November 21, 2022
26 ways to volunteer during the holidays in Los Angeles
(The Los Angeles Times / Getty)
This season, Los Angeles brims with volunteer opportunities, from delivering gifts to walking Doberman puppies. Soup kitchens, animal shelters and outdoor cleanup crews stretch from Long Beach to Santa Clarita. As toy drives and holiday dinners kick in, the need for volunteers soars, but so does the number of people willing to help.
Nearing holidays tend to spur Angelenos into the giving spirit — and that’s a good thing. Andrew Linares, volunteer manager and alum of the Midnight Mission, a nonprofit that aids unhoused people, said the uptick is partially due to the amount of people who’ve recently moved to the area from out of state. The Midnight Mission has a handful of volunteers who are far from family and seeking something meaningful to do for the holidays.
November 21, 2022
The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
(Katie Martin / The Atlantic; Getty)
How many homes must the United States’ expensive coastal cities build to become affordable for middle-class and working-poor families again? Over the past few weeks, I asked a number of housing experts that question. I expected a straightforward response: If you build X units, you reduce rents by Y percent—which means that Washington, D.C., needs to build Z units to become broadly affordable again.
I did not get such a simple answer. “That’s a difficult question with a lot of moving parts,” Jenny Schuetz of the Brookings Institution told me. “Are we assuming that all of these homes drop out of the sky today?” asked David Garcia, the policy director at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. Chris Herbert, the managing director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, gave me a long response involving land prices, rental affordability, household formation, and building trends.
November 12, 2022
Column: Fed up with failed leadership, L.A. voters backed mansion tax to help the homeless. Will it work?
Residents of downtown’s L.A. Grand hotel under the Project Roomkey program protest the city’s plan to evict them early next year. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The next mayor of Los Angeles appears to be in line for an early Christmas present.
Measure ULA on Tuesday’s ballot, leading by a considerable margin as votes are tallied, would pump a massive amount of money into homelessness prevention and housing. Several thousand new housing units could be created each year, and rental assistance could prevent thousands more from becoming homeless.
November 6, 2022
Letter to the Editor: How to Help the Homeless in Los Angeles
(Photo credit: New York Times)
To the Editor:
Re “The Way Los Angeles Is Trying to Solve Homelessness Is ‘Absolutely Insane,’” by Ezra Klein (column, nytimes.com, Oct. 23):
Mr. Klein is absolutely right: It is insane to try to solve Los Angeles’s housing crisis without a radically innovative approach. Fortunately, Los Angeles voters will be able to vote for one on the same ballot as their new mayor. Measure ULA would raise more than $900 million annually to prevent homelessness and create housing. It replaces politics as usual with the urgency and innovation we need.
November 2, 2022
In LA, Mayoral Hopefuls Face Off With the City’s Thorniest Issue
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso holds an event at the Los Angeles Police Museum in Northeast Los Angeles in September. (Photographer: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Rick Caruso, the billionaire mall magnate running to be Los Angeles’s next mayor, will spend a total of more than $80 million on mailers, television commercials, and digital ads in pursuit of the city’s top office, a 13-1 advantage in ad spending. Now, in the final weeks of his campaign against U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass, this media barrage has been joined by 400 paid canvassers who will walk the streets of LA, targeting inactive, low-propensity voters that the campaign believes can be swayed to support an outsider who has never held political office.
October 28, 2022
More L.A. Latinos falling into homelessness, shaking communities in ‘a moment of crisis’
Miguel Meneses sweeps around the van where he lives with his wife, Sandra Torres, in Boyle Heights. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Miguel Meneses and his wife were struggling to get by when the pandemic hit. They lost their rent-controlled apartment in Boyle Heights and moved with their three children to a rental house in Pomona that cost four times as much.
In summer 2020, Meneses, an Uber driver, fell ill with long COVID symptoms and couldn’t work for months. As the pandemic lurched on, his wife, Sandra Torres, lost the last of the eight cleaning service clients she had left.
October 25, 2022
L.A. Real Estate Agents, Housing Activists Battle Over Measure ULA, the So-Called “Mansion Tax,” Ahead of Nov. 8 Vote
Aerial view of the Griffith Observatory on Mount Hollywood and the Hollywood sign seen in the distance, California, USA. (Courtesy of simonkr/ Getty Images)
A tight mayoral race will not be the only thing getting attention on Angeleno ballots on Nov. 8. Measure ULA, dubbed “the mansion tax,” will also be up for a vote in the city of Los Angeles, amid opposition from Los Angeles’ real estate industry. If passed, the measure would add a new tax on L.A. property sales north of $5 million to fund affordable housing and homelessness programs.
If the measure succeeds, property sales in Los Angeles between $5 and $10 million would be subject to an additional 4 percent tax rate, while those worth $10 million or more would be taxed at an additional rate of 5.5 percent. To put the tax in context, for a house like the one Shonda Rhimes sold earlier this year in Hancock Park, there would be a $1.155 million tax on the $21 million sale; for Ashley Tisdale, who sold in the Hollywood Hills for $5.9 million, a $236,000 tax.
October 24, 2022
‘Mansion Tax’ Will Be Voted On Nov. 8
A Calabasas home listed by The Oppenheim Group for $5 million. (LA Business Journal)
Real estate executives are pushing against Measure ULA, a city proposal that if enacted would establish a 4% tax on the sale or transfer of properties in Los Angeles worth $5 million or more and a 5.5% tax on the sale or transfer of properties valued at more than $10 million.
The measure will be voted on in the upcoming Nov. 8 general election and seeks to use the tax proceeds on affordable housing and homeless prevention programs. It is not an ongoing property tax and would be enacted until ended by voters.
October 20, 2022
Roommate wanted: Homeless people are pairing up as a way around the housing crisis
Eric Perkins says the kitchen is what sold him on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Norfolk, Va., that he found through a shared housing program. (Photo: Parker Michels-Boyce for NPR)
Even after three years of homelessness, Eric Perkins did not want to move into an apartment with another person who had been unhoused.
"I was real skeptical because of the things I was seeing inside the shelter," he says. "A lot of drug use, lot of alcohol abuse, PTSD, there was a lot of veterans there. ... I was like, 'I don't want to be in a house with somebody like that.' "
But the arrangement suggested by a local housing provider has turned out better than he expected.
Summer 2022 Issue
A New Approach
(Photo: LA Family Housing)
Before COVID-19, more than 66,000 people experienced homelessness in Los Angeles County, California. This number has only increased in recent years, as rent prices have skyrocketed and families still deal with the economic effects of the pandemic. Fortunately, groups like LA Family Housing (LAFH) are implementing bold, innovative approaches to combat the area’s homeless crisis.
September 7, 2022
LA County homeless count will ripple through nonprofits, political races and government
People gather their belongings and clean up at a homeless encampment in Harbor City on Thursday, February 25, 2021. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
When the results of the 2022 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count are released on Thursday, Sept. 8, it will mean more than just a number to nonprofits in the trenches, politicians on the stump and affordable housing advocates.
The new data will be bandied about by office-seekers some of whom will criticize or condemn Los Angeles city and Los Angeles County leaders for failing to rectify the persistent problem.
AUGUST 14, 2022
California’s housing-first policies work. Failed homelessness strategies of the 1980s don’t
(Photo: Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee)
California programs that prioritize housing ended homelessness for tens of thousands of people last year. Yet, in recent months, a vocal minority of state leaders have called for a rollback of our housing first laws — laws that emphasize permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness without first requiring them to access services or treatment.
July 4, 2022
For LA’s formerly homeless, freedom on the Fourth of July goes beyond national independence
Individuals gather to eat at a Fourth of July barbecue at a permanent supportive housing location in Tujunga on Monday, July 4, 2022. (Photo by Saumya Gupta, for SCNG)
People who once experienced homelessness are celebrating their own kind of independence from it this year, thankful in the freedom that comes with a roof over their heads and regaining “agency” over their own lives.
Jun 24, 2022
Inflation Is Hurting Homelessness Service Providers
Union Station Homeless Services' Chef Marisa cooks potato and cheesy chicken tacos. (Courtesy of Union Station Homeless Services)
Inflation has hit a 40-year high and is affecting the ability of homelessness service providers to provide basic needs like food and shelter.
Over the last 12 months, from May 2021 to May 2022, food prices have risen 10.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This means food budgets aren’t going as far as they used to and providers, like Union Station Homeless Services, are having to get more creative, even resorting to creating Amazon wish lists for donations.
May 17, 2022
How Master Leasing Can Help the Affordable Housing Crisis
Rising housing costs and the shortage of affordable housing have become some of the most pressing issues in the country, particularly in big cities like Los Angeles where I work and where we see more and more people falling into homelessness each day.
With COVID-19 rent relief efforts and eviction moratoriums set to expire, we anticipate that the immediate need for affordable housing will only continue to grow.
Read the full article at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
May 10, 2022
FAQ: How To Vote In LA If You're Unhoused
(Illustration: LAist)
There are state laws and judicial rulings that support the right of a person who is experiencing homelessness to register to vote. But that doesn't mean the process is easy to figure out.
If you're unhoused and want to vote, this FAQ is intended to help address some of the most common concerns, such as:
no access to a mailing address/way to get mail
loss of identification documents required to register
no outreach on dates and subjects of elections
confusion about polling places
April 28, 2022
Providing Affordable Housing and Support Services
Since its founding in 1983, LA Family Housing (LAFH) has become the largest affordable housing and supportive services provider in the San Fernando Valley and a leader among service providers in Los Angeles. LAFH’s mission is to help people transition out of homelessness and poverty through a continuum of housing enriched with supportive services. The agency operates through four main service areas: street-based outreach, engagement, and intervention; housing services and placement; supportive services; and real estate development. Its team of over 450 staff dedicate themselves to serving over 11,000 of our homeless neighbors annually, providing solutions to end homelessness in people’s lives.
March 31, 2022
Officials gathered in March to break ground on My Angel apartments project in North Hills
(Copyright © 2025 KABC Television)
New, permanent housing for veterans and people experiencing homelessness is coming to North Hills.
Officials gathered toward the end of March to officially break ground on the My Angel apartments project.
"The owner for 60 years of Angel Appliances donated this property to LA Family Housing to build permanent homes for veterans who have experienced homelessness," said LA Family Housing President Stephanie Klasky-Gamer.
The owner of Angel Appliances is Hal Kassner. The army veteran says the name My Angel was not named after his store. Instead, it is a dedication to his wife of 70 years, Sue.
March 24, 2022
Housing for homeless, veterans planned for site of North Hills’ former Angel Appliances store
LA Family Housing CEO Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, center, with Sue and Hal Kassner, who donated the property for a permanent supportive housing project called My Angel, in North Hills on Sepulveda Blvd., for veterans and people experiencing chronic homelessness. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez and LA Family Housing CEO Stephanie Klasky-Gamer led the way as LAFH broke ground on the construction of My Angel, a new permanent supportive housing complex in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hills area.
The project will convert the former Angel Appliances store — an iconic Valley retailer and service center that opened in 1955 but recently shut down — into 54 permanent supportive homes for veterans and individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. The target completion date is October 2023.
March 22, 2022
Newsom’s new push for homeless mental health treatment lacks details. That has some worried
At the heart of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to compel people into court-ordered treatment for mental illness and addiction is a sense of urgency to solve a decades-old crisis festering on California’s streets — even if it means building the plane as it flies.
“We’re coming up with a completely new paradigm, a new approach, a different pathway, and it’s consistent with our values,” Newsom said earlier this month when he announced the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court.
Newsom has not provided a price tag for how much CARE Court could cost, but it would likely be paid for with a portion of the projected $14 billion he wants to spend on addressing homelessness over the next several years. He also pledged swift action in the coming weeks to finalize the proposal and move it through the Legislature.
Mar 17, 2022
Stories of homelessness on the West Coast
(Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc.)
Co-director Jon Shenk and Los Angeles Family Housing Outreach Director Eric Montoya, who was formerly unhoused, joined KTLA live to talk about the documentary short “Lead Me Home” that’s been nominated for an Oscar.
The film currently streams on Netflix. It personalizes homelessness by telling real-life stories of those going through it.
March 16, 2022
LA Family Housing’s Stephanie Klasky-Gamer Unpacks Daunting Challenges Facing Homeless Service Providers in LA County
Stephanie Klasky-Gamer: For nearly 40 years, LA Family Housing’s mission has been very simple: to end homelessness in people's lives by providing housing enriched with supportive services. Helping families and individuals transition out of homelessness and poverty has been at the core of LA Family Housing.
When we began as an agency in the early 1980s, we were actually two different companies. One was based here in the San Fernando Valley when a group of concerned citizens came together, purchased an old motel, and converted it into a 30-day shelter where 40 families could stay. It was the first shelter in the San Fernando Valley, so it was very creatively called Valley Shelter.
February 09, 2022
Lack of shelter space limits LA homeless policy
Westwood Park is one place where city officials have banned camping under a new law, though they’re not enforcing it yet. (Photo by Anna Scott.)
Last summer, the LA City Council passed a new set of laws to regulate street camping at certain locations. Each councilmember can choose spots to ban camping, near schools or parks or driveways. Enforcement was supposed to come with an intensive outreach process to link unhoused people to services and housing opportunities, and ideally move them off the streets.
But KCRW has found the outreach is patchwork, and it’s difficult to get a clear picture of what assistance is even available, or how often people are moving indoors under the new policy versus shuffling from one street corner to another.
“It was meant to be accompanied by a street engagement strategy,” says Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president and CEO of the nonprofit LA Family Housing. “That didn't happen.”
January 18, 2022
Activists Want A Pause on Encampment Sweeps As COVID Surges In Homeless Shelters
A homeless encampment under a freeway bridge in Joe Buscaino's City Council District 15. (Ethan Ward/LAist)
Homeless services providers and advocates are calling on L.A. leaders to put encampment cleanups on hold as COVID-19 outbreaks surge in shelters.
"We just can't enforce that they move indoors when there isn't a place to go,” said L.A. Family Housing CEO Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, adding that the organization's interim housing sites are all under quarantine, as are others.
Under an ordinance known as 41.18, L.A. City Council members can target encampments in their districts for cleanup, if outreach workers offer shelter to unhoused residents first.
January 4, 2022
MEET THE GANGSTER-TURNED-MURALIST OUT OF BOYLE HEIGHTS WHO SURVIVED L.A.’S ‘DECADE OF DEATH’ AND NOW MAKES ART THAT UNITES BLACK AND BROWN COMMNUNITIES
(Photo credit: L.A. Taco)
Award-winning poet Alyesha Wise recited these words from her piece, “For us, the Congregation,” in an inauguration ceremony on November 17, 2021, in a garden courtyard directly below a mural of herself. The inspiring event commemorated the completion of two technicolor murals painted by the prolific artist Fabian Debora. Located at 69th and Main Streets in South Los Angeles, the murals feature Wise and the equally illustrious poet Felicia Montes on the front facade of a new apartment complex that offers permanent housing for formerly homeless families.