| Contract to help expand services OK’d | Local News | avpress.com |
| LANCASTER — Los Angeles County supervisors authorized a $14.3 million contract to expand mental health services at the county’s High Desert Regional Health Center. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| L.A. County Ranks No. 1 in Median Home Sale Prices This Year |
| Los Angeles County ranks second among all counties in the United States in the number of homeless people. But when it comes to the high cost of housing, it ranks No. 1 in a list of the “Top Most Expensive Zip Codes in 2019,” compiled by PropertyShark, the real estate data service. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| Proposed $850 Million PUSD Bond Raises Eyebrows, Prompts Questions |
| The Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Education is set to decide Thursday whether to seek voter approval to sell $850 million in bonds to upgrade its facilities and to levy an increase to property taxes to pay the financing. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| Bobby Cagle: A Letter in Response to Chronicle Coverage |
| DCFS Director Bobby Cagle submitted the following Letter to the Editor in response to the article.
Dear Editor,
The death of a child is the thing that social workers fear above all else. Simply put, it is the absolute antithesis of the safe child and healthy family we work so diligently to assure. DCFS consistently and thoughtfully evaluates our practice and policies to ensure that we are providing the best service possible to families in crisis where there is suspected abuse or neglect because we understand what is at stake. The responsibility to safeguard L.A. County’s more than 2 million children is not one we take lightly. [Article] |
| by , Chronicle of Social Change. 2019-11-20 |
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| Homeless Advocates Worry Official's Firing Means Change In Trump Strategy | NPR |
| Tensions are growing between homeless advocates and the Trump administration, which is in the process of crafting a new strategy to deal with rising homelessness in California and other states. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| In race to house homeless, LA makes space for transgender women - Curbed LA |
| Next month, more than a dozen women are set to move into a blush pink Craftsman home in the Koreatown area. They’ll be the first residents in the county’s first publicly funded “bridge” shelter for homeless transgender women. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| L.A. County moves forward with rent regulations in unincorporated areas – Press Telegram |
| The Board of Supervisors tentatively voted Tuesday, Nov. 19 in favor of two permanent rent stabilization ordinances expected to take effect April 1 in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.
The vote on the ordinances, which cover both rental properties and land leases in mobile home parks, was 4-1, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger dissenting.
Under the rental ordinance, rent increases for non-luxury units will be limited to the annual change in the Consumer Price Index, with a maximum of 8%. Properties exempt from the caps on rent include units built after 1995, condominiums, single-family homes and public housing. The rental ordinance also prohibits evictions without just cause. [Article] |
| by , Long Beach Press Telegram. 2019-11-20 |
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| Rainy forecast raises concern for homeless in LA County; some take warnings lightly – Daily News |
| Barron Perry, who lives next to Encino Creek at the Sepulveda Basin, said he was ready for the rain that was expected to start falling late Tuesday night, Nov 19. It’s easier to manage, he said, than any of the wildfires that have ravaged the hillsides around the Los Angeles region.
After the rains, “you can always get dry,” he said.
True, there had been a bit of “excitement” at the Sepulveda Basin earlier this year, when the waters rose up all around his tent and he ran to move to higher ground. He also lost a few of his belongings.
But he pointed toward a spot below his current tent, and said that was where the water reached last time. This time, things might turn out a little better. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2019-11-20 |
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| Officials will update on bridge-housing project for homeless in Canoga Park – Daily News |
| County officials will host a meeting focusing on a bridge-housing project in Canoga Park designed to help homeless residents to transition into more permanent housing.
The project is a collaboration between the county and city, aiming to transform a one-story building with 16,000 square feet of office space into a center for homeless people.
Introduced by Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s office, the project aims to convert a former mental-health facility at 7621 Canoga Ave. into short-term housing with services that will focus on people who are homeless in Canoga Park.
The Los Angeles City Council approved funding in March for the project, which will house up to 100 beds, bathrooms, laundry facilities, a recreation room, dining area, conference room and offices. Residents will have access to job training, mental health care and other services. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2019-11-20 |
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| Op-ed: Students should scrutinize actions or lack thereof of district attorney candidate | Daily Bruin |
| Los Angeles County government may feel a world away to students in the bubble of UCLA.
But its politics hit closer to home than they think. And students are more important than they know in the upcoming county elections – especially when it comes to the election for district attorney. [Article] |
| by , . 2019-11-20 |
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| Editorial: L.A. homeless camps make bad neighbors. So house them - Los Angeles Times |
| Living near homeless encampments can mean navigating sidewalks taken over by tents and strewn with trash or even human waste. It can mean enduring noise — the chatter, the arguments, the screaming — of people living on the streets outside your windows. It sometimes means there’s drug use nearby, even the threat of violence. That was the grim portrait of life for a neighborhood in Hollywood that Times columnist Steve Lopez painted in his recent columns in this paper. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2019-11-20 |
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| Column: As L.A.'s homeless crisis worsens, no one is in charge. That has to change - Los Angeles Times |
| I could give you a hundred reasons homelessness has become L.A. County’s most vexing challenge, from the gargantuan income gap to housing costs to the scourge of drugs and mental illness, but the biggest impediment to solving it may be this:
Nobody is in charge.
I didn’t need to research and write a three-part series on homelessness in Hollywood to know that, but my experience over the last few weeks sealed the deal, raising lots of questions about strategy and leadership. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2019-11-20 |
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| 'It's like torture': Families report deputy harassment to sheriff watchdog - Los Angeles Times |
| One by one, grieving relatives stood before the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission on Tuesday and described the harassment they said they’ve faced since their loved ones were killed by Los Angeles County deputies.
Sometimes, speakers said, deputies slowly drive by their homes during family gatherings. They showed up at one man’s funeral and, in another incident, pulled over his relative’s car, commissioners heard. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2019-11-20 |
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| U.S. housing permits hit 12-year high – Orange County Register |
| U.S. new-home construction rose in October with the highest level of permits since 2007 as single-family starts registered the strongest pace since the beginning of the year.
Residential starts advanced 3.8% to a 1.31 million annualized rate, in line with the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, after a revised 1.27 million pace in the prior month, according to Commerce Department figures released Tuesday. Permits, a proxy for future construction, rose 5% to a 1.46 million pace, the most since May 2007. [Article] |
| by , Orange County Register. 2019-11-20 |
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| Why the sluggish response to the homeless problem? – Orange County Register |
| Homelessness is an emergency in California, but what state and local officials are doing about it amounts to malfeasance bordering on municipal manslaughter.
An emergency is an urgent situation requiring immediate action. If people were sleeping on the sidewalks after a natural disaster, the governor would probably call out the National Guard. [Article] |
| by , Orange County Register. 2019-11-20 |
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| Newsom looks to accelerate time line for closing Aliso Canyon natural gas facility - The San Diego Union-Tribune |
| A little more than four years after a massive leak discovered at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility led to thousands being forced from their homes in the Porter Ranch community in Los Angeles County, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on California’s utilities regulator to look into accelerating the pace to possibly shut down the facility.
“I request that the (California Public Utilities Commission) immediately engage an independent third-party expert to identify viable alternatives to the facility and scenarios that can inform a shorter path to closure,” Newsom wrote in a letter sent Monday to the commission’s new president, Marybel Batjer, whom Newsom appointed four months ago. [Article] |
| by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2019-11-20 |
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| Encinitas weighs ban on natural gas hookups for new construction - The San Diego Union-Tribune |
| First came the plastic bag and polystyrene container bans. Now Encinitas may be exploring whether to limit natural gas use.
City Environmental Commissioner James Wang, who was instrumental in the city’s polystyrene and plastic bag ban campaigns, is asking his fellow commissioners to seek City Council approval for an ordinance prohibiting the installation of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings. [Article] |
| by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2019-11-20 |
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| No love for look of proposed El Corazon hotel - The San Diego Union-Tribune |
| Saying the design looks like a hospital, the Oceanside Planning Commission this week rejected the initial plan for a four-story, 137-room hotel to be built at the entrance to the city’s El Corazon park property.
Commissioner Louise Balma said the proposed Hilton Home2 Suites is a “corporate cookie-cutter design,” and the developer could do better, perhaps by adding elements such as balconies and an arched entrance.
“This doesn’t really hit it home for me,” Balma said. [Article] |
| by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2019-11-20 |
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| Dozens of residents question how Sheriff's Dept. works with ICE at TRUTH Act Forum - The San Diego Union-Tribune |
| San Diego County Sheriff’s Department officials Tuesday said the agency had dramatically reduced the number of inmates turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last year, from 1,143 inmates transferred in 2017 to 266 people transferred in 2018.
The department’s report on its interactions with ICE came during a yearly community forum on the TRUTH Act, held during the county Board of Supervisors meeting.
Some in the audience were skeptical of the department’s numbers and said tthe agency is still too helpful, in providing information to ICE. [Article] |
| by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2019-11-20 |
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| Newland Sierra ballot measure wording altered by supervisors - The San Diego Union-Tribune |
| The wording of a countywide ballot measure concerning the Newland Sierra housing project in North County was substantially changed Tuesday by a 3-2 vote of the Board of Supervisors.
The new wording mirrors almost exactly the language proposed by Newland Communities, which this past summer threatened to sue the county over the way the ballot question read.
Voting to change the language were supervisors Kristin Gaspar, Jim Desmond and Greg Cox. Chairwoman Dianne Jacob and Supervisor Nathan Fletcher voted no, and expressed dismay with the decision. [Article] |
| by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2019-11-20 |
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