LA Program Aims To Ween Unhoused People Off Of Meth

Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, July 17, 2025…

• Some homeless services providers in L.A. County are offering an innovative treatment option to help unhoused Angelenos quit using stimulants, like methamphetamine. It involves rewarding people with small gift cards when they pass a drug test. The simple approach has been around awhile, but is now making headway in LA’s homeless services sector.
• In what it’s calling a final decision, the Trump administration has killed $4 billion in federal funding for California’s troubled high-speed rail project.
• New details are emerging from the recent immigration raid at a cannabis farm on the Central Coast. A US Army veteran says he was wrongfully detained and violently arrested by federal immigration agents, even though he’s an American citizen.

Can Gift Cards Help Unhoused Angelenos Quit Meth? 

For four years, Shane Hutchison lived in a tent in the middle of the desert outside Lancaster, miles from the nearest grocery store. The 53-year old started each day the same way — with methamphetamine. “It’s almost like you feel you have to have it just to be able to make the seven-mile hike one-way for water,” Hutchison said. “Out there in the desert, it becomes a tool of survival.”

Last summer, an outreach worker asked Hutchison if he wanted to be a part of a new Los Angeles County program in which he could earn gift cards each week he could pass a drug test. The program, which started last year, is one of the only treatment options available for unhoused Angelenos addicted to stimulants, including methamphetamine. While the approach has been used in drug treatment for decades, it’s now gaining traction in L.A. County. And there’s evidence to show it’s been successful.

People can be prescribed methadone to manage their addiction to heroin, fentanyl and other opioids. But experts say there are no approved medications to help people addicted to meth and other stimulants. That makes an incentives approach even more crucial, practitioners said. “ There aren’t a whole lot of treatment options that are not just abstinence-based,” said Kim Roberts, chief program officer at shelter provider L.A. Family Housing. “Folks can be looking to change their relationship with stimulants, but maybe not ready to discontinue alcohol use or marijuana use.

Hutchison completed the 13-week program in March and earned about $600 in Visa gift cards, according to county health officials. Today, he says he’s sober, living in a two-bedroom apartment in Palmdale and working full-time as a carpenter. “If it wasn’t for the program, I’d probably still be out there on meth,” he said.

Trump Administration Pulls $4 Billion In Federal Funding For High Speed Rail

The Trump administration revoked federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project on Wednesday, intensifying uncertainty about how the state will make good on its long-delayed promise of building a bullet train to shuttle riders between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The U.S. Transportation Department announced it was pulling back $4 billion in funding for the project, weeks after signaling it would do so. Overall, a little less than a quarter of the project’s funding has come from the federal government. The rest has come from the state, mainly through a voter-approved bond and money from its cap-and-trade program.

The loss marks the latest blow to California by the Trump administration, which has blocked a first-in-the-nation rule to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars, launched investigations into university admission policies and threatened to pull funding over transgender girls being allowed to compete in girls sports. It also comes as rail project leaders are seeking private investment to help pay for its estimated price tag of more than $100 billion. Voters first approved the project in 2008 and it was supposed to be operating this decade. But cost estimates have consistently grown and its timeline pushed back.

Army Veteran Arrested In Raid At Cannabis Farm Warns It Could Happen To Anyone

A U.S. Army veteran who was arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm last week said Wednesday he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle and pinned down by federal agents who arrested him.

George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out. “It took two officers to nail my back and then one on my neck to arrest me even though my hands were already behind my back,” Retes said.

Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter’s birthday party Saturday.

He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody. On Sunday, an officer had him sign a paper and walked him out of the detention center. He said he was told he faced no charges.