observers, parishioners at the Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles might seem less pious this year. In the summer, attendance at the Catholic church plummeted, according to the Rev. Brendan Busse, Dolores Mission’s pastor, who said the pews were about half as full as usual.
The disappearance of a substantial portion of the faithful was not altogether surprising: It came just days after the Department of Homeland Security launched immigration raids across the city in June — followed by others around the country — at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Almost immediately, social media feeds and then television news reports brought the initial immigration raids to life: Masked federal agents tackled and arrested Latinos in parking lots, on street corners and at workplaces. Those detained looked like they could be part of Dolores Mission’s overwhelmingly-Latino parish.
Dolores Mission is in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, an unmistakably Mexican American area where vibrant Chicano murals adorn public walls, music from Jalisco often rings out in Mariachi Plaza and 93% of residents are Hispanic or Latino.
Following the raids, some Boyle Heights residents were afraid to leave their homes. Many worried that they too might get swept up by one of the armed government agents roaming their neighborhoods, grabbing people off the streets and forcing them into unmarked vehicles.
That fear was compounded when it became clear that immigrants were being transported to far-off detention centers that have racked up human rights complaints — including places such as the so-called Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades and the much-criticized prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The impression of being under siege in Boyle Heights speaks to a larger disconnect in heavily Latino and predominately Catholic communities across the country.
Despite winning 55% of Catholic voters in the 2024 presidential election, Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement has disproportionately affected many Catholic communities and organizations around the country. It has also resulted in sudden drops in church attendance, according to Catholic officials in various parishes.
That may be because even though Catholics represent fewer than 20% of U.S. adults, they make up 61% of the population at risk of deportation, according to a March report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the National Association of Evangelicals, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and World Relief. In 2022, about 43% of U.S. Hispanic adults considered themselves Catholic, according to Pew Research Center.
Rev. Brendan Busse stands outside his church after leading a Spanish-language Mass.
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Jeremy Lindenfeld
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Capital & Main
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In the months after the raids began, multiple Dolores Mission congregants told Capital & Main that their friends or family members were detained by DHS and later deported.
Among them were two nephews of Dolores Mission’s pastoral assistant; they didn’t return home from their work as gardeners one day, Busse said.
By the time church members tracked them down days later, they were at separate ICE detention centers in California, and were later deported to their home country of Guatemala, according to the pastoral assistant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of being targeted by authorities. DHS did not respond to Capital & Main’s questions regarding both nephews’ detainment and deportation.
“Everybody here, no matter who they are, has felt the impact of fear and anxiety that has kept people from feeling safe in the streets,” Busse said.
In response to questions from Capital & Main about the impact of immigration enforcement on Catholic communities across the country, Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said that “lawbreakers should unquestionably be living in a climate of fear and anxiety that they will be caught and sent home,” meaning the countries in which they were born.
Mass deportations
A news release on the DHS website claimed that as of Oct. 27, the agency had carried out more than 527,000 deportations during Trump’s second term.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the vast majority of deportation flights during the first several months of 2025 were to countries whose populations are predominantly Catholic, such as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The sometimes violent tactics used to detain and later deport immigrants have convinced some to abandon the United States. That includes Juan González, a longtime Catholic resident of Southern California who attended St. Andrew Church in Pasadena and earlier this year chose to move back to his home country of Mexico after three decades.
As for church attendance, Boyle Height’s Dolores Mission is far from the only heavily Latino parish to see faltering numbers as a result of immigration enforcement.
Parishioners walk past a shrine depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe in Dolores Mission Church.
In Washington, the Rev. Emilio Biosca Agüero, pastor at Shrine of the Sacred Heart, estimated that one out of five parishioners had stopped going to Mass after federal agents were deployed on the city’s streets, the Religion News Service reported in August.
At St. Thomas Mission in Brownsville in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, the Rev. Joel Flores told the New York Times that he too has seen a significant drop in the size of his flock in recent months.
The climate in California’s Southland is such that Bishop Alberto Rojas excused parishioners in the Diocese of San Bernardino from Mass if they feared immigration enforcement.
McLaughlin, who has spoken about her own Catholic faith, said that “ICE does not raid churches” but added that the Trump administration will “not tie the hands” of federal agents, clarifying that “there may be a situation where an arrest is made” inside of a church.
In Southern California, Christmasparades and other events have been canceled for fear of ICE raids targeting Latinos. Dolores Mission Church alone canceled numerous gatherings — including an annual community volunteer picnic, a women’s conference and a series of public religious services called “Misas del Barrio” (Neighborhood Masses) — to protect the community.
Parishioner Alejandra Benavides summed up the situation as she sees it: “Immigration enforcement is kicking our ass and breaking our hearts.”
Cafeteria Catholics
Trump has claimed to “stand for everything … that the church stands for,” and has selected Catholics to some of the nation’s most powerful positions: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, border czar Tom Homan and Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In January, Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, defended the Trump administration’s deportation policy by invoking a Catholic theological concept called “ordo amoris” (Latin for order of love), asserting that people should love their families before loving strangers. The claim was quickly rebuked by Pope Francis, who wrote that true ordo amoris is discovered by meditating on love “open to all, without exception.”
In February, soon-to-be Pope Leo also publicly challenged Vance’s interpretation, sharing an article titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others” on his X account.
A recent survey conducted by the right-wing Catholic media organization EWTN News and conservative pollster RealClear Opinion Research found that 54% of Catholic voters surveyed supported “the detention and deportation of unauthorized immigrants on a broad scale.”
In contrast, many Catholic leaders now say that some of the administration’s policies — such as the targeting of immigrants and the defunding of humanitarian programs — run directly counter to deeply held Catholic teachings.
“What they confused for Christianity is a white nationalist vision of racial purity and national purity that should be called out by anybody of faith as a real heresy,” Dolores Mission’s Busse said.
Good works
Catholic organizations that have long mobilized to support vulnerable communities, including immigrants, have in some cases ramped up such efforts in response to Trump’s policies.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, hardly known for liberal beliefs when it comes to issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, seemingly stayed the course when the the nation’s bishops elected conservative Archbishop Paul S. Coakley as their new president in November.
But nearly all of those same bishops — 96% of those who voted in a fall assembly — took aim at the Trump administration’s immigration policies in a Special Message, the first such message it has agreed upon in more than a decade. In it, the bishops called for an end to Trump’s “indiscriminate mass deportation” and “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence.”
“To our immigrant brothers and sisters, we stand with you in your suffering, since, when one member suffers, all suffer (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26),” the statement said. “You are not alone!”
The conference also praised and encouraged many activist Catholics to continue their work on behalf of immigrants.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the country, is also trying to adapt.
Isaac Cuevas, the archdiocese’s director of immigration and public affairs, said parishioners who normally run food pantries are now combating hunger by delivering food to the homes of immigrants who are too afraid to go out in public.
The archdiocese has also provided court accompaniment training to about 180 priests, deacons and religious sisters. The hope, Cuevas said, is that by accompanying immigrants to court hearings, judges, bailiffs and clerks “all understand that that moral presence is there,” and that legal officials will be “as graceful as they can when dealing with these cases.”
Despite such actions, some Catholics feel the church has not taken a courageous enough humanitarian stand to protect immigrants.
Silvia Muñoz, who runs the department of social action at the Pedro Arrupe Jesuit Institute in Miami, is trying to pick up the slack.
Silvia Munoz sits at her home in Doral, Florida
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“I’m in contact with other Catholic women who are as passionate about the rights of immigrants as myself, to try to do something in South Florida to wake up a silent church,” Muñoz said.
Every Wednesday, Muñoz, who arrived in the United States as a Cuban refugee in 1961, joins other activists outside the ICE detention center in Miramar, Florida, to accompany immigrant families as they wait to learn the fates of their loved ones.
Muñoz has also attended interfaith vigils in front of Alligator Alcatraz — where Amnesty International has accused guards of subjecting detainees to cruel treatment “which may amount to torture,” such as confining shackled prisoners to an outdoor cage smaller than a standard dryer for hours — calling for operations at the site to be halted.
DHS did not respond to Capital & Main’s request for comment on alleged abuse at Alligator Alcatraz.
Despite being 79, Muñoz said, “I cannot sit at home and do nothing. I believe this is a calling from God that I, even at my age, need to do.”
On Nov.13 — the feast day for St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants — Muñoz helped organize a procession and prayer service in front of the immigration courthouse in downtown Miami.
That event was part of a national day of action spearheaded by the Ignatian Solidarity Network, a nonprofit Catholic organization dedicated to social justice advocacy.
Christopher Kerr, executive director of the network, told Capital & Main that the purpose of his organization’s public advocacy events is to “demonstrate that the church stands with immigrant people and that our faith, to be Catholic, is to uphold the dignity and humanity of immigrant people.”
Kerr said the gatherings are increasingly important now that the Trump administration has drastically cut funds that many Catholic organizations and institutions relied on to facilitate humanitarian services such as refugee resettlement.
On the first day of his second term, Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — which just last year awarded the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its affiliates more than $62 million — and froze its funding. The move forced hundreds of layoffs of church employees and halted humanitarian services such as housing assistance and migrant child foster care for thousands of refugees across the country.
Trump later allowed his then-special adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. That action decimated Catholic Relief Services, which was the largest recipient of USAID funds, receiving about half of its $1.5 billion annual budget from the agency.
“The Trump administration has … reduced the funding so drastically that none of the organizations that were settling refugees are really able to sustain their operations,” Kerr said.
People in the pews
At Dolores Mission Church, Busse said the pews have been fuller recently.
December — with Advent, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Christmas — is usually the busiest time of the year. But he said he sees increased attendance as more than just a sign of a loyal flock.
Busse leads a well-attended Mass during Advent — the period leading up to Christmas.
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To Busse, a well-attended church is its own defense against the immigration enforcement activities that he said many local Catholics are enduring like “a terror campaign.”
“When people are together, there’s less fear,” Busse said. “When a community actually shows up, the [ICE activity] falls apart” — not just because it becomes harder to carry out on a logistical level, but also because the community’s solidarity shows that the enforcement actions are clearly against the will of the people.
For Busse, protecting immigrants is one of the most foundational manifestations of his faith.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Catholics fundamentally believe that God’s self is kind of an immigrant, that the act of hospitality, of welcoming others in our homes and in our hearts is the central precept of Christianity and the Catholic faith,” Busse said. “It’s not just a nice thing to care for immigrants, it’s really the most sacred thing we can do.”
FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.
Price hike: The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.
Why have prices risen?: FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.
Read on . . . for more on which matches have seen ticket prices increase.
FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.
The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices.
The hikes can be stark. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.
That's significantly more than the nearly $8,700 at which these tickets were priced in FIFA's previous sales window earlier this year — and much higher than the $6,370 at which they were priced when sales kicked off last year.
The increases come even after FIFA has faced heavy criticism about the record prices being charged and its adoption of dynamic pricing for the first time. A group representing European fans and consumers called FIFA's prices "exorbitant" and filed a formal complaint this month with the European Commission in a bid to get the soccer body to lower prices.
Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to FIFA accusing the organization of "price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world."
FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.
Price increases cover a wide range of games
Most of the price increases in the initial stage of the tournament were for teams that tend to draw more fans such as Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany — as well as co-host Mexico.
Although price hikes tended to be of less than $100, they still mark a substantial escalation from the initial prices at which FIFA started selling those tickets. Some increases were quite big though. Mexico's opening game against Saudi Arabia now costs as much as $2,985, up from $2,355 in FIFA's last sales window and up from its initial price of $1,825.
Most of the knockout games also increased in price, including the one being held in Philadelphia on July 4th — and the hikes tend to get more substantial for match-ups later in the tournament.
For example, the two semi-finals of the tournament also saw hefty price hikes. The game that will be held in Dallas in July will now cost as much as $3,710, up substantially from $3,295 in the last sales window.
The current sales window will last all the way through the tournament. FIFA has not said how many tickets are left to sell, only that it will continue to drop tickets periodically, including potentially for games that appear to be sold out.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published April 2, 2026 11:28 AM
Opponents to a planned data center in Monterey Park have spoken out at rallies and City Council meetings over the last several months.
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Josie Huang
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LAist
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Topline:
A developer that had proposed a nearly 250,000-square-foot data center in a Monterey Park business park has withdrawn its application and says it won’t fight an upcoming ballot question banning data centers in the city.
Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.
Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.
The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.
What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.
A developer that had proposed a nearly 250,000-square-foot data center in a Monterey Park business park has withdrawn its application and says it won’t fight an upcoming ballot question banning data centers in the city.
Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.
Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.
The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.
What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.
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President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.
Why now? In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."
What's next: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.
The context: Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security. Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.
In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."
"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900," Trump said. "We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future."
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.
Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.
Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.
Under Bondi, the department jettisoned its decades-old tradition of maintaining independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions, to insulate them from partisan politics.
Instead, she used the department's vast powers to go after the president's perceived foes. That includes the high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, which were brought after Trump publicly called on Bondi to prosecute them.
A federal judge later tossed both cases after finding the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed.
Other political opponents of the president or individuals standing in the way of his agenda also have found themselves under DOJ investigation, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Obama-era intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan.
Bondi also oversaw sweeping changes to the career workforce at the department. The agency fired prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on Capitol riot cases or the Trump investigations.
The elite section that prosecutes public corruption was gutted; the Civil Rights Division, which protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, experienced a mass exodus of career attorneys who say the division is being turned into an enforcement arm of the White House.
Political firestorm over Epstein files
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has defended her actions. She has portrayed the firings as a necessary house cleaning of politicized career officials. She's also tried to focus on what she views as major accomplishments during her tenure: targeting drug cartels, cracking down on violent crime, and helping in immigration enforcement.
But ultimately, the department's handling of the files related to the investigations of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein played a large role in her downfall.
Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review." A few months later, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no client list and that no additional files from the Epstein investigation would be made public.
That touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all of the Epstein files in its possession.
The department failed to meet the Act's 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also expressed concerns about heavy redactions that were made to many of the documents.
A woman walks through the parking lot of a homeless shelter in Long Beach that contractor First to Serve operated until the city launched an investigation into its billing practices.
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Thomas R. Cordova.
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Long Beach Post
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Topline:
Long Beach has fired the contractor that operated almost all of its homeless shelters following an audit of the $69 million the city has spent on homeless services over the last five years.
First to Serve: The nonprofit First to Serve ran 423 of the city’s 500 shelter beds until yesterday, but after a closed-door City Council meeting last month, Long Beach cut ties and quickly swapped in the L.A.-based nonprofit People Assisting The Homeless (PATH). Long Beach is now investigating First to Serve which could result in the city pursuing criminal or civil charges. The investigation stemmed from a broader review of Long Beach’s homelessness programs launched by City Auditor Laura Doud in 2023.
What's next: As of Wednesday, the sites were being operated by PATH. The city plans to release bids in the next month or two to evaluate new operators for each of the four shelters. In response to the audit, the city said it’s already tightening up its processes, including the launch of a new tracking system and stricter oversight standards.
Long Beach has fired the contractor that operated almost all of its homeless shelters following an audit of the $69 million the city has spent on homeless services over the last five years.
The nonprofit First to Serve ran 423 of the city’s 500 shelter beds until yesterday, but after a closed-door City Council meeting last month, Long Beach cut ties and quickly swapped in the L.A.-based nonprofit People Assisting The Homeless (PATH).
Long Beach is now investigating First to Serve, according to Deputy City Attorney Nicholas Masero. It’s unclear if that investigation could result in the city pursuing criminal or civil charges. Masero said that “we’ll make that determination as the investigations progress.”
The investigation stemmed from a broader review of Long Beach’s homelessness programs launched by City Auditor Laura Doud in 2023.
The audit, Masero said, looked into documents submitted by vendors like First to Serve “seeking reimbursement or payment on contracts.”
“During our audit, we identified information that requires further review,” Doud wrote in a recent memo to the city manager. “To protect the integrity of our ongoing investigation, we cannot provide additional details regarding the matter at this time, nor can we discuss our audit in greater detail.”
What she discovered, though, was enough to compel Long Beach to cut ties with First to Serve.
By November, the city began to withhold payments and started the search for a new provider after finding enough instances of “contractual concerns that we were confident we needed to switch providers,” Masero said.
Doud has not yet released the full results of her audit, but she said contractors like First to Serve must do a better job showing they’ve performed the work they were hired to do before they’re paid, and the city needs to verify the services were actually provided before paying.
According to Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan, Long Beach has paid First to Serve $13 to $14 million annually to operate four shelters, as well as for rapid rehousing and prevention programs.
Paul Duncan, Long Beach’s homeless services bureau manager, informed the city’s Homeless Services Advisory Committee on Wednesday, April 1, that the city had terminated contracts with its largest homeless shelter provider.
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The organization oversaw the shelter at 702 West Anaheim St., the Atlantic Farms Bridge Housing Community at 6841 Atlantic Ave., the Project Homekey site at 1725 Long Beach Blvd., and the former Luxury Inn at 5950 Long Beach Blvd.
As of Wednesday, the sites were being operated by PATH. The city plans to release bids in the next month or two to evaluate new operators for each of the four shelters, Duncan said.
In response to the audit, the city said it’s already tightening up its processes, including the launch of a new tracking system and stricter oversight standards.
There’s been no official accounting of exactly what alleged wrongdoing is being investigated. According to their agendas, the City Council met in private on March 3 to discuss the situation, and then, on March 10, approved new contracts for PATH to operate the shelters without any public discussion.
In a video posted to Instagram, Sweeney toured the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. and alleged there was fraud at the nearly empty shelter, where only 12 of its 78 rooms were being used.
First to Serve’s other three shelters were 78% to 88% occupied, according to city data, though about one-third of the rooms at the 1725 Long Beach Blvd. site were under construction and are not being used.
Officials say the city and First to Serve met weekly to review inventory at each shelter, transfer existing case files, and do walkthroughs of each site to make sure everything was accounted for.
Mayor Rex Richardson, Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, and other city officials celebrated the completion of the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. on Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova. In a memo, the Long Beach health director Alison King said the decision to cut ties with First to Serve was related to the city auditor’s review of “prior administrative documentation” that “is not related to shelter operations.”
Nevertheless, she wrote, “Based on the findings of that review, the City determined it is in the best interest of the community to move forward with a new service provider for shelter operations.”
The city’s investigation has been ongoing since October, according to Masero.
Nobody from First to Serve was immediately available to answer questions late Wednesday night.
