homeless

Los Angeles County prosecutors unsealed an indictment Friday against a former LAPD officer responsible for the 2015 on-duty shooting of an unarmed man in Venice.

The ex-cop, Clifford Proctor, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief hearing in a downtown courtroom.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Proctor, 60, leaned over several times to whisper to his attorney but otherwise said little during the hearing, a portion of which was held behind closed doors. He waived a reading of the indictment. He will remain in custody with no bail, and is expected to return to court for a hearing early next month.

Proctor’s lawyer, Anthony “Tony” Garcia, said he would reserve comment until he’d had a chance to review the case.

But he questioned the timing of the charges, which came more than a decade after the incident in question.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s office reviewed the case when it was fresh and “determined there was nothing to proceed,” Garcia said.

Proctor was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport last week when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents noticed he had an active warrant. Proctor has been living abroad for several years, according to sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the pending case.

Proctor resigned from the LAPD in 2017. While still with the department, he shot and killed Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless man, after a dispute outside of a Venice bar in 2015. Glenn and his dog had been kicked out of the Bank of Venice restaurant for causing a disturbance.

Proctor and Glenn got into an argument and the officer ordered Glenn to leave the area. Glenn responded by hurling several racial epithets at Proctor. Both men are Black, according to court records.

Glenn then got into an argument with a bouncer outside of a different bar, and Proctor and his partner moved to make an arrest. During the ensuing struggle, Proctor shot Glenn twice in the back. Proctor alleged Glenn reached for his partner’s gun, but footage from the scene appeared to contradict that claim.

Glenn’s hand was never seen “on or near any portion” of the holster, according to a report made by the city’s Police Commission in 2016, and Proctor’s partner never made “any statements or actions” suggesting Glenn was trying to take the gun.

Former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called for Proctor to be charged with manslaughter in the wake of public outrage over the killing, but ex-Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey declined to prosecute. After being elected on a police accountability platform in 2020, her successor, George Gascón hired a special prosecutor to reexamine charges against several L.A. County law enforcement officers in on-duty killings, including Glenn’s death.

Last year, sources told The Times that a warrant had been issued for Proctor’s arrest. Gascón and his chosen special prosecutor, Lawrence Middleton, repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who fired Middleton shortly after taking office last year, has not given updates on the case. Hochman hired another special prosecutor, Michael Gennaco, to oversee Middleton’s pending cases.

Hochman’s appetite to prosecute Proctor is unclear. He was often critical of Gascón’s decision to employ a special prosecutor during the 2024 campaign cycle, and Hochman’s close ties to law enforcement have left some skeptical of his willingness to pursue difficult cases involving on-duty misconduct.

A BRITISH grandad and veteran suffering from cancer has been left homeless and starving in Dubai after being arrested for a crime he’d been acquitted of a decade earlier.

John Murphy, who served in the British military before building a life in the UAE, was arrested a decade earlier over allegations of being offensive to hotel security.

The 59-year-old’s lawyers said he should have walked free but he was jailed awaiting trial.

In the interim period, John’s landlord sued him for rent arrears that piled up during his detention.

His belongings were seized, a travel ban imposed, and his passport withheld.

The travel ban imposed on him has also never been lifted.

For nearly 10 years he has been trapped in Dubai, unable to work and unable to leave, putting John in an ‘inescapable legal limbo’.

John’s lawyers now say he has been ‘literally starving’.

The grandfather has been forced to sleep on public transport and wash in shopping centre toilets, according to his legal contacts.

“I haven’t eaten in four days,” Murphy said in a message sent from Dubai.

“I’ve been on the streets for three weeks.

“I try to ride the metro all day to rest, but security chase me away.

“I wash in mall toilets, I’ve been in the same clothes for weeks, and my health is failing.

“I need urgent cancer treatment and dental care, but I have nowhere to turn.”

Despite homelessness being illegal in the UAE, when John attempted to surrender to the police, they refused to arrest him.

He has been surviving on public transport, caught between a rock and a hard place – unable to leave, unable to work, unable to resolve his debts.

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Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai said John’s situation was “outrageous”.

“John was found innocent, yet ten years later he is starving on the streets, denied cancer treatment, food, or shelter,” she said.

“This is the direct result of a system that criminalises debt and traps people in a cycle of poverty and despair.

“They won’t let him leave, and they won’t even arrest him. He is being left to die in plain sight.”

A friend of John’s has launched a GoFundMe page and appealed directly to both the British and Irish embassies for help.

To date, neither has secured his release.

“The Trump administration successfully repatriated a number of American citizens from the UAE,” Stirling added.

“It is disappointing that Britain and Ireland have not stepped in to save John Murphy.

“He is a veteran, a grandfather, and he has already suffered enough.

“The Irish and British governments must act now.”

John’s quagmire comes after British student Mia O’Brien was detained in the city after being busted with 50g of cocaine.

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Mia was sentenced to spend 25 years in a UAE prison after she was found with the drugs that had a street value of £2500.

Her family this week issued a plea for help saying she had “never done a bad thing in her life” and had made a “very stupid mistake”.

But now her heartbroken mum Danielle McKenna, 46, has revealed new details about her lengthy jail term.

She revealed that Mia, 23, was caught with 50 grams of the Class A drug in the Middle East last October.

The huge amount of cocaine was found inside Mia’s apartment in “one big chunk”.

The Liverpool University law student was arrested alongside two other people – her friend and the friend’s boyfriend.

All three have been charged with drug dealing.

Mia was convicted by a judge after a one day hearing on July 25.

She was also fined a staggering £100,000 by the court before being sent to the hellish Dubai Central Prison, also known as Al-Awir.

The notorious lock-up has been dubbed the affluent city’s version of infamous jail Alcatraz.

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“Mia feels she has destroyed her life as she wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor, ” Danielle told the Daily Mail.

“I speak to her but she can’t say too much on the phone.

“She’s just made a stupid mistake after going over to see a friend and her boyfriend in Dubai.”

The mother-of-five said Mia pleaded not guilty to intent to supply the drugs.

But the judge swiftly ended the trial and handed her a life sentence of which she has to serve 25 years.

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Sept. 16 (UPI) — City authorities in Minneapolis on Tuesday cleared a homeless encampment located on private land after a mass shooting at the site left multiple people injured.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other city officials announced the move during a press conference, saying the camp located on the city’s south side was unsafe and unsanitary, attracting drug trafficking and violence. The camp’s demolition comes a day after a shooting at the site that left seven people severely injured. It was the second mass shooting that occurred on the city’s south side and part of a particularly violent summer for Minneapolis.

The camp’s closure comes as cities across the United States have struggled with encampments as they’ve seen soaring housing prices and homeless populations. But Frey insisted the camp and others like it are not a solution to homelessness and are unsafe.

“They are not safe for the people living at the encampment, for the people going to the encampment to buy and or sell drugs, they are not safe for the surrounding community,” he said.

Roughly 75 people lived at the camp and have been offered shelter and other services, city officials said. A video of the camp’s clearing by KTSP shows a crew dismantling structures and loading debris into a garbage truck.

The camp had become a public health nuisance with people living among drug paraphernalia, garbage, spoiled food and human waste, said Enrique Velasquez, the city’s director of regulatory services. He said the property’s owner, Hamoudi Sabri, had been repeatedly cited.

Sabri said in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune that his encampment was a response to what he called was city leader’s neglect to the area.

“Instead of emergency response, the pattern has been abandonment – and repeated displacement that leaves people more vulnerable to violence,” he said.

Frey said addressing the camp was “particularly difficult” because of the city’s fraught relationship with Sabri and that he was expecting both sides to go to court over the camp’s closing.

“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade apologized Sunday for remarks he made last week that suggested using involuntary lethal injections to get mentally ill homeless people off the streets.

Kilmeade’s comments came during a discussion last Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” about the Aug. 22 stabbing death of a 23-year Ukranian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on a light rail train in Charlotte, N.C.

Zarutska’s suspected killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., is a homeless man with a long criminal record and is a paranoid schizophrenic, according to his family.

The attack on Zarutska was captured on security cameras and circulated widely online. The incident has sparked a national debate on public safety policy and criminal sentencing.

The topic led “Fox & Friends” co-host Laurence Jones to say that billions of dollars have been spent on programs to care for the homeless and mentally ill but many of those afflicted resist help.

“A lot of them don’t want to take the programs,” Jones said. “A lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them the choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’ve got to be locked up in jail.”

Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”

A clip of Kilmeade’s remarks started to circulate widely on X on Saturday.

“I apologize for that extremely callous remark,” Kilmeade said during Sunday’s edition of the morning program. “I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”

Many online commentators pointed out that Kilmeade’s comments evoked the extermination of mentally ill and disabled people that was authorized by Adolf Hitler in 1939. The German chancellor’s euthanasia program killed more than 250,000 people ahead of the Holocaust.

For now, Kilmeade has avoided the fate of political analyst Matthew Dowd, who lost his contributor role at MSNBC after commenting on the Wednesday shooting death of right wing political activist Charlie Kirk.

Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

Dowd, once a political strategist for President George W. Bush, described Kirk as a divisive figure “who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

Rebecca Kutler, president of MSNBC, issued an apology and cut ties with Dowd.

Dowd also apologized in a post on BlueSky. “I in no way intended intended to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack,” he said.

The top executives at MSNBC parent Comcast sent a company-wide memo Friday citing Dowd’s firing and told employees “we need to do better.”

The city of Norwalk will repeal a local law passed last year that banned homeless shelters as part of a settlement that will end a state lawsuit, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Friday.

Last fall, the state sued the southeastern Los Angeles County community alleging that Norwalk’s policy violated anti-discrimination, fair housing and numerous other state laws. Norwalk leaders had argued its shelter ban, which also blocked homeless housing developments, laundromats, payday lenders and other businesses that predominantly served the poor, was a necessary response to broken promises from other agencies to assist with the city’s homeless population.

“The Norwalk City Council’s failure to reverse this ban without a lawsuit, despite knowing it is unlawful, is inexcusable,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “No community should turn its back on its residents in need — especially while there are people in your community sleeping on the streets.”

The settlement, which needs judicial approval before taking effect, calls for Norwalk to repeal its ban at an upcoming City Council meeting, Bonta said in a release. In addition, the city will dedicate $250,000 toward the development of new affordable housing, formally acknowledge that the ban harmed fair housing efforts and accept increased state monitoring of its housing policies.

Bonta said that the legal action shows the state will not back down when local leaders attempt to block homeless housing.

“We are more than willing to work with any city or county that wants to do its part to solve our housing crisis,” Bonta said. “By that same token, if any city or county wants to test our resolve, today’s settlement is your answer.”

Norwalk officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Norwalk stood out compared to other communities that have found themselves in the state’s crosshairs in recent years. Many cities that have fought state housing policies, such as Beverly Hills and Coronado, are predominantly wealthy and white. By contrast, Norwalk is a Latino-majority, working- and middle-class city. Elected leaders in the city of 100,000 have said they’ve borne a disproportionate burden of addressing homelessness in the region.

Though the ban led to the cancellation of a planned shelter in Norwalk, city leaders contended that the policy largely was a negotiating tactic to ensure that the state and other agencies heard their concerns. Last year, the city said that even though the shelter ban remained on its books, it would not be enforced.

“This is not an act of defiance but rather an effort to pause, listen, and find common ground with the state,” city spokesperson Levy Sun said in a statement following a February court ruling that allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Dakota Smith and Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

L.A.’s political leaders are facing a daunting and possibly insurmountable deadline. If they blow it, they could face all kinds of headaches — legal, financial and otherwise.

By June 2026, they must show a federal judge that they have removed 9,800 homeless encampments from streets, sidewalks and public rights of way. That means 9,800 tents, cars, RVs and makeshift structures — those created out of materials like cardboard or shopping carts — over a four-year period.

The city’s strategy for reaching that goal has become a huge source of friction in its long-running legal battle with the LA Alliance for Human Rights, which sued the city in 2020 over its handling of homelessness.

In recent months, the encampment removal plan has also become the subject of a second lawsuit — one alleging that the City Council approved it behind closed doors, then failed to disclose that fact, in violation of a state law requiring that government business be conducted in public view.

The encampment removal plan was “drafted and adopted without any notice to the public (which includes the owners of these tents, makeshift encampments, and RVs that the City has agreed to clear), let alone any public debate or discussion,” said the lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Community Action Network, the homeless advocacy group also known as LA CAN, which is an intervenor in the LA Alliance case.

Lawyers for the city say they followed the Ralph M. Brown Act, which spells out disclosure requirements for decisions made behind closed doors by government bodies. In one filing, they said their actions were not only legal, but “reasonable and justified under the circumstances.”

As with everything surrounding the LA Alliance case, there is a tortured backstory.

The LA Alliance sued the city in 2020, alleging that too little was being done to address the homelessness crisis, particularly in Skid Row. The case was settled two years later, with the city agreeing to create 12,915 new shelter beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027.

After that deal was struck, the city began negotiating with the LA Alliance over an accompanying requirement to reduce the number of street encampments, with quarterly milestones in each council district.

The LA Alliance eventually ran out of patience, telling U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in February 2024 that the city was 447 days late in finalizing its plan. The group submitted to the court a copy of the encampment removal plan, saying it had been approved by the City Council on Jan. 31, 2024.

Two months later, City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office also told Carter that the plan to remove 9,800 encampments, and the accompanying milestones, had gone before the council on Jan. 31.

The council “approved them without delay,” Feldstein Soto’s team said in a filing submitted jointly by the city and the LA Alliance.

Video from the Jan. 31 meeting shows that council members did in fact go behind closed doors for more than two hours to discuss the LA Alliance case. But when they returned, Deputy City Atty. Jonathan Groat said there was nothing to report from the closed session.

The encampment removal plan is a huge issue for LA CAN, which has warned that the 9,800 goal effectively creates a quota system for sanitation workers — one that could make them more likely to violate the property rights of unhoused residents.

At no point during the council’s deliberations did the public have the opportunity to weigh in on the harm that would be caused by seizing the belongings of thousands of unhoused people, said attorney Shayla Myers, who represents LA CAN. Beyond that, she said, the public was never told who supported the plan and who opposed it.

“The narrow exception in the Brown Act that allows a legislative body to confer with their attorneys in closed session was never intended to allow the City Council to shelter these kinds of controversial decisions from public view,” the lawsuit states.

LA CAN now wants a Superior Court judge to force the city to disclose any votes cast by council members on the encampment removal plan. The group also wants recordings and transcripts of those proceedings, as well as a declaration that the city violated the Brown Act in its handling of the matter.

Beyond that, the group alleges that the council violated the Brown Act a second time, in May 2024, by failing to disclose its approval of an agreement with L.A. County — again reached behind closed doors — over the delivery of services to homeless residents.

Assistant City Atty. Strefan Fauble pushed back on LA CAN’s assertions, saying “no settlement or agreement was voted on or approved” by the council on Jan. 31, 2024. In a letter to LA CAN last year, Fauble also said the agreement with the county was not disclosed at the time because it had not been finalized in federal court.

“The City has always complied with its post-closed session disclosure requirements under the Brown Act when a settlement or agreement is final,” he wrote. “It will continue to do so.”

Meanwhile, the fight over the encampment removal plan is getting messier.

Two months ago, Judge Carter spelled out restrictions on the types of tents that can be counted toward the 9,800. In a 62-page order, he said a tent discarded by sanitation workers could be counted toward the city’s goal only if its owner had been offered housing or a shelter bed beforehand.

The city is weighing an appeal of that assertion. In a memo to the council, Feldstein Soto said the judge had “reinterpreted” some of the city’s settlement obligations.

An appeal would be expensive, and Feldstein Soto is already in hot water over legal bills racked up in the LA Alliance case.

On Wednesday, the council balked at Feldstein Soto’s request for a $5-million increase to the city’s contract with the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, which would include work on an appeal and other tasks. The council sent the request to the budget committee for more review.

Some councilmembers voiced dismay that Gibson Dunn billed $3.2 million in less than three months, after the council had allocated an initial $900,000 for a two-year period.

State of play

— VA VOUCHERS: Los Angeles County housing authorities have more than enough federal rental subsidies to house all of the county’s homeless veterans. Yet chronic failures in a complicated bureaucracy of referral, leasing and support services have left those agencies treading water. About 4,000 vouchers are gathering dust while an estimated 3,400 veterans remain on the streets or inside shelters, The Times reported.

— TAKE THE STAIRS: Could new apartment buildings with only one staircase help solve L.A.’s housing crisis? Councilmember Nithya Raman favors such a change, saying it can be done without sacrificing safety.

— FILM FACTOTUM: More than two and a half years after taking office, Mayor Karen Bass fulfilled a longstanding campaign promise, announcing the selection of a new film liaison between City Hall and the entertainment industry. Steve Kang, president of the Board of Public Works, will serve as the primary point person for film and TV productions looking to shoot in L.A. He’ll be assisted by Dan Halden, who works out of the city’s Bureau of Street Services, and producer Amy Goldberg.

— VALLEY SHUFFLE? City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who faces term limits next year, told The Times he’s considering a run for state Senate in 2028. If he gets in the race, the former state lawmaker would compete for the North Hollywood-to-Moorpark district currently represented by state Sen. Henry Stern, who faces term limits in 2028.

— PROTESTER PAYOUT: A Los Angeles filmmaker and his daughter were awarded more than $3 million after a jury found Los Angeles County negligent for injuries the man sustained when a sheriff’s deputy shot him in the face with a projectile during a protest against police brutality in 2020.

— CRIME SPREE: Police announced the arrest this week of several alleged gang members accused of burglarizing nearly 100 homes and businesses, largely on the Westside. The suspects are believed to be part of a South L.A. group that called itself the “Rich Rollin’ Burglary Crew” and focused on the theft of high-end jewelry, purses, watches, wallets, suitcases and guns, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said.

— OFF THE BUS: Ridership on Metro’s network of buses continued to drop in July, weeks after federal immigration agents began a series of raids across L.A. County. Amid the decrease, Metro’s rail ridership grew by 6.5% over the same period.

— HOUSING WARS: After the L.A. City Council voted to oppose state Sen. Scott Wiener‘s new transit density bill, Councilmember Imelda Padilla joined Wiener and podcast host Jon Lovett (also a vocal supporter of the bill) to debate its merits on Pod Save America’s YouTube channel. The spirited conversation garnered more than 50,000 views, spawned numerous memes and sparked hundreds of replies on the r/losangeles subreddit.

At one point, Lovett appeared shocked when Padilla, who joined seven of her colleagues in opposing Senate Bill 79, boasted of getting a proposed six-story affordable housing project reduced to three stories. Padilla addressed her viral interview during Friday’s council meeting, saying she views the council’s role as one that seeks compromise “between the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs.”

— SHE’S (OFFICIALLY) RUNNING: L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis officially launched her campaign for a proposed new congressional district in southeast L.A. County, offering up a list of heavyweight backers, including Mayor Karen Bass, Sheriff Robert Luna, Supervisor Janice Hahn and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, moving 10 people indoors, according to a Bass aide.
• On the docket for next week: The L.A. County Board of Supervisors will take up a proposed ordinance to streamline the process of rebuilding in Altadena in the wake of the Eaton fire.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The high-powered law firm that racked up big bills working to keep the city of Los Angeles from losing control over its homeless programs is now looking to increase its contract by $5 million.

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has asked the City Council to increase the city’s contract with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP to $5.9 million, up from the $900,000 approved three months ago, according to a confidential memo she sent to council members.

Gibson Dunn has been defending the city since mid-May in a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Alliance for L.A. Human Rights, which resulted in a settlement agreement requiring the construction of new homeless housing and the removal of street encampments. The L.A. Alliance alleges that the city has repeatedly violated the agreement.

The Times reported last month that Gibson Dunn billed the city $1.8 million for about two weeks of work, with 15 attorneys charging $1,295 per hour and others charging lower amounts.

By Aug. 8, Gibson Dunn had racked up $3.2 million in billings in the case, according to the city attorney’s memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times. Those invoices arrived during a difficult financial period for the city, caused in part by a surge in expensive legal payouts.

Much of the firm’s work was focused on its preparation for, and participation in, a lengthy hearing before a federal judge who was weighing the Alliance’s request to hand control over the city’s homeless initiatives to a third party.

Gibson Dunn was retained by the city one week before the hearing, which lasted seven court days, at eight or more hours per day.

“The evidentiary hearing was more extensive than anticipated, with the plaintiffs calling more than a dozen witnesses and seeking to compel City officials to testify,” Feldstein Soto wrote in her memo.

Feldstein Soto’s office did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Times. But the city attorney has been outspoken in defending Gibson Dunn’s work, saying the firm kept the city’s homeless initiatives from being turned over to a receiver — a move that would have stripped authority from Bass and the City Council.

Gibson Dunn also prevented several elected officials — a group that includes Bass — from having to take the stand, Feldstein Soto said in her memo.

City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said she would vote against a request to spend another $5 million on Gibson Dunn. That money would be better spent on ensuring the city complies with its legal obligations in the case, which include the construction of 12,915 homeless beds and the removal of 9,800 encampments, she said.

Rodriguez, who also voted against the initial round of funding for Gibson Dunn, said $5 million would be enough to cover “time limited” housing subsidies for at least 500 households in her northeast San Fernando Valley district for an entire year.

“At the end of the day, we’re here to house people,” she said. “So let’s spend the resources housing them, rather than being in a protracted legal battle.”

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney who represents the L.A. Alliance, called the request for nearly $6 million “ludicrous,” saying the city should focus on compliance with the settlement agreement.

“Gibson is a very good firm. Lawyers cost money. I get it,” he said. “But the city has hundreds of capable lawyers, and the notion that they need to spend this kind of money to prevent a court from holding them to their obligations and their promises, it raises real questions about the decision-making in the city on this issue.”

“For a city that claims to be in fiscal crisis, this is nonsense,” Umhofer added.

In her memo, Feldstein Soto said the additional $5 million would cover Gibson Dunn’s work in the case through June 2027, when the city’s legal settlement with the L.A. Alliance is set to expire.

During that period, Gibson Dunn would appeal an order by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, arguing that the judge “reinterpreted” some of the city’s obligations under the settlement agreement, Feldstein Soto said in her memo. The law firm would also seek to “reform” the settlement agreement, Feldstein Soto said.

Theane Evangelis, an attorney with Gibson Dunn who led the team assigned to the L.A. Alliance case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her firm has played a huge role in redefining the way cities are permitted to address homelessness.

Representing Grants Pass, Ore., the firm secured a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court upholding laws that prohibit homeless people from camping in public spaces.

The firm brought a new, more pugnacious approach to the L.A. Alliance case, issuing hundreds of objections throughout the seven-day hearing and working to undermine the credibility of key witnesses.

A month later, Carter issued a 62-page order declining to turn L.A.’s homeless programs over to a third party. However, he also found that the city had failed to comply with the settlement agreement.

Feldstein Soto said the additional $5 million would allow the firm to carry out its work through June 2027, when the Alliance settlement is scheduled to expire.

Gibson Dunn’s legal team would continue to pursue the city’s appeal while also helping to produce the quarterly reports that are required by the settlement agreement.

Sandra Martin, who shot to fame on Gogglebox, has admitted she’s ‘glad’ to be back on benefits

Former Gogglebox star Sandra Martin has confessed that she “prefers” life on benefits, stating it’s less stressful.

The 55-year-old telly favourite, who rose to fame alongside her best mate Sandi Bogle on the popular Channel 4 show, revealed she had to sign back on in February 2018 after her TV earnings dwindled.

Despite having credits from reality series 100 Years Younger in 21 Days and various chat show appearances, Sandra admitted the work was short-lived.

After leaving Gogglebox in 2017, she splurged the last of her earnings on a hotel stay. By Christmas of the same year, she confessed to being “homeless and penniless”, struggling to make ends meet.

In 2018, Sandra told The Sun: “I went back to the job centre and shouted, ‘Hello! I’m home!’ I was on benefits for 35 years before I went on Gogglebox. I’m glad I’m back on social. I loved Gogglebox, but it was stressful because I couldn’t talk as much as I wanted, when I wanted.”

Now, she says she feels more comfortable living on handouts than pursuing TV fame, despite critics highlighting her frequent posts about jetting off on holidays, reports the Express.

Sandra added, “I turned to benefits when the money ran out. It’s less stressful. I feel like myself again.”

In January of this year, Sandra faced further criticism after refusing to sit in a plane’s middle seat because she claimed to be a “celebrity.” The former fan-favourite expressed her displeasure at being allocated the middle seat on social media.

Sandra caused a stir on a Ryanair flight when she refused to sit between two passengers. She shared a video from inside the plane’s cabin, standing in the aisle in protest.

She told her followers: “There’s no person there, I’m not showing your face and there’s one person there and they want me to sit there. No, I’m a celebrity… I’m Sandra Gogglebox. I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!”

“I cannot sit in that spot. No, I can’t breathe, I’m gonna faint, I’m gonna fart.”

Sandra said she was waiting until boarding was finished to see if there was a spare alternative seat.

In a kind gesture, her neighbour eventually agreed to swap places, and Sandra took the aisle seat for the flight.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — Dressed in camouflage fatigues, National Guard troops patrolled areas of Washington, D.C., on Thursday, dispatched by President Donald Trump to police what he has called “out of control crime” in the city.

In actuality, crime in the district has fallen in recent years or remained flat. Despite this, Guard soldiers patrolled outside Washington’s main train station and swept homeless encampments ahead of a larger, federal law enforcement operation Thursday night in the city.

The federal effort was underway shortly after 6 p.m. EDT Thursday near a popular homeless encampment outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, where most people who often sleep there already had left, The New York Times reported. Most were encouraged to go to homeless shelters.

“The district has worked proactively with homeless residents ahead of these actions to provide services and offers of shelter,” a statement from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services said. “DC will support the engagements with wraparound services and trash pickup but the planned engagements are otherwise the purview of the federal agencies.”

Some residents in the area pushed back on the troop presence in the 14th St. Northwest corridor. Some heckled the soldiers.

“Go home, fascists,” yelled one protester, and “get off our streets,” the New York Post reported. Others stood at the intersection of the checkpoint and directed drivers to go the other way.

Washington’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser walked a fine line between praise and criticism of the Guard troops’ deployment.

She called Trump’s efforts “an authoritarian push,” but earlier in the week expressed loose support for the effort.

“The fact that we have more law enforcement and presence in neighborhoods, that may be positive,” she said.

Other protesters were less measured.

“They are the goons of an openly fascist, openly violent regime,” Ryan Zito, a Washington resident told NBC News.

The planned federal operation targeted 25 sites in and around the district’s northwest quadrant, city council member Charles Allen said.

Allen added that he was unclear about the details of the operation, and that the White House had not been in contact with local officials regarding details.

Trump has said the National Guard presence has expanded to a 24-hour operation and will stretch beyond the originally scheduled 30 days.

The Washington deployment could serve as a template for similar operations in the future. The Washington Post, citing internal documents, said Trump could dispatch as many as 600 National Guard troops to military bases in Alabama and Arizona, and that still others could be deployed elsewhere as part of a “reaction force” to respond to violent civil events and crack down on crime.

Thales

Primary Engineer

TIME

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Some of the District of Columbia’s homeless residents were packing their belongings Thursday before expected sweeps to clear out remaining encampments around the nation’s capital, part of President Trump’s federal takeover of policing in the city.

Trump said this week that homeless people will be moved far from the city in his crackdown on crime. But details of the plan to do so are unclear.

Washington’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives Trump the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda. It’s prompted concern from advocates and others who say there are better ways to address homelessness than clearing encampments and leaving their occupants worrying about where they go.

Here’s a look at what we know and what questions remain about how Trump’s actions will affect the city’s homeless population:

What’s happening to encampments?

Near the Institute of Peace on Thursday morning, AP journalists saw about a dozen homeless D.C. residents packing their belongings. Items weren’t being forcibly thrown out by law enforcement, but an earth mover dug out and scooped away the remains of encampments, depositing them into the bed of an idling truck.

Yards away, several protesters held signs, some critical of the Trump administration. Volunteers from some of the agencies around the city that help homeless people were on hand, and advocates said they expected law enforcement officers to fan out across Washington. later Thursday to take down any remaining homeless encampments,

Amber W. Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, said she believed that “federal law enforcement will begin systematically rounding up and arresting unhoused people.” She believed officers would ask people to move on or would “offer shelter,” arresting people if they refused either directive.

“We do not have enough shelter beds for everyone on the street,” Harding said. “This is a chaotic and scary time for all of us in D.C., but particularly for people without homes.”

Lucho Vásquez, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said his group was “focusing all energies on opening and operating temporary facilities” for anyone in need of emergency shelter, food or other resources after the removals.

Where will the city’s homeless people be taken?

It’s not entirely clear.

Trump wrote on his social media site before Monday’s news conference announcing the takeover that homeless people will have to leave immediately. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he posted.

Asked this week where homeless people would be relocated, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local police and federal agencies would “enforce the laws that are already on the books,” which, she said, “have been completely ignored.”

Citing a city regulation that she said gives local police “the authority to take action when it comes to homeless encampments,” Leavitt said homeless people “will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services.” Those who refuse “will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”

In the past five months, U.S. Park Police have removed 70 homeless encampments, giving the people living in them the same options, she said. As of Tuesday, Leavitt said only two homeless encampments remained in district parks maintained by the National Park Service and would be removed this week.

How many homeless people are in Washington?

It is difficult to obtain accurate counts of homeless populations.

On one day at the end of each January, municipal agencies across the United States perform a “point-in-time” count aimed at capturing the total number of people in emergency shelters, transitional housing or without any housing.

The 2025 count in the district put the total at 5,138 adults and children, a 9% decrease compared with the year before, according to Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser.

What are city officials doing for the homeless?

District officials said Tuesday they were making additional shelter space available.

Kevin Donahue, the city administrator, said outreach workers were visiting homeless encampments and the city has a building available that could house as many as 200 people, if needed.

Donahue made the comments during a conversation with community advocates and Bowser. The conversation was broadcast on X.

He said the outreach would continue through the week with a “greater level of urgency.”

Bowser said that when Trump sees homeless encampments in the city it “triggers something in him that has him believing our very beautiful city is dirty, which it is not.”

What are people in Washington saying?

Washington residents emphasized reductions in crime in recent years and concerns over the removal of homeless encampments in interviews Tuesday criticizing the federal takeover of the city’s police department.

Jeraod Tyre, who has lived in the city for 15 years, said “crime has been slowing down lately” and argued that federal troops would only escalate tensions because they do not have “relationships with the people in the community” like local police do.

Sheiena Taylor, 36, said she is more fearful as a result of the presence of federal forces in the city where she was born and raised.

Taylor said she has seen federal officers around her home and on the subway and worries about their targeting of young people and people experiencing homelessness.

“Being homeless isn’t a crime,” she said, emphasizing the need for solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime rather than policing.

In several spots across the city, AP journalists talked to homeless people who were being told either by federal law enforcement officials or advocacy groups to pack up tents and belongings from parks and other public spaces before more official removal measures. Some expressed fear and anxiety about what might be coming.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Christine Fernando in Chicago, Mike Balsamo and Darlene Superville; video journalists River Zhang and Nathan Ellgren; and photographer Jacquelyn Martin contributed to this report.

Local officials and advocates for the homeless are fearful that President Trump will take draconian action against homeless people, including pushing them into detention camps, when Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games in 2028.

In recent weeks, Trump has appointed himself head of an Olympics task force and has seized control of local policing in Washington, D.C., declaring that homeless people will be given places to stay “FAR from the Capital.”

“Based on everything that has happened so far … I think you would have to be irrational not to worry about a worst case scenario [during the Games], where federal troops are effectively forcing poor people on the street to relocate to what is essentially a detention center somewhere out of sight,” said Gary Blasi, a professor emeritus at UCLA School of Law and a leading homelessness researcher.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that for now, D.C. police and federal agents will clear homeless encampments in the capital and give people the option of accepting shelter beds and services or facing fines and jail time. The administration, she said, is also exploring how it can move homeless people far from the city.

The White House did not answer questions about whether it has a plan to address homelessness in L.A. in preparation for the Olympics. But White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “The people of Los Angeles would benefit tremendously if local officials followed President Trump’s lead to make the city safe and beautiful, especially as they prepare to welcome 15 million people from around the world as the Olympics’ host city.”

When hosting the Olympics, local officials typically try to present the best image of their city, which can include refurbishing landmarks and sports venues or cleaning up areas where homeless people congregate.

“The eyes of the world will be on Los Angeles,” and officials don’t want “people coming to the city and see this visual problem manifest right in front of them,” said Benjamin F. Henwood, director of USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute.

French authorities bused homeless people out of Paris before the 2024 Games, and in 1984, the Los Angeles Police Department used mounted horse patrols to scatter homeless people into less visible areas of downtown.

This time, L.A. city and county officials said they will not deviate from their efforts to place homeless people in interim and permanent housing locally.

Last year, in an interview with The Times, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said that unlike during previous Olympics, she would not bus homeless people out of the city and instead would focus on “housing people first.”

Similarly, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has ordered county staffers to develop an encampment plan for upcoming sporting events, including the 2026 World Cup and the Olympics, that will emphasize permanent housing solutions.

But the supervisors also noted that encampments near Olympic venues will need to be “addressed,” in part to “establish adequate security perimeters.”

In D.C., in addition to taking over the city police department, Trump has deployed the National Guard to, as he put it, “reestablish law and order.” He has threatened to resend the Guard and the military to the Los Angeles area, where they were stationed this summer during federal immigration raids, if needed to maintain safety during the Olympics.

In a statement, Supervisor Janice Hahn said that federalizing local law enforcement and sending the U.S. military to American cities is “what tyrants do.” She also noted that the Trump administration has cut social safety net programs and is seeking to withdraw support for policies that prioritize placing homeless people in permanent housing before addressing other issues such as substance abuse and mental health.

“What the President is doing in DC should concern everyone,” Hahn said. “If he really wants to solve homelessness, he needs to get us the resources we need to get people housed and keep them housed.”

Nithya Raman, chair of the L.A. City Council’s housing and homelessness committee, said in a statement that given the region’s homelessness crisis, “the repercussions of similar actions as they are threatening in DC would be staggering.”

In her own statement, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said that despite the Trump administration’s plan of “dehumanization,” the county “will keep doing what’s right — focusing on humane, lasting solutions to homelessness.”

Katie Hill, a former Democratic member of Congress who now runs Union Station Homeless Services, said she fears the Trump administration is working on “mass institutionalization of some kind” for homeless people during the Games, similar to federal immigration detention facilities, where there have been reports of inhumane conditions.

“He doesn’t care about the rules or the norms,” Hill said of Trump. “There is a lot of federal facilities and land that they could use potentially as a detention facility.”

Unlike D.C., which is a federal district where the president holds special powers, Blasi said that in Los Angeles, the federal government cannot legally lock up people for living on the streets but could “make life so miserable for unhoused people” that there are no other options besides “a camp somewhere.”

Blasi said the Trump administration could try to invoke emergency laws to incarcerate people but doubted that courts would approve.

Since she was elected in 2022, Bass has made homelessness her signature issue. In her marquee Inside Safe program, before an encampment is cleared, residents are all offered housing and services, which are voluntary, with no fines or jail time if the person rejects the help, said Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl.

Seidl said the mayor is “laser-focused on addressing homelessness through a proven comprehensive strategy” and that “this is progress she would’ve made regardless of the Games.”

Homelessness in both the city and county has dropped in the last two years, particularly the number of people who are unsheltered, which has fallen 14% in the county and nearly 18% in the city since 2023, data show. About 47,000 people live on the streets in L.A. County.

Eric Sheehan, a member of NOlympics, which opposes holding the Olympics in L.A., said he is concerned about how the Trump administration will act during the Games. But he said the federal approach to homelessness may not differ much from what local officials are already doing.

Sheehan pointed to the city of Los Angeles’ no sleeping zones, encampment cleanups monitored by police and interim housing he characterized as jail-like.

“I don’t think there is a version of this Olympics that doesn’t hurt Angelenos,” Sheehan said.

Amy Turk, chief executive of the Downtown Women’s Center, said that using the police and military to address homelessness is “an expensive intervention that is just moving someone from one place to another place.” She is particularly concerned about the impact on people fleeing domestic violence.

To mitigate the damage the Trump administration could do, Turk said it’s important for nonprofits like hers to keep working to find people permanent housing and services.

One hurdle is funding.

State and local budget constraints have reduced funding for homeless services this year, including for a temporary housing subsidy that officials said was key in reducing homelessness in the last several years.

Hill said more funds are needed so L.A. County can tackle homelessness on its own terms, not those of the Trump administration.

“Where is the money going to come from to set up something that is more humane?” she said.

United States President Donald Trump has pledged to evict homeless people from the nation’s capital, after days of musing about taking federal control of Washington, DC, where he has falsely suggested crime is on the rise.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.

“The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast.”

The announcement comes after Trump earlier this week threatened to deploy the National Guard as part of a crackdown on what he falsely says is rising crime in Washington, DC.

Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday included pictures of tents and streets in Washington, DC with rubbish on them. “I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”

The White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from the city. The Republican president controls only federal land and buildings in Washington.

Washington, DC, is ranked 15th on a list of major US cities by homeless population, according to government statistics from last year.

According to the Community Partnership, an organisation working to reduce homelessness in Washington, DC, on any given night, there are 3,782 single people experiencing homelessness in the city of about 700,000 people. These figures are down from pre-pandemic levels.

Most of the homeless people are in emergency shelters or transitional housing. About 800 are considered unsheltered or “on the street”, the organisation says.

A White House official said on Friday that more federal law enforcement officers were being deployed in the city following a violent attack on a young Trump administration staffer, which angered the president.

Crime in DC at ‘a 30-year low’

Alleged crimes investigated by federal agents on Friday night included “multiple persons carrying a pistol without license”, motorists driving on suspended licences, and dirt bike riding, according to a White House official on Sunday. The official said 450 federal law enforcement officers were deployed across the city on Saturday.

The Democratic mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, said on Sunday that the capital was “not experiencing a crime spike”.

“We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low,” Bowser said on US media MSNBC’s news segment The Weekend.

The city’s police department reports that violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 was down by 26 percent in Washington, DC, compared with last year, while overall crime was down about 7 percent.

The city’s crime rates in 2024 were already their lowest in three decades, according to figures produced by the Department of Justice before Trump took office.

While Bowser did not directly criticise Trump in her remarks, she said that “any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false”.

Trump’s threat to send in the National Guard comes weeks after he deployed California’s military reserve force into Los Angeles to quell protests over immigration raids, despite objections from local leaders and law enforcement.

The president has frequently mused about using the military to control US cities, many of which are under Democratic governance and hostile to his policies.

Bowser said that Trump is “very aware” of the city’s work with federal law enforcement after meeting with Trump several weeks ago in the Oval Office.

The US Congress has control of Washington, DC’s budget after the district was established in 1790 with land from neighbouring Virginia and Maryland, but resident voters elect a mayor and the City Council. Trump has long publicly chafed at this arrangement, threatening to federalise the city and give the White House the final say in how it is run.

For Trump to take over the city, Congress likely would have to pass a law revoking the legislation that established local elected leadership, which Trump would have to sign.

Trump is planning to hold a news conference on Monday to “stop violent crime in Washington, DC”. It is not clear whether he will announce more details about his eviction plan then.

A high-profile law firm representing the city of Los Angeles in a sweeping homelessness case submitted an $1.8-million invoice for two weeks of work in May, according to records reviewed by The Times.

The invoice from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP comes as the city is already under serious financial pressure, caused in part by rapidly growing legal payouts.

With at least 15 of Gibson Dunn’s lawyers billing at nearly $1,300 per hour, the price tag so far equates to just under $140,000 per day over a 13-day period.

Gibson Dunn, while representing the city of Grants Pass, Ore., recently secured a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld laws barring homeless encampments in public spaces.

Los Angeles officials retained the law firm in May, roughly a week before a seven-day evidentiary hearing to determine whether control over the city’s homelessness programs should be taken away from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council and turned over to a third-party receiver.

A month later, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a scathing ruling, saying the city failed to adhere to the terms of a three-year-old settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which calls for the creation of 12,915 homeless beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027.

Still, Carter also concluded that “this is not the time” to hand control of the city’s roughly $1 billion in homelessness programs to a third party.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney representing the Alliance, said the city paid big money to Gibson Dunn in a failed attempt to wriggle out of its legal obligations.

“The city should be spending this money on complying with the agreement, and/or providing services to the people who need them,” he said. “Instead, they are paying a law firm to fight tooth and nail against obligations that are clear in the settlement agreement — and that a judge has affirmed they are in violation of.”

The invoice, which The Times obtained from the city attorney’s office, lists a billing period from May 19 to May 31, covering a week of preparations for the high-stakes federal hearing, as well as four of the seven trial days — each of which typically lasted eight or more hours.

Theane Evangelis, head of the Gibson Dunn team representing the city, referred questions about the invoice to the city attorney’s office.

Karen Richardson, a spokesperson for City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, said in a statement that Gibson Dunn “did an outstanding job of stepping into a crucial matter that had been in litigation for nearly 5 years before they were hired,” compressing “what would normally be years worth of work into a very short time period.”

“We are grateful for their service and are in the process of reviewing the expenditures … to ensure that we go back to Council with a complete picture of what was done and charged,” she said in a statement.

The city retained Gibson Dunn just as council members were signing off on hundreds of employee layoffs, part of a larger strategy for closing a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall. The first batch of layoff notices was scheduled to go out this week.

The City Council initially appropriated $900,000 for Gibson Dunn, for a period not exceeding three years, according to the firm’s contract. Going over $900,000 required prior written approval from the city attorney, according to the contract.

The law firm quickly surpassed that threshold, eventually billing double the specified amount.

During the seven-day hearing, Gibson Dunn took a highly aggressive posture, voicing numerous objections to questions from attorneys representing the Alliance, as well as two organizations that intervened in the case.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who serves on the council’s homelessness committee, said the city attorney’s office did not advise him that Gibson Dunn’s legal costs had reached $1.8 million in such a short period. Blumenfield, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, said he is “not happy” but is reserving further comment until he receives more specifics.

Three months ago, Blumenfield co-authored a motion with Councilmember Tim McOsker seeking regular updates on the Alliance litigation — both from Gibson Dunn and the city attorney’s office.

McOsker, who serves on the budget committee and spent several years running the city attorney’s office, also did not receive notification of the Gibson Dunn $1.8-million invoice from the city’s legal team, according to Sophie Gilchrist, his spokesperson.

Gilchrist said her boss had asked for regular updates to “prevent any surprises in billing” related to the Alliance case.

“That’s why the Councilmember is requesting that this matter be brought to City Council immediately, so the City Attorney can provide a full accounting and discuss all invoices related to the case,” she said.

Gibson Dunn has filed a notice of the city’s intent to appeal at least portions of Carter’s ruling, which ordered a third-party monitor to review and verify the data being produced by the city on its housing and encampment goals.

Carter signaled that he probably would order the city to pay the legal fees of the Alliance and homeless advocacy groups that have intervened in the case. So far, the Alliance has sought $1.3 million from the city to cover its legal expenses incurred since April 2024.

In a statement to The Times earlier this week, Evangelis, the Gibson Dunn lawyer, cited the judge’s “suggestion that the Alliance may recover attorneys’ fees” as one reason for the appeal.

“The City believes that its resources should be spent providing services to those in need, not redirected to the Alliance’s lawyers — particularly when the district court has rejected most of their arguments,” she said.

Federal immigration agents raided a Home Depot in Barstow last month and arrested a man who had his 3-year-old pit bull, Chuco, with him. A friend managed to grab Chuco from the scene and bring him back to the garage where he lives. The dog’s owner was deported to Mexico the next day.

The SPAY(CE) Project, which spays and neuters dogs in underserved areas, put out a call on Instagram to help Chuco and an animal rescue group agreed to take him, but then went quiet. Meanwhile, the garage owner took Chuco to an undisclosed shelter.

After repeated attempts, SPAY(CE) co-founder Esther Ruurda said her nonprofit gave up on finding the dog or a home for him, since “no one has space for an adult male Pittie these days.” So “the poor dog is left to die in the shelter.”

Chuco, a roughly 3-year-old pit bull, whose owner was deported last month. A friend took Chuco in, but his landlord reportedly dropped the dog at a shelter and would not say which one.

(SPAY(CE) Project)

It’s not an isolated incident. Since federal immigration raids, primarily targeting Latino communities, began roiling Los Angeles in early June, animal rescues and care providers across the county are hearing desperate pleas for help.

At least 15 dogs were surrendered at L.A. County animal shelters due to deportations between June 10 and July 4, according to the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control.

Pets belonging to people who are deported or flee are being left in empty apartments, dumped into the laps of unprepared friends and dropped off at overcrowded shelters, The Times found.

“Unless people do take the initiative [and get the pets out], those animals will starve to death in those backyards or those homes,” said Yvette Berke, outreach manager for Cats at the Studios, a rescue that serves L.A.

Yet with many animal refuges operating at capacity, it can be difficult to find temporary homes where pets are not at risk of euthanasia.

Fearing arrest if they go outside, some people are also forgoing healthcare for their pets, with clinics reporting a surge in no-shows and missed appointments in communities affected by the raids.

“Pets are like the collateral damage to the current political climate,” said Jennifer Naitaki, vice president of programs and strategic initiatives at the Michelson Found Animals Foundation.

Worrying data

Cats curiously watch a visitor at the AGWC Rockin’ Rescue in Woodland Hills. Manager Fabienne Origer said the center is at capacity and these pets need to be adopted to make room for others.

With shelters and rescues stuffed to the gills, an influx of pets is “another impact to an already stressed system,” Berke said.

Dogs — large ones in particular — can be hard to find homes for, some rescues said. Data show that two county shelters have seen large jumps in dogs being surrendered by their owners.

The numbers of dogs relinquished at L.A. County’s Palmdale shelter more than doubled in June compared with June of last year, according to data obtained by The Times. At the county’s Downey shelter, the count jumped by roughly 50% over the same period.

Some of this increase could be because of a loosening of requirements for giving up a pet, said Christopher Valles with L.A. County’s animal control department. In April the department eliminated a requirement that people must make an appointment to relinquish a pet.

Rocky, a 7-year-old mixed-breed dog, has been at AGWC Rockin’ Rescue for three years.

There’s no set time limit on when an animal must be adopted to avoid euthanizing, said Valles, adding that behavior or illness can make them a candidate for being put to sleep.

And there are resources for people in the deported person’s network who are willing to take on the responsibility for their pets, like 2-year-old Mocha, a female chocolate Labrador retriever who was brought in to the county’s Baldwin Park shelter in late June and is ready for adoption.

“We stand by anybody who’s in a difficult position where they can’t care for their animal because of deportation,” Valles said.

Some rescues, however, urge people not to turn to shelters because of overcrowding and high euthanasia rates.

Rates for dogs getting put down at L.A. city shelters increased 57% in April compared with the same month the previous year, according to a recent report.

L.A. Animal Services, which oversees city shelters, did not respond to requests for comment or data.

Already at the breaking point

Fabienne Origer, manager of AGWC Rockin’ Rescue, with Gracie, a 4-week-old kitten found on Ventura Boulevard and brought to the center a week ago.

Every day, Fabienne Origer is bombarded with 10 to 20 calls asking if AGWC Rockin’ Rescue in Woodland Hills, which she manages, can take in dogs and cats. She estimates that one to two of those pleas are now related to immigration issues.

The rescue, like many others, is full.

Part of the reason is that many people adopted pets during the COVID-19 crisis — when they were stuck at home — and dumped them when the world opened back up, she said.

Skyrocketing cost of living and veterinary care expenses have also prompted people to get rid of their pet family members, several rescues said. Vet prices have surged by 60% over a decade.

L.A. Animal Services reported “critical overcrowding” in May, with more than 900 dogs in its custody.

“It’s already bad, but now on top of that, a lot of requests are because people have disappeared, because people have been deported, and if we can take a cat or two dogs,” Origer said. “It’s just ongoing, every single day.”

Wounds you can’t see

Assistant manager Antonia Schumann pets a couple of dogs at AGWC Rockin’ Rescue.

Animals suffer from the emotional strain of separation and unceremonious change when their owners vanish, experts said.

When a mother and three young daughters from Nicaragua who were pursuing asylum in the U.S. were unexpectedly deported in May following a routine hearing, they left behind their beloved senior dog.

She was taken in by the mother’s stepmom. Not long after, the small dog had to be ushered into surgery to treat a life-threatening mass.

The small dog is on the mend physically, but “is clearly depressed, barely functioning and missing her family,” the stepmother wrote in a statement provided to the Community Animal Medicine Project (CAMP), which paid for the surgery. She’s used to spending all day with the girls and sleeping with them at night, the stepmom said.

From Nicaragua, the girls have been asking to get their dog back. For now, they’re using FaceTime.

Shirley and Bruno lounge in their space at AGWC Rockin’ Rescue. They have been there for five years.

Prior to the ICE raids, 80 to 100 people often lined up for services at clinics run by the Latino Alliance for Animal Care Foundation.

Now such a line could draw attention, so the Alliance staggers appointments, according to Jose Sandoval, executive director of the Panorama City-based organization that provides education and services to Latino families.

“It’s hitting our ‘hood,” Sandoval said, “and we couldn’t just sit there and not do anything.”

Within two hours of offering free services — including vaccines and flea medication refills — to people affected by ICE raids, they received about 15 calls.

CAMP, whose staff is almost entirely people of color and Spanish speaking, is mulling reviving telehealth options and partnering to deliver baskets of urgently needed pet goods. It’s drilling staffers on what to do if immigration officers show up at the workplace.

“Humans aren’t leaving their house for themselves, so if their dog has an earache they may hesitate to go out to their vet, but animals will suffer,” said Alanna Klein, strategy and engagement officer for CAMP. “We totally understand why they’re not doing it, but [pets] are alongside humans in being impacted by this.”

CAMP has seen a 20%-30% increase in missed appointments since the first week of June, for everything from spay and neuter to wellness exams to surgical procedures. After a video of an ICE raid at a car dealership near CAMP’s clinic in Mission Hills circulated in mid-June, they had 20 no-shows — highly unusual.

“We’re forced to operate under the extreme pressure and in the midst of this collective trauma,” said Zoey Knittel, executive director of CAMP, “but we’ll continue doing it because we believe healthcare should be accessible to all dogs and cats, regardless of their family, socioeconomic or immigration status.”

Musician Dennis Henriquez woke up in a doorway in East Hollywood last month, hidden behind cardboard and sheltered by a tarp.

When he peered outside, half a dozen sanitation workers were standing nearby, waiting to carry out one of the more than 30 homeless encampment cleanups planned that day by the city of Los Angeles.

Henriquez eventually emerged, carried out a bicycle and deposited it on a grassy area 20 feet away. He also dragged over a backpack, a scooter, two guitars, a piece of luggage and a beach chair.

The city sanitation crew grabbed the tarp and the cardboard, tossing them into a trash truck. Then, the contingent of city workers, including two police officers, climbed into their vehicles and drove away, leaving behind Henriquez and his pile of belongings.

This type of operation, known as a CARE-plus cleanup, plays out hundreds of times each week in the city, with sanitation crews seizing and destroying tents, tarps, pallets, shopping carts and many other objects.

The cleanups have emerged as a huge source of conflict in a five-year-old legal dispute over the city’s handling of the homelessness crisis. Depending on how the cleanup issue is resolved, the city could face legal sanctions, millions of dollars in penalties or increased outside oversight of its homeless programs.

A construction loader plows through the remains of a homeless encampment on Wilshire Boulevard, just west of downtown.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Sanitation crews grab a mattress during the cleanup. (Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

A notice about the cleanup is displayed on a utility pole on Wilshire Boulevard. (Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

In 2022, city leaders reached a legal settlement with the nonprofit L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, promising to create 12,915 homeless beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027. Eventually, they also agreed to remove 9,800 homeless encampments by June 2026 — with an encampment defined as an individual tent, makeshift structure, car or recreational vehicle.

To reach the latter goal, city leaders have been counting each encampment removed from streets, sidewalks and alleys during the Bureau of Sanitation’s CARE-plus cleanups — even in cases where the resident did not obtain housing or a shelter bed.

The alliance has strongly objected to the city’s methodology, arguing that destroying a tent, without housing its occupants, runs afoul of the 2022 settlement agreement. Any “encampment resolution” tallied by the city must be more permanent — and address the larger goal of reducing homelessness, said Elizabeth Mitchell, an attorney for the alliance.

“If the person insists on staying where they are and nothing else has happened, that’s not a resolution,” she said. “They can’t count that.”

City leaders have carried out CARE-plus cleanups for years, saying they are needed to protect public safety and restore sidewalk access for wheelchair users, the elderly and others. Some encampments are strewn with debris that spills across an entire walkway or out into the street, while others carry the smell of urine, fecal matter or decaying food waste.

The cleanups have a Sisyphean quality. Many seasoned residents drag their tents across the street, wait out the cleanup, then return to their original spots in the afternoon. The process frequently restarts a week or two later.

The alliance’s legal team, alarmed by the inclusion of CARE-plus cleanups in the encampment reduction count, recently spent several days trying to persuade a federal judge to seize control of the city’s homelessness initiatives from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council and turn them over to a third-party receiver.

U.S. Dist. Judge David O. Carter, who presides over the case, declined to take that step, saying it went too far. But he has made clear that he, too, objects to the city’s approach to eliminating the 9,800 encampments.

In March, Carter issued a court order saying the city may not count CARE-plus cleanups toward its goal because, as the alliance had argued, they are “not permanent in nature.”

Last month, in a 62-page ruling, he found the city had “willfully disobeyed” that order — and had improperly reported its encampment reductions. Clarifying his position somewhat, the judge also said that the city cannot count an encampment reduction unless it is “accompanied by an offer of shelter or housing.”

“Individuals need not accept the offer, but an offer of available shelter or housing must be made,” he wrote.

Attorney Shayla Myers, who represents homeless advocacy groups that have intervened in the case, has opposed the 9,800 goal from the beginning, saying it creates a quota system that increases the likelihood that city workers will violate the property rights of unhoused residents.

“Throwing away tents doesn’t help the homelessness crisis,” she said. “Building housing does.”

Shayna, a person experiencing homelessness, moves things out of a tent during the June 24 encampment cleanup.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who helped negotiate the settlement, told the court last month that his office does not count the tents that homeless people move temporarily — around the corner or across the street — during city cleanups. However, the city does include those that are permanently removed because they block the sidewalk or pose a public health or safety threat, he said.

Szabo, during his testimony, said that when he negotiated the promise to remove 9,800 encampments, he did not expect that every tent removal would lead to someone moving inside.

The city is already working to fulfill the alliance agreement’s requirement of creating 12,915 homeless beds or other housing opportunities. On top of that, Szabo said, encampment residents have “free will” to refuse an offer of housing.

“I wouldn’t ever agree that the city would be obligated to somehow force people to accept [housing] if they did not want to accept it,” he said. “We never would have agreed to that. We didn’t agree to that.”

For an outside observer, it might be difficult to discern what the different types of city encampment operations are designed to accomplish.

Mary, a person experiencing homelessness, speaks with a police officer during the June 24 cleanup.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Bass’ Inside Safe initiative moves homeless people into hotel and motel rooms, and at least in some cases, permanent housing. By contrast, CARE cleanups — shorthand for Cleanup and Rapid Engagement — are largely focused on trash removal, with crews hauling away debris from curbs and surrounding areas.

CARE-plus cleanups are more comprehensive. Every tent must be moved so workers can haul away debris and, in some instances, powerwash sidewalks.

Sanitation crews are supposed to give residents advance warning of a scheduled CARE-plus cleanup, posting notices on utility poles. If residents don’t relocate their tents and other belongings, they run the risk of having them taken away.

In some cases, cleanup crews take the possessions to a downtown storage facility. In many others, they are tossed.

A construction loader transports the remnants of the Westlake encampment to a city garbage truck.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

One of the largest CARE-plus cleanups in recent weeks took place in the Westlake district, where nearly three dozen tents and structures lined a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard. A construction loader drove back and forth on the sidewalk, scooping up tents and depositing them in a trash truck.

Ryan Cranford, 42, said he didn’t know the cleanup was scheduled until minutes beforehand. He wound up losing his tent, a bed and a canopy, but managed to keep his backpack, saying it contained “all that matters.”

Sitting on a nearby retaining wall, Cranford said he would have accepted a motel room had someone offered one.

“Hell, I’d even take a bus to get all the way back to Oklahoma if I could,” he said.

On the opposite side of the street, Tyson Lewis Angeles wheeled his belongings down the street in a shopping cart before sanitation workers descended on his spot. He said an outreach worker had given him a referral for a shelter bed the day before.

Tyson Lewis Angeles, a person experiencing homelessness, holds his dog, Nami, before city sanitation workers descended on his spot on Wilshire Boulevard.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Angeles, 30, said he was not interested, in part because he deals with panic attacks, PTSD and other mental health issues. He also does not want a roommate, or the rules imposed by homeless shelters.

“Basically, it’s like volunteer jail,” he said.

While Angeles managed to safeguard his possessions, others are frequently less successful.

Nicholas Johnson, who is living in a box truck in Silver Lake, said city crews took the vast majority of his belongings during a CARE-plus cleanup in mid-June. Some were destroyed, while others were transported by sanitation workers to a downtown storage facility, he said.

Johnson, 56, said he does not know whether some of his most prized possessions, including letters written by his grandmother, went into that facility or were tossed. City crews also took books, tools, his Buddhist prayer bowls and a huge amount of clothes.

“All of my clothing — all of my clothing — the wearables and the sellables, all mixed in. Hats, scarves, socks, ties, a lot of accessories that I wear — you know, double breasted suits from the ’30s, the suit pants,” he said.

Nicholas Johnson, who lives with his dog, Popcorn, in a truck parked in Silver Lake, said the city took many of his prized possessions during a recent encampment cleanup.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Johnson said the city’s cleanup process is a “harassment ceremony” that only makes life more stressful for people on the street.

“They hit you in the kneecaps when they know you’re already down,” he said.

Earlier this year, city officials informed the court that they had removed about 6,100 tents, makeshift shelters and vehicles — nearly two-thirds of what the agreement with the alliance requires. Whether the city will challenge any portion of the judge’s ruling is still unclear.

In a statement, a lawyer for the city contends that the ruling “misconstrues the city’s obligations.”

“We are keeping open our options for next steps,” said the lawyer, Theane Evangelis.

At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass made a startling claim.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had appeared at a homeless shelter that day, among other sensitive locations in Los Angeles, she said.

But what actually happened at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village in North Hollywood remains murky. The shifting narratives reflect the anxiety of Angelenos amid ICE raids targeting immigrants at Home Depots, churches and retail centers.

In L.A., a “sanctuary city” where local officials do not participate in federal immigration enforcement, tensions with the federal government are at an all-time high. After some protests against the raids turned violent, the Trump administration called in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines.

With federal officials keeping the city in the dark on immigration enforcement actions, City Council members and the mayor sometimes rely on the rumor mill.

ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, quickly responded to Bass’ comments, saying they were “false.”

“[ICE] is not in homeless shelters,” the agency wrote on X. “This rhetoric from [the mayor] and California politicians demonizes the brave men and women of law enforcement.”

The Whitsett West Tiny Home Village, which is on city property and is run by the nonprofit Hope the Mission, has beds for about 150 people in shed-like structures off the 170 Freeway near Whitsett Avenue and Saticoy Street.

According to Laura Harwood, Hope the Mission’s deputy chief program officer, people in a car tried to get access to the tiny home village on Thursday afternoon, telling security guards that they were American citizens who wanted to see how their taxpayer dollars were being used. The guards did not admit the visitors, who were wearing civilian clothes.

“This is a really unusual situation. This really doesn’t happen,” Harwood said.

Other employees saw some men looking into the complex from different sides and taking pictures.

A worker at the tiny home village, who requested anonymity because he has family members who are undocumented, told The Times that he was returning from lunch when he spotted two DHS SUVs with tinted windows down the block.

Tiny home staffers were concerned enough that they reached out to City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who came to the complex.

“We got reports that some ICE agents were around in the area viewing the location from both the front and the backside entryways,” Nazarian said on Instagram.

Nazarian said that immigration agents appearing at the tiny home village would be a “fear mongering” tactic.

The targeting of interim homeless housing could dissuade people from moving off the street, or push those in shelters to leave out of fear, said Rowan Vansleve, Hope the Mission’s president.

“Last Thursday, ICE entered our city, and provoked the city, by chasing people through Home Depots and car washes and showing up at schools. And today, showing up at emergency rooms and homeless shelters,” Bass said at the Thursday press conference.

Bass’ team confirmed to The Times that she was referring to the incident at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that community organizations and local elected officials have been sorting through reports of DHS sightings to see if they are credible.

“We have seen situations where people say federal agents are here, and then when someone goes, it turns out they were never there or were gone an hour ago,” Hernandez said.

IF awards were given out for most toxic break-up in Hollywood, Alice Evans and Ioan Gruffudd would sweep the board.

Four years after the couple’s marriage ended, their bitter feud continues to overshadow anything either party has ever delivered on the big screen.

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And the end credits are still some way off from rolling, especially when Alice is the leading lady. 

In recent weeks, the actress’s behaviour has become increasingly erratic, from declaring herself homeless to begging her Instagram followers for a place to stay.

Her antics have left fans understandably concerned for her well-being, but there are also suspicions that her brutal honesty is also part of a ‘game plan’ – one she secretly hopes may spark a career renaissance.

An insider told The Sun: “Alice is aware her car crash relationship is the only thing keeping her relevant right now.

“The acting jobs have dried up, and even she admits she’s currently unhireable.

“So documenting both her innermost feelings and stark truths of her desperate situation on social media maintains a profile, and therefore could lead to other opportunities away from acting but still within the industry, like her own reality show.”

The insider added: “Alice knows what she’s doing and will continue airing her dirty laundry in public. She has nothing to lose.”

While Alice, 56, continues to offload on social media, her Fantastic Four actor ex Ioan, 51, is quietly getting on with his life. 

He’s recently remarried to Australian actress Bianca Wallace, who’s felt the wrath of Alice’s sharp tongue, which led to Ioan filing a request for a restraining order against her.

And his most recent movie, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, banked an impressive $403million worldwide.

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He’s still battling Alice for spousal support and custody and financial support for their two daughters, Ella, 15, and Elsie, 11, but is doing all of his talking via lawyers – unlike his ex, whom he met on the set of the 2000 movie 102 Dalmatians.

Indeed, Alice is updating fans with every cough and spit of the fallout from the pair’s divorce, which she claims has left her financially ruined.

In February, Alice told her 95,000 Instagram followers she, her two daughters, plus their dog Emma were on the verge of being evicted from their home in Los Angeles.

She said it was due to being unable to pay her rent, all while Ioan, who says his ex-wife’s poverty claims are “exaggerated”, was living in comfort in a $5,500 (£4,000) a month apartment with a home gym.

Alice knows what she’s doing and will continue airing her dirty laundry in public. She has nothing to lose

Insider

She claimed there was “no way of renting even the cheapest room anywhere in the city” due to January’s wildfires, which has decimated the rental market. 

Alice wrote: “Four years of hell. And now the girls and I are going to be homeless. Somebody please help. I think I have reached rock bottom.

“In 16 days, we have nowhere to go. Does anybody have a spare room? I’m so sorry for this. So embarrassed.”

In the comments section of the post, Alice replied to many fans’ offers of help, once again opting for stark honesty surrounding her situation.

She revealed that “both sets of grandparents estranged themselves from my girls” when quizzed why her family aren’t supporting her.

Four years of hell. And now the girls and I are going to be homeless. Somebody please help. I think I have reached rock bottom

Alice Evans

She explained: “It breaks my heart. It would be perfectly possible to take sides against me whilst retaining a relationship with my kids.

“They both have their own phones that I have vowed to never touch. Nothing is stopping them from communicating.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake. And punishing children for something they believe their mother has done. Not fair at all.”

She also responded to fans’ offers of rooms to inhabit in countries including Ireland and Mexico, saying she can’t leave LA “without authorisation”, but would have “loved” to take up their kind gestures.

Desperation

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Such was her desperation, she repurposed her GoFundMe page – originally set up in 2022 to help pay for her divorce  – to seek funds for a new home, and she’s now just over $6,500 (£5,000) from reaching her target of $25,000 (£18,000).

Thanking donors this week, some of whom shelled out $2,500 anonymously, she wrote: “Just wanted to tell everybody that me and the girls and Emma are safe with a roof over our heads!

“It’s been a whirlwind, but we made it through the last three days and managed to save all our belongings too! 

“We could never, ever have done this without the incredible love and kindness from all of you. Honestly, I was at my wits’ end and you saved me. 

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will keep you posted. Love you so much.’

Confessing she felt shame in turning to the public for help, she previously wrote: “I’m so embarrassed about this. If you’re here, you know my story. 

Alice is aware her car crash relationship is the only thing keeping her relevant right now

Insider

“You know how much I struggle to keep my two girls healthy and happy and a roof over their heads. 

“You know what I’ve been through. It never ends. I’m just getting squeezed in every which way and smeared in the media so that nobody even wants to employ me.”

Ioan agreed to pay Alice $3,000 (£2,200) per month in child support and $1,500 (£1,100) a month in spousal support in September last year. 

However, Alice has claimed the $4,500 (£3,300) fee was not sufficient to live in LA, and that money raised from the sale of their old marital home has slowly dwindled away, citing legal fees.

In March, the Vampire Diaries star slammed Ioan in a court filing for saying he “does not really believe” she was facing eviction and that she secretly had the money to pay for it, saying it was an effort “to make him look bad.”

Dark turn

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Last month, the rift took another dark twist when Ioan claimed he saw Alice try to give their children cocaine after leaving the door of their family home unlocked so a drug dealer could enter.

The bombshell revelation came in the Welshman’s latest court bid to extend the aforementioned restraining order against him and his new wife, Bianca.

Alice and Ioan married seven years after co-starring in the Disney sequel, tying the knot in Mexico in 2007 during an intimate service attended by close friends and family who had “travelled from all over the world for it”.

They welcomed their first daughter Ella in 2009 before Elsie arrived four years later.

But in January 2021, the pair announced their separation, and it was New Jersey-born Alice, who was brought up in the UK, who revealed the news in a typically blunt style, kick-starting their public feud.

She wrote: “Sad news. My beloved husband/soulmate of 20 years, Ioan Gruffudd, has announced he is to leave his family, starting next week. 

“Me and our young daughters are very confused and sad. We haven’t been given a reason except that he ‘no longer loves me’. I’m so sorry.”

But the rift turned really ugly when Ioan went public with new love and A Ray of Sunshine co-star Bianca, 32, nine months later, sharing a snap of the pair on Instagram alongside the caption: “Thank you for making me smile again.”

Previously, Ioan requested a restraining order against Alice in February 2022 after accusing her of harassment, making up “false stories about him”, and sending his mother “threatening emails.”

The actor’s daughter, Ella, then filed a domestic violence restraining order against him in June 2023 following an incident at his Los Angeles home, which was later rejected.

Two months later, Ioan accused Alice of keeping their children from him and had not seen them in three months, which his ex-wife denied.

She said he was to blame, claiming the actor had not bothered making contact with their daughters for 11 weeks.

Over the last two years, Alice’s complaints have centred around her financial struggles in the wake of their split.

She has said she’s relying on “food stamps”, while Ioan continues his “lavish lifestyle”, buying Rolex watches for his new partner, and is now reportedly considering working at Starbucks.

There have been worse angles for a reality show.

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass won’t be called as a witness in a multiday federal court hearing that could determine whether the city’s homelessness programs are placed in receivership.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, told U.S. District Judge David O. Carter on Tuesday that he and his legal team were withdrawing subpoenas issued in recent weeks to Bass and City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park. Battling over the appearances, which were opposed by the city, would have delayed the proceedings for several months, he said.

The alliance, which sued the city in 2020 over its response to the homelessness crisis, originally sought testimony from the three politicians as part of an evidentiary hearing focused on whether the city failed to comply with the terms of a settlement agreement on homelessness programs.

The agreement, reached in 2022 between the city and the alliance, requires the city to provide 12,915 beds for its unhoused population by June 2027. The alliance contends that the city already is failing to meet the milestones of the agreement and has no clear path to that goal. City officials say they fully intend to comply by the deadline.

The possibility that Bass could testify in Carter’s courtroom provided a rare source of drama for the past week of hearings, which have focused on such granular issues as the definition of a homeless encampment.

Umhofer, in an interview, said he dropped Bass and the others because the city’s lawyers had threatened to pursue an appeal to block the three politicians from testifying, which would have triggered a delay of at least two to three months.

“I think it’s cowardly for the mayor to not testify,” he said. “She’s come in to court on multiple occasions and and shared talking points, but has never undergone cross-examination. For her to resist a subpoena is the definition of avoiding accountability and transparency.”

Umhofer argued that the testimony provided over the last week is already enough to show that the city’s homelessness programs should be overseen by a third-party receivership appointed by the court.

A Bass spokesperson did not immediately respond to Umhofer’s remarks. Theane Evangelis, an attorney for the city, said Umhofer’s description of Bass as cowardly — made in front of the judge during Tuesday’s hearing — was “uncalled for.”

“The Alliance lawyers apparently recognized that there was no legal basis for their subpoenas,” Evangelis said later in a statement. “They should never have issued them in the first place. The City is complying with the agreement settling a 2020 lawsuit, and it is indisputable that thousands of new housing units have been built and homelessness is down in LA for the first time in years.”

Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness in 2022, on her first day in office, securing additional power to award contracts and sign off on lease agreements for interim housing and other facilities. That same year, she launched Inside Safe, which has been moving thousands of unhoused Angelenos into hotels, motels and other interim housing. She also created a program to accelerate the approval of certain types of affordable housing.

The alliance has portrayed the city’s homelessness response programs as irrevocably broken, arguing that the only recourse is for the judge to turn them over to a third-party receiver. During six days of testimony, lawyers for the alliance repeatedly highlighted the findings of a consulting firm that the programs lack adequate data systems and financial controls, leaving them vulnerable to fraud.

Lawyers for the alliance also pointed out that the city has repeatedly missed the quarterly milestones established in its settlement agreement.

Over the last week, lawyers for the city argued that their client has made “best efforts” to comply with the settlement agreement. They also contended that the milestones are not mandatory. And they said the alliance is the party that’s “flat-out ignoring” the terms of the agreement.

Evangelis said the agreement allows for the city’s obligations to be paused, and the terms to be renegotiated, if an emergency takes place. The Palisades fire broke out in January, destroying thousands of homes.

“Instead of recognizing the enormous stress that our city is under and honoring its promise to meet and confer … the alliance ran to court the month after those fires and sought sanctions against the city’s supposed breaches,” Evangelis told the court last week.

The alliance placed Bass on its witness list last month, saying she has “unique knowledge” of the facts — and had put herself at the center of the debate by promising to lead on homelessness.

Lawyers for the city argued that putting Bass and the two council members on the stand would place “an undue burden” on them as elected officials. They instead presented as witnesses City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo, who is the city’s top budget official, and Deputy Mayor Etsemaye Agonafer, calling them the most knowledgeable about the settlement agreement.

Last week, Carter delayed ruling on whether Bass and the council members should testify, saying he first wanted to hear from Szabo and Agonafer, who handles homelessness issues for Bass.

Agonafer testified for about four hours Thursday. Szabo, who has overseen the city’s compliance with the settlement agreement, was questioned off and on during four hearing days. In multiple exchanges, he said he was confident the city would comply with the terms of the settlement by June 2027.

The two council members sought as witnesses by the alliance have been highly critical of the city’s homelessness programs.

Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, frequently uses the phrase “merry-go-round from hell” to describe the city’s struggle to get accurate data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency.

Park, who represents part of the Westside, said during the council’s budget deliberations last month that the city had wasted billions of dollars on homeless programs. Before casting her vote, she also said the city is “unable to manage” its own homeless affairs.

It was the first and possibly the most dramatic act by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after she took office: declaring a city emergency on homelessness.

That move, backed by the City Council, gave Bass the power to award no-bid contracts to nonprofit groups and to rent hotels and motels for interim homeless housing. It also allowed Bass to waive regulations limiting the size and scale of certain types of affordable housing.

Now, two and a half years into Bass’ tenure, some on the council are looking to reassert their authority, by rescinding the homelessness emergency declaration.

Councilmember Tim McOsker said he wants to return city government to its normal processes and procedures, as spelled out in the City Charter. Leases, contracts and other decisions related to homelessness would again be taken up at public meetings, with council members receiving testimony, taking written input and ultimately voting.

“Let’s come back to why these processes exist,” McOsker said in an interview. “They exist so the public can be made aware of what we’re doing with public dollars.”

McOsker said that, even if the declaration is rescinded, the city will need to address “the remainder of this crisis.” For example, he said, the homeless services that the city currently provides could become permanent. The city could also push county agencies — which provide public health, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment — to do more, McOsker said.

Bass, for her part, pushed back on McOsker’s efforts this week, saying through an aide that the emergency declaration “has resulted in homelessness decreasing for the first time in years, bucking statewide and nationwide trends.”

“The Mayor encourages Council to resist the urge of returning to failed policies that saw homelessness explode in Los Angeles,” said Bass spokesperson Clara Karger.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, reported last summer that homelessness declined by 2.2% in the city of L.A., the first decrease in several years. The number of unsheltered homeless people — those who live in interim housing, such as hotels and motels, but do not have a permanent residence — dropped by more than 10% to 29,275, down from 32,680.

The push from McOsker and at least some of his colleagues comes at a pivotal time.

Last month, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million from LAHSA, the city-county agency that provides an array of services to the unhoused population.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which has been battling the city in court over its response to the crisis, is pushing for a federal judge to place the city’s homelessness initiatives into a receivership.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the alliance, said the city has “very little to show” for its emergency declaration in terms of progress on the streets.

“It’s our view that a state of emergency around homelessness is appropriate, but that the city is not engaged in conduct that reflects the seriousness of the crisis — and is not doing what it needs to do in order to solve the crisis,” he said.

Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program to bring homeless people indoors, has moved 4,316 people into interim housing since it began in 2022, according to a LAHSA dashboard covering the period ending April 30. Of that total, nearly 1,040 went into permanent housing, while nearly 1,600 returned to homelessness.

Council members voted this week to extend the mayor’s homelessness emergency declaration for another 90 days, with McOsker casting the lone dissenting vote. However, they have also begun taking preliminary steps toward ending the declaration.

Last week, while approving the city budget, the council created a new bureau within the Los Angeles Housing Department to monitor spending on homeless services. On Tuesday, the council asked city policy analysts to provide strategies to ensure that nonprofit homeless service providers are paid on a timely basis, “even if there is no longer a declared emergency.”

The following day, McOsker and Councilmember Nithya Raman — who heads the council’s housing and homeless committee — co-authored a proposal asking city policy analysts to report back in 60 days with a plan addressing the “operational, legal and fiscal impacts” of terminating the emergency declaration.

That proposal, also signed by Councilmembers John Lee and Ysabel Jurado, now heads to Raman’s committee for deliberations.

While some on the council have already voiced support for repealing the emergency declaration, others say they are open to the idea — but only if there is a seamless transition.

“I want to make sure that if we do wind it down, that we do it responsibly,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents the southwest San Fernando Valley.

Blumenfield wants to protect Executive Directive 1, which was issued by Bass shortly after she declared the local emergency, by enshrining its provisions into city law. The directive lifts height limits and other planning restrictions for 100% affordable housing developments, which charge rents below market rates.

Raman said the city must confront a number of issues stemming from the homelessness crisis, such as improving data collection. But she, too, voiced interest in exploring the end of the emergency declaration.

“This is also an extremely important conversation, and it is one I am eager to have,” she said.