Long chronological scroll of articles:

Smogland Radio: There’s no place like home

This week, we’re spending the entire show with the residents of one encampment on the edge of Culver City. When they learned they were facing a sweep designed to displace them, the residents of the encampment decided to fight to stay there. They’d formed a community on Jasmine Avenue. And they felt safe on that…

Smogland Radio: What happened in Bell Gardens

This week, we got a tip about something going down at the Bell Gardens city council. Managing editor Adrian Baumann and LA county reporter Ashley Orona went to investigate. Plus, a dispatch from the Aetna Street community in the San Fernando Valley, where unhoused residents say it feels like the city has put a target…

Opinion: An open letter to Mayor Bass concerning Aetna Street

We write as urban planning experts and social science researchers to express our grave concerns about your office’s displacement of the unhoused community at Aetna Street in Van Nuys and the continuing police violence being unleashed on Aetna residents. As an ongoing research collective based at the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy and…

One year later, LA reckons with racist city council recording

One year ago, Angelenos heard three city councilmembers have a conversation about the future of LA steeped in racism and homophobia.  Leaked on Reddit and circulated by Knock LA on Oct. 9, the conversation was recorded secretly in the fall of 2021. While councilmembers discussed critical decisions about the future of political representation in LA,…

Policía esposa a familia de activista después que él defendió a vendedores ambulantes acosados

La policía de Huntington Park allanó el hogar de la familia de Ryan Cortés luego de que defendiera a vendedores ambulantes víctimas de acoso. Un jurado lo ha encontrado inocente, pero el allanamiento plantea un debate acerca de los derechos de la Primera Enmienda y represalias de la ciudad utilizando a la policía.

City of LA to pay up to 6 months back rent — here’s how to apply

Most people in the city of Los Angeles rent and with pandemic protections for renters expiring earlier this year, many have been left struggling to pay back-rent that had been protected under the county’s COVID-19 Tenant Protections Resolution. If you’re in this situation there is a new program to help pay your back-rent. Paid for…

Why loving Staples is complicated when you’re unhoused

Our correspondent Ruth wants to be cool with Staples. But she says they make it hard. This story is from Ruth, who’s part of our correspondents program, where we commission recordings from people in communities who often don’t see their experience reflected in the media. For Smogland Radio, Ruth reports from an LA-area Staples. At…

Smogland Radio: The view from a Travelodge motel shelter

This week, we’re talking with LA Public Press city reporter Elizabeth Chou, who’s been reporting on a motel in Chatsworth where dozens of formerly-unhoused Valley residents now live. Mayor Karen Bass recently held a press conference at the hotel… but the residents weren’t invited to the press conference, or even told what it was about.…

Youth LGBTQ+ center serving Southeast LA opens in Bell

An “oasis in the desert,” that’s how Thursday Storm, 21, sees MiSELA, a new LGBTQ+ youth center that opened in Bell last week.  Storm and several other local notables including Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) and Huntington Park Councilmember Eddie Martinez, spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the small space, on Wed. August 16,…

Should I be worried about mudslides during Hurricane Hilary?

The arrival of Hurricane Hilary, though downgraded to a tropical storm, an extremely rare weather event for Los Angeles County. And with the landfall of a tropical storm, we’re expecting heavy rain and winds. The heavy rains expected from Hillary will be similar to those of an extremely heavy wintertime, and such storms can result…

Compton has the highest number of deputy shootings in LA County

This story originally ran at Knock LA and is republished with permission. Fred Williams Jr., whose son was killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy in 2020, raised his son on the same street that he grew up on in Willowbrook. At Mona Park, which sits at the end of their block, Williams Jr. recalled watching…

Smogland Radio: A renter’s hotline for a city of renters

This week, we’ve got the first edition of Renter’s Hotline, a tenant advice segment. Our first tenant called in from her apartment in West Adams, where she’s had problems with lead paint and a smoldering electrical fire (!!) in her ceiling. And, a dispatch from a man who thinks Venice is the best place in…

Why did four LA City Councilmembers vote for less policing, but more police?

While Councilmembers Curren Price, Nithya Raman, Heather Hutt, and Hugo Soto-Martinez of the LA City Council said LAPD’s acquisition of a robot dog would be “an expansion of the current boundaries around policing and surveillance” and “used to police Black and Brown communities,” they struggled to explain how their sign-off on an increased police budget…

Cómo investigar tu arrendador

Los inquilinos a veces no saben que la ley está de su lado. Hemos resumido algunos recursos y herramientas que pueden ayudarlo en una pelea con su arrendador.