Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Advances to November Runoff as She Seeks Second Term
An American Werewolf in Altadena? How a Local Monster Sparked Community Tensions
A Los Angeles Woman Was Lost. An Ambitious Mental Health Program Gave Her a Sense of Purpose
The Eaton Fire Destroyed Altadena’s Lush Greenery. These Volunteers Are Growing It Back
Teachers' Unions Across the State Mobilizing in Labor Fights
Los Angeles Voters Are Moving Ever Leftward, Shifting Election Politics in America’s Second-Largest City
A Year After the LA Fires, a Journalist Looks Back on the Stories From His Neighborhood
The Story Ends for a Nearly Century-Old Community Paper in the Pacific Palisades
Sierra Madre, Flourishing After Eaton Fire, Thanks Firefighters With Rose Parade Float
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"content": "\u003cp>After a tough first term framed by the most destructive wildfire in city history and an ongoing struggle with widespread homelessness, Los Angeles Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/karen-bass\">Karen Bass\u003c/a> advanced to a November runoff Tuesday as she \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085535/election-day-is-here-from-governor-to-la-mayor-these-are-the-races-to-watch\">fights to stay in City Hall\u003c/a> against challengers from both ends of the political spectrum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate you for standing with me when others doubted me, because you know who I am,” she told supporters. “I have devoted my entire life to serving the city that I love, where I was born, and I’m going to continue to do that all the way to victory in November.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press has not yet called a second candidate to advance to the runoff. California has a history of substantial vote updates after Election Day that can sometimes shift the outcome as late-arriving mail and drop-off ballots are counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spencer Pratt, a Republican and former star of the reality television show “The Hills,” was second in early returns. Pratt accuses Bass of letting the fires get out of control and failing to make enough progress on the homeless crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking to reporters outside a restaurant where he gathered with supporters, Pratt signaled he would welcome a matchup with Bass, a former member of Congress and the first Black woman to serve as mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12086100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12086100\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-2000x1334.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-2048x1366.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spencer Pratt, a candidate in the Los Angeles mayoral race, fields interviews during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. \u003ccite>(AP Photo/Jill Connelly)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is not a candidate that I’m too concerned about,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got in this because as a citizen, I felt like my city failed — myself, my neighbors, my family,” Pratt said. “Mayor Bass has allowed the city to be covered in potholes. We don’t have sidewalks. We don’t have lights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m an Angeleno who said ‘Enough is enough,’” Pratt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bass has acknowledged that her time in office has been bumpy but pointed to reductions in homelessness and a historically low homicide rate in the nation’s second most populous city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Running behind Bass and Pratt was Nithya Raman, a former ally of the mayor and a progressive city council member elected with support from the Democratic Socialists of America. A Democrat, Raman campaigned on promises to reduce inequality, revive the slumping entertainment industry and build more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Political observers said a November runoff would be likely with 14 names on the ballot, including tech entrepreneur Adam Miller and community activist Rae Huang.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bass defends her record\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Pratt’s candidacy drew national attention as a barometer for dissatisfaction with liberal urban governance and because of viral videos that supporters created with artificial intelligence.\u003cbr>\nBass lined up most of the Democratic establishment behind her, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with the city’s powerful labor unions.[aside label=\"2026 Bay Area Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/bayarea,Learn about races and measures across the nine Bay Area counties' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-Bay-Area-Voter-Guide-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]Candidates made a rush of last-minute appeals to voters, urging them to cast ballots in an election that appeared headed for a light turnout. Bass made a swing through the heavily Hispanic Boyle Heights neighborhood, where she recalled federal immigration raids in which she said Pratt and Raman were “nowhere to be found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In online posts before polls closed, Pratt said the contest had become a two-person race between him and Bass and said a vote for either Raman or Miller would be wasted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point, it’s me and Karen,” Pratt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voter Jose Rivera said he backed Bass because she deserves a second term to deliver on her promises: “She’s done a pretty good job in my opinion overall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another, Leo Blain, said he was drawn to Raman’s progressive agenda and believes she can be effective at building coalitions in the diverse city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think she has a really good understanding about how the city of LA works and would be a really effective mayor,” Blain said outside his polling place.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Los Angeles faces questions about its future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The race unfolded at an unsettled time for the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor is still trying to overcome fallout from her absence when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">the most destructive wildfire\u003c/a> in Los Angeles history ignited in a wealthy seaside neighborhood in January 2025. Bass was on a trip to Ghana as part of a presidential delegation. Pratt lost his home in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/palisades-fire\">the Palisades Fire\u003c/a>, which killed 12 people. And some say the recovery is happening too slowly.[aside label=\"From the 2026 Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/california/governor,Learn about the California Governor Election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Governor-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]While statistics suggest that Bass has made headway on homelessness, makeshift encampments and rows of rusting RVs remain commonplace across the city. Complaints about the rising cost of living — whether for rent, taxes or groceries — are a constant refrain. Dirty, pocked streets and sidewalks abound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years to more affordable filming locales. Trump administration immigration raids also shook the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Population in the once-booming region is falling — Los Angeles County lost about 54,000 people from July 2024 to July 2025, the largest numeric population drop in the nation, according to federal figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crime statistics are down, but public safety is still an issue. World Cup games begin in Southern California in June, and Los Angeles is readying to host the 2028 Olympics. The federal government spearheads security at the Olympics, but there are already concerns that the Los Angeles Police Department will not have adequate funding or personnel to hold up its end of the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bass has acknowledged making missteps but argued that a drop in homelessness and a historically low homicide rate show she is making progress. “I’ll keep fighting for LA,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pratt has focused his campaign on reducing homelessness and boosting police ranks, arguing that an outsider is needed to shake up city hall. Looking to tap into voter frustration, he says he is “an Angeleno who’s had enough” and rails against “homeless drug zombies” on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He received a nod of approval — if not an actual endorsement — from President Donald Trump, who recently said, “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That remark could haunt Pratt in a city where Trump is widely unpopular beyond his conservative base and Republicans account for less than 15% of registered voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a tough first term framed by the most destructive wildfire in city history and an ongoing struggle with widespread homelessness, Los Angeles Mayor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/karen-bass\">Karen Bass\u003c/a> advanced to a November runoff Tuesday as she \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085535/election-day-is-here-from-governor-to-la-mayor-these-are-the-races-to-watch\">fights to stay in City Hall\u003c/a> against challengers from both ends of the political spectrum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate you for standing with me when others doubted me, because you know who I am,” she told supporters. “I have devoted my entire life to serving the city that I love, where I was born, and I’m going to continue to do that all the way to victory in November.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press has not yet called a second candidate to advance to the runoff. California has a history of substantial vote updates after Election Day that can sometimes shift the outcome as late-arriving mail and drop-off ballots are counted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spencer Pratt, a Republican and former star of the reality television show “The Hills,” was second in early returns. Pratt accuses Bass of letting the fires get out of control and failing to make enough progress on the homeless crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking to reporters outside a restaurant where he gathered with supporters, Pratt signaled he would welcome a matchup with Bass, a former member of Congress and the first Black woman to serve as mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12086100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12086100\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-2000x1334.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26154201194476-2048x1366.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spencer Pratt, a candidate in the Los Angeles mayoral race, fields interviews during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. \u003ccite>(AP Photo/Jill Connelly)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This is not a candidate that I’m too concerned about,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got in this because as a citizen, I felt like my city failed — myself, my neighbors, my family,” Pratt said. “Mayor Bass has allowed the city to be covered in potholes. We don’t have sidewalks. We don’t have lights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m an Angeleno who said ‘Enough is enough,’” Pratt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bass has acknowledged that her time in office has been bumpy but pointed to reductions in homelessness and a historically low homicide rate in the nation’s second most populous city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Running behind Bass and Pratt was Nithya Raman, a former ally of the mayor and a progressive city council member elected with support from the Democratic Socialists of America. A Democrat, Raman campaigned on promises to reduce inequality, revive the slumping entertainment industry and build more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Political observers said a November runoff would be likely with 14 names on the ballot, including tech entrepreneur Adam Miller and community activist Rae Huang.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bass defends her record\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Pratt’s candidacy drew national attention as a barometer for dissatisfaction with liberal urban governance and because of viral videos that supporters created with artificial intelligence.\u003cbr>\nBass lined up most of the Democratic establishment behind her, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with the city’s powerful labor unions.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Candidates made a rush of last-minute appeals to voters, urging them to cast ballots in an election that appeared headed for a light turnout. Bass made a swing through the heavily Hispanic Boyle Heights neighborhood, where she recalled federal immigration raids in which she said Pratt and Raman were “nowhere to be found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In online posts before polls closed, Pratt said the contest had become a two-person race between him and Bass and said a vote for either Raman or Miller would be wasted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point, it’s me and Karen,” Pratt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voter Jose Rivera said he backed Bass because she deserves a second term to deliver on her promises: “She’s done a pretty good job in my opinion overall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another, Leo Blain, said he was drawn to Raman’s progressive agenda and believes she can be effective at building coalitions in the diverse city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think she has a really good understanding about how the city of LA works and would be a really effective mayor,” Blain said outside his polling place.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Los Angeles faces questions about its future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The race unfolded at an unsettled time for the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor is still trying to overcome fallout from her absence when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">the most destructive wildfire\u003c/a> in Los Angeles history ignited in a wealthy seaside neighborhood in January 2025. Bass was on a trip to Ghana as part of a presidential delegation. Pratt lost his home in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/palisades-fire\">the Palisades Fire\u003c/a>, which killed 12 people. And some say the recovery is happening too slowly.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While statistics suggest that Bass has made headway on homelessness, makeshift encampments and rows of rusting RVs remain commonplace across the city. Complaints about the rising cost of living — whether for rent, taxes or groceries — are a constant refrain. Dirty, pocked streets and sidewalks abound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years to more affordable filming locales. Trump administration immigration raids also shook the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Population in the once-booming region is falling — Los Angeles County lost about 54,000 people from July 2024 to July 2025, the largest numeric population drop in the nation, according to federal figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crime statistics are down, but public safety is still an issue. World Cup games begin in Southern California in June, and Los Angeles is readying to host the 2028 Olympics. The federal government spearheads security at the Olympics, but there are already concerns that the Los Angeles Police Department will not have adequate funding or personnel to hold up its end of the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bass has acknowledged making missteps but argued that a drop in homelessness and a historically low homicide rate show she is making progress. “I’ll keep fighting for LA,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pratt has focused his campaign on reducing homelessness and boosting police ranks, arguing that an outsider is needed to shake up city hall. Looking to tap into voter frustration, he says he is “an Angeleno who’s had enough” and rails against “homeless drug zombies” on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He received a nod of approval — if not an actual endorsement — from President Donald Trump, who recently said, “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That remark could haunt Pratt in a city where Trump is widely unpopular beyond his conservative base and Republicans account for less than 15% of registered voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire\u003c/a> burned across Altadena a year and half ago, an unusual sight reappeared up amid the ashes and debris: a giant werewolf wearing a large T-shirt, with a big rainbow-colored heart that said, “I love Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where he sits on that hill, the sun behind him when we were there in the evening, the sun was setting and the clouds were perfect. It was just such a weirdly hopeful thing,” said Taylor Jennings, who was visiting from Fresno last summer when he saw Norman standing over the fire-torn intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Mariposa Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All around there’s devastation, and there’s an 8-foot [tall] werewolf. At that point, I realized how Altadena is feral, and he just seemed like the perfect mascot,” Jennings said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr., as the werewolf is affectionately known, appeared on this burned-out corner lot in West Altadena just days after the fire, replacing a previous werewolf that popped up on the property a few years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both belong to Jubilee House, a large sober living home for men operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. One of the residents bought the original werewolf just in time for Halloween a few years ago and named him Norman — a nod to the home’s eerie resemblance to Norman Bates’ house in the 1960 classic slasher film \u003cem>Psycho\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082021\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courage Escamilla hams it up with Norman Jr. on a recent weekday afternoon. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>House manager Brian Woodruff said trick-or-treaters would never stop by the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year I bought candy, every year,” Woodruff said, laughing, as he stood on the cleared lot near Norman Jr. “And I always ended up being the one eating all the candy!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That changed after Norman appeared on the front lawn. The trick-or-treaters came in droves, lured by the werewolf’s grinning fangs and gnarled outstretched arms. They’d stop and take pictures with Norman and leave gifts and thank you notes. So, the guys at the house decided to keep him up year-round and started creating new outfits for Norman to mark the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Summer was coming up, we can get the Big-and-Tall catalog, we can order him a tank top,” Woodruff recalled. “And then I went online, and I found some oversized sunglasses,” he said, chuckling at the memory.[aside postID=news_12071233 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-003-JB.jpg']Then came the fire. All ten residents of Jubilee House got out safely, but the place burned to the ground. Among the debris lay the mangled pieces of Norman’s metal limbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time I came up, I didn’t expect to be so disoriented, you probably experienced this, too,” said Pastor Tim Hartley, the director of the Jubilee House program. “I didn’t know where I was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks later, hoping to boost morale, Hartley started shopping for and found a replacement: Norman Jr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once we put up that werewolf, it became this landmark [after the fire] that people could use for where they were in Altadena, as well as this source of hope for people,” Hartley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what Norman Jr. came to symbolize for longtime Altadena resident Courage Escamilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s kind of a symbol for people in town who for their whole life have struggled to ever feel like they fit in because they’re eccentric or different or stand out,” Escamilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082025\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082025\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rigoberto Gonzales runs through the extensive menu of his Mexican food truck. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After the fire, he became an advocate and community booster, helping to organize rallies and fundraisers. Escamilla’s hard to miss, usually pulling up to community events on his motorcycle, sporting a red durag, with a raccoon tail dangling from the back of his waistband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You feel like you’re now in a community that embraces the weird, the unusual, and so for me, Norman represents the message that we embrace and appreciate the strange and unusual in this town,” Escamilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, he said, fictional “monsters” are often just misunderstood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re often unfairly targeted, and I always felt like I related to that on some subconscious level and have always loved monsters for the fact that they can be loved,” Escamilla said.[aside postID=news_12038756 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/METTE.LAMPCOV.CHURCH.BELL-22-KQED-1020x680.jpg']“Symbols of things that were previously seen as repugnant are now seen as something that represents love and acceptance, and I find that rather special.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr.’s main character was another Altadena resident who lost her home. She stepped up to the task, creating new seasonal outfits and making sure he stayed upright when it was stormy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a spring day, she draped the werewolf’s plastic and metal body and articulated limbs in a form-fitting fake fur suit with a big red heart on its chest, hand-stitched for his frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With everyone from the sober living home scattered to new locations, Hartley welcomed her help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She honored this space in a way that I just appreciated,” Hartley said. “And then she’d say, he’s a little rickety, so I’m going to put out the word to have people come help me secure him, and these strangers would all gather to help, which I just loved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr.’s caretaker declined to be interviewed and asked that we not use her name. But she did explain how Norman’s corner became a refuge for her after losing her home in the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082022\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082022\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pastor Tim Hartley shows off a Norman Jr. T-shirt, hand-screened by a local artist, to commemorate the Eaton Fire. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Photos of the wolfman wearing the outfits she created started blowing up on social media, and life started returning to the neighborhood, with the pace of rebuilding picking up speed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when the little green taco truck from the San Fernando Valley appeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind the wheel was Rigoberto Gonzales. Also, a plumber who moonlights doing work on home rebuilds around town, Gonzales saw a need for food options that could appeal to the growing army of construction workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing nothing about Norman’s story, he parked his lime green truck beneath the giant oak tree that shares the same corner. Norman’s caretaker was not happy. She asked Gonzales to move, even though his vehicle didn’t disturb or block access to the werewolf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I see her, she was so mad, for no reason,” Gonzales said, as he took a break from the truck on a recent afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Then she later tells me what’s the reason. She just doesn’t want me to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conflict simmered for weeks. Gonzales said he felt unfairly targeted. He said he asked her why he needed to move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, give me the reason [why] I have to move? And she only walked away,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082027\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melissa Lopez found so much comfort and inspiration in Norman Jr. after the fire that she decided to have him tattooed on her leg. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Melissa Lopez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The caretaker quit caring for Norman, claiming she felt unsafe. Gonzales insisted that not he, nor any of his staff or customers, ever harassed the caretaker in any way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, a group of fire survivors, who never bothered talking to Gonzales or the property managers, rallied behind the caretaker. They accused Gonzales of exploiting a vulnerable, traumatized community and ruining the sacredness of Norman Jr.’s corner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, it escalated. A disgruntled resident posted Gonzales’ license plate on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others threatened to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or LA County Public Health. In a community forum on Facebook, one person “joked” about putting nails under his tires. Another person suggested setting off “stink bombs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local therapist and activist Melissa Lopez said a few people tied to that same Facebook group later showed up to hassle Gonzales in person. After that confrontation, they appeared to have backed off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That hurts, to see some of these violent reactions, to say they were going to bring a truck and wall off the area to him,” Lopez said. “People are gathering up pitchforks, and [it’s] scary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things eventually cooled down, but not without some sore feelings. Norman’s caretaker still hasn’t returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Norman Jr. continues to be looked after by his community of admirers — including Lopez, who just got a colorful Norman Jr. tattoo on her calf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lopez said she found some similarity between the friction over Norman Jr. and a recent monster movie, director Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 \u003cem>Frankenstein\u003c/em> film. In the adaptation, she said, the scientist gives Frankenstein’s creature a voice, and the creature tells his story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so beautiful because of that, because you get to see that he’s been dehumanized, that we created a monster,” Lopez said.” And I think that’s so true of society. We create the monsters, and how quickly we go to ostracize, to condemn people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire\u003c/a> burned across Altadena a year and half ago, an unusual sight reappeared up amid the ashes and debris: a giant werewolf wearing a large T-shirt, with a big rainbow-colored heart that said, “I love Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where he sits on that hill, the sun behind him when we were there in the evening, the sun was setting and the clouds were perfect. It was just such a weirdly hopeful thing,” said Taylor Jennings, who was visiting from Fresno last summer when he saw Norman standing over the fire-torn intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Mariposa Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All around there’s devastation, and there’s an 8-foot [tall] werewolf. At that point, I realized how Altadena is feral, and he just seemed like the perfect mascot,” Jennings said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr., as the werewolf is affectionately known, appeared on this burned-out corner lot in West Altadena just days after the fire, replacing a previous werewolf that popped up on the property a few years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both belong to Jubilee House, a large sober living home for men operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. One of the residents bought the original werewolf just in time for Halloween a few years ago and named him Norman — a nod to the home’s eerie resemblance to Norman Bates’ house in the 1960 classic slasher film \u003cem>Psycho\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082021\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-04-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courage Escamilla hams it up with Norman Jr. on a recent weekday afternoon. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>House manager Brian Woodruff said trick-or-treaters would never stop by the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year I bought candy, every year,” Woodruff said, laughing, as he stood on the cleared lot near Norman Jr. “And I always ended up being the one eating all the candy!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That changed after Norman appeared on the front lawn. The trick-or-treaters came in droves, lured by the werewolf’s grinning fangs and gnarled outstretched arms. They’d stop and take pictures with Norman and leave gifts and thank you notes. So, the guys at the house decided to keep him up year-round and started creating new outfits for Norman to mark the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Summer was coming up, we can get the Big-and-Tall catalog, we can order him a tank top,” Woodruff recalled. “And then I went online, and I found some oversized sunglasses,” he said, chuckling at the memory.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Then came the fire. All ten residents of Jubilee House got out safely, but the place burned to the ground. Among the debris lay the mangled pieces of Norman’s metal limbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first time I came up, I didn’t expect to be so disoriented, you probably experienced this, too,” said Pastor Tim Hartley, the director of the Jubilee House program. “I didn’t know where I was.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks later, hoping to boost morale, Hartley started shopping for and found a replacement: Norman Jr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once we put up that werewolf, it became this landmark [after the fire] that people could use for where they were in Altadena, as well as this source of hope for people,” Hartley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what Norman Jr. came to symbolize for longtime Altadena resident Courage Escamilla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s kind of a symbol for people in town who for their whole life have struggled to ever feel like they fit in because they’re eccentric or different or stand out,” Escamilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082025\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082025\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-07-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rigoberto Gonzales runs through the extensive menu of his Mexican food truck. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After the fire, he became an advocate and community booster, helping to organize rallies and fundraisers. Escamilla’s hard to miss, usually pulling up to community events on his motorcycle, sporting a red durag, with a raccoon tail dangling from the back of his waistband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You feel like you’re now in a community that embraces the weird, the unusual, and so for me, Norman represents the message that we embrace and appreciate the strange and unusual in this town,” Escamilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, he said, fictional “monsters” are often just misunderstood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re often unfairly targeted, and I always felt like I related to that on some subconscious level and have always loved monsters for the fact that they can be loved,” Escamilla said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Symbols of things that were previously seen as repugnant are now seen as something that represents love and acceptance, and I find that rather special.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr.’s main character was another Altadena resident who lost her home. She stepped up to the task, creating new seasonal outfits and making sure he stayed upright when it was stormy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a spring day, she draped the werewolf’s plastic and metal body and articulated limbs in a form-fitting fake fur suit with a big red heart on its chest, hand-stitched for his frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With everyone from the sober living home scattered to new locations, Hartley welcomed her help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She honored this space in a way that I just appreciated,” Hartley said. “And then she’d say, he’s a little rickety, so I’m going to put out the word to have people come help me secure him, and these strangers would all gather to help, which I just loved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norman Jr.’s caretaker declined to be interviewed and asked that we not use her name. But she did explain how Norman’s corner became a refuge for her after losing her home in the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082022\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082022\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-05-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pastor Tim Hartley shows off a Norman Jr. T-shirt, hand-screened by a local artist, to commemorate the Eaton Fire. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Photos of the wolfman wearing the outfits she created started blowing up on social media, and life started returning to the neighborhood, with the pace of rebuilding picking up speed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when the little green taco truck from the San Fernando Valley appeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind the wheel was Rigoberto Gonzales. Also, a plumber who moonlights doing work on home rebuilds around town, Gonzales saw a need for food options that could appeal to the growing army of construction workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing nothing about Norman’s story, he parked his lime green truck beneath the giant oak tree that shares the same corner. Norman’s caretaker was not happy. She asked Gonzales to move, even though his vehicle didn’t disturb or block access to the werewolf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I see her, she was so mad, for no reason,” Gonzales said, as he took a break from the truck on a recent afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Then she later tells me what’s the reason. She just doesn’t want me to be here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conflict simmered for weeks. Gonzales said he felt unfairly targeted. He said he asked her why he needed to move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, give me the reason [why] I have to move? And she only walked away,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12082027\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12082027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260430-WEREWOLF-OF-ALTADENA-SC-09-KQED-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melissa Lopez found so much comfort and inspiration in Norman Jr. after the fire that she decided to have him tattooed on her leg. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Melissa Lopez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The caretaker quit caring for Norman, claiming she felt unsafe. Gonzales insisted that not he, nor any of his staff or customers, ever harassed the caretaker in any way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, a group of fire survivors, who never bothered talking to Gonzales or the property managers, rallied behind the caretaker. They accused Gonzales of exploiting a vulnerable, traumatized community and ruining the sacredness of Norman Jr.’s corner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, it escalated. A disgruntled resident posted Gonzales’ license plate on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others threatened to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or LA County Public Health. In a community forum on Facebook, one person “joked” about putting nails under his tires. Another person suggested setting off “stink bombs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local therapist and activist Melissa Lopez said a few people tied to that same Facebook group later showed up to hassle Gonzales in person. After that confrontation, they appeared to have backed off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That hurts, to see some of these violent reactions, to say they were going to bring a truck and wall off the area to him,” Lopez said. “People are gathering up pitchforks, and [it’s] scary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things eventually cooled down, but not without some sore feelings. Norman’s caretaker still hasn’t returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Norman Jr. continues to be looked after by his community of admirers — including Lopez, who just got a colorful Norman Jr. tattoo on her calf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lopez said she found some similarity between the friction over Norman Jr. and a recent monster movie, director Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 \u003cem>Frankenstein\u003c/em> film. In the adaptation, she said, the scientist gives Frankenstein’s creature a voice, and the creature tells his story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so beautiful because of that, because you get to see that he’s been dehumanized, that we created a monster,” Lopez said.” And I think that’s so true of society. We create the monsters, and how quickly we go to ostracize, to condemn people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "a-los-angeles-woman-was-lost-an-ambitious-mental-health-program-gave-her-a-sense-of-purpose",
"title": "A Los Angeles Woman Was Lost. An Ambitious Mental Health Program Gave Her a Sense of Purpose",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Mignon Poon strode into the small clubhouse kitchen \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">in Hollywood\u003c/a> on a morning in late November, a lunch recipe waited on the table: for barbecued chicken, mac and cheese and collard greens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She pulled on a pair of hygienic gloves and, with Motown vibes wafting from a Bluetooth speaker, got to work with two fellow members of the clubhouse, called \u003ca href=\"https://www.fountainhouse.org/services/hollywood\">Fountain House Hollywood\u003c/a>, chatting and singing along as they cooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Poon, 66, this easy camaraderie was nearly unimaginable just three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’d spent decades living with severe, untreated mental illness, bouncing from the streets to homeless shelters. To quiet her mind, she self-medicated with alcohol and, sometimes, hard drugs. It all led to countless nights spent sleeping on the hard ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This place right here saved me,” Poon, whose caramel eyes shine with playful mischief, said at the clubhouse, a bustling collective that operates out of a repurposed Sunset Boulevard office space. “Besides get up and start drinking, I get dressed and come here. It gives me something to look forward to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076577\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076577\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon is pictured at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The private, nonprofit clubhouse is open to anyone diagnosed with a serious mental illness who lives, works or receives mental health treatment in Hollywood. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health doesn’t run it. In fact, there are no clinicians on staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County mental health leaders partnered with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fountainhouse.org/about\">storied New York-based nonprofit\u003c/a> to bring the clubhouse to Los Angeles, so their clients could participate. It’s part of an ambitious multilayered pilot project — which seeks to collaborate with community organizations to build an ecosystem of care that goes well beyond conventional clinical treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fountain House Hollywood is just one piece of that project to remake mental health care in the neighborhood, which officials termed “\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/hollywood-2-0\">Hollywood 2.0.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollywood 2.0 architects say intensive intervention by clinical teams, who deliver treatment on the streets and in shelters, is a must for people like Poon, who’ve survived unhoused and untreated for years, often with \u003ca href=\"http://www.samhsa.gov/substance-use/treatment/co-occurring-disorders\">co-occurring addictions\u003c/a>. So is safe and stable housing. But true recovery, they maintain, requires more: a sense of agency, purpose, belonging and joy, in community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon, one of Hollywood 2.0’s earliest clients, is thriving. And when it comes to that sense of belonging, she and her care team agree: the clubhouse has been key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who choose to join come on weekdays, set the agenda and commit to one of two work assignments to keep the place running. Poon picked the hospitality team, which does all the shopping, meal planning, cooking and serving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We respect each other,” she said of her peers. “It’s a family. It’s a community. It’s love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A core trauma \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Poon is an elegant dresser who favors rose-tinted glasses that lend her an air of celebrity. She grew up in Albany, Georgia, three hours south of Atlanta. Her mom was born to a Black mother and white father; Her dad was Seminole Indian. “That made me international flavors,” she said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mother earned four college degrees, but was often absent, Poon said, and alcoholism haunted the family for generations. At age 17, Poon ran away from home with a man she described as a pimp and a dope dealer.[aside postID=news_12075065 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260116-NewsomLuriePresser-32-BL_qed.jpg'] “I didn’t know what sex trafficking meant,” she said. “No one talked about it back then.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He put her on a plane to San Francisco, where she peddled her body and his drugs. In time, she was jailed for selling drugs to an undercover cop. She got out, had a brief relationship, got pregnant, then moved to Los Angeles and was jailed again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted my daughter,” Poon said softly, “so I had her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 20 years old, Poon gave birth on May 8, 1980, just before Mother’s Day, in the jail ward of the county hospital. Her little girl, who she named Sabrina, was premature and drug addicted, and went straight to an incubator. Soon after, Poon lost her child to the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a trauma, Poon said she revisits every Mother’s Day, every Christmas — practically every day. A few years after her daughter was taken from her, she said she called the county to try to get her back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They said, ‘Oh, she’s been adopted,’” Poon said. “That screwed me up. I was depressed and didn’t even know I was depressed. Didn’t take no medication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She didn’t know it, but in addition to depression, she was experiencing cycles of mania and psychosis. Early each morning, as years turned to decades, she’d start drinking. She’d argue with shelter roommates and neighbors, she said, disputes she called “misunderstandings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076576\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076576\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon leads a morning meeting with the hospitality team at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would get places and lose them,” said Poon. “I was homeless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her eldest sister, Rosemary Swan, 69, kept track of Poon’s journey whenever she could: a decade or more in Washington D.C., a long stint on the streets of Atlanta, and through Poon’s travels in the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time she was like a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/blog/understanding-dual-diagnosis/\">dual-diagnosis\u003c/a> case,” said Swan, who noted that mental illness, like alcoholism, also runs in the family. “It just went unmanaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time she spoke to her younger sister, that core trauma came up: the loss of her daughter. So, Swan tried to help Poon find Sabrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For over 25 years, she worried me about it,” Swan said. “I kept telling her, I’m trying, I’m trying. It hurt me that I couldn’t find the child. It’s probably why she went back to California. She never gave up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A reunion\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Poon returned to the streets of Los Angeles. Then, in 2018, while staying at a shelter in South Los Angeles, she picked up her cell phone and went down a rabbit hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She knew her daughter’s first name and birthdate. A Google search yielded gold, because Sabrina Bradley — her adoptive father’s last name — had a booming \u003ca href=\"https://www.skinbysabrina.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorTkD-tr6DmSKh_JklKwcdqZpILJyuVhp4J6FhOfmwPo95nQJS5\">skin care business\u003c/a> and big \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sabrinatoday/\">online presence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12080804\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12080804\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-2000x2667.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-160x213.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sabrina Bradley and her birth mother, Mignon Poon, embrace after reuniting in October 2018. Today, with Poon in recovery, they’re bonding. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sabrina Bradley)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a child, Bradley said, she’d tell her dad, “The angels are around me, my mom is near me. And everyone would be, like, ‘there she goes in her fantasy world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By age 29, while living in Portland, she made a vow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told myself, I’m going to move [back] to Los Angeles, and I’m going to do two things,” said Bradley, now 45. “Find my mother and create a name for myself in the beauty business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She achieved her second goal, and on a Sunday in 2018, was praying on the first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said God, if you’re real, just give me a sign, just show me that my mom is near me,” Bradley recalled. “I won’t ask for anything else. But if you’re real, please show me. Please show me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That evening, after a schedule packed with clients, her phone rang. The woman on the line asked for “Sabrina, the esthetician.” Bradley assumed she wanted to book a facial. “No,’ the caller responded. “My name’s Mignon Poon. I’m your mom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bradley went straight to the shelter and brought Poon into her home. But her mother was still using drugs, Bradley said, and her mental illness remained untreated. Police showed up at the house more than once when Poon was having what appeared to be a manic episode, banging on the doors of random neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’d been together for just three weeks. Then, Bradley put her mom in a cab, and communications between them went dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me and her had a misunderstanding,” said Poon. “I had to go back to the shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Poon returned to her old life, something was happening in LA County mental health offices and nonprofit community meeting spaces. The project that would come to be known as Hollywood 2.0 was taking shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The right to a whole life\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seed was planted more than a dozen years ago. The Hollywood neighborhood was benefiting from a burst of investment — hotels, housing and retail. But homelessness was also on the rise. \u003ca href=\"https://www.heartforwardla.org/our-staff\">Kerry Morrison\u003c/a>, who then ran Hollywood’s business improvement district, said she came face to face daily with people “that stayed for months if not years in the same alley or the same bus bench.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrison was not a mental health expert, but she was a community leader. She had helped pull together a \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/about\">coalition \u003c/a>of Hollywood homeless service providers and nonprofits, and in 2013, they identified the people outside “most likely to die unless we intervened.” All were living with serious mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076575\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076575\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The meditation room and library at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2015, she applied for a fellowship to study one question: “Why is it so hard to help people with serious mental illness move from the streets into a safe place, and who is doing it better?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research took her all the way to \u003ca href=\"https://mindsitenews.org/2021/09/29/the-old-asylum-is-gone-today-a-mental-health-system-serves-all/\">Trieste\u003c/a>, Italy, a port city on the Adriatic coast. Trieste had emptied its psychiatric hospital system decades earlier, just like \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7356002/\">California did\u003c/a> starting in the late 1960s. But Trieste shifted instead towards something more holistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than the U.S. top-down approach of “experts” dictating treatment, Morrison said, she witnessed respectful collaboration in Trieste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They talk more about life plans and life aspirations than diagnoses or symptoms,” she said, “and when you operate with that kind of cultural predisposition, all the edges get softened, trust begins to emerge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social collectives provide paid jobs and community connections to those living with serious mental illness. The hospital’s small psychiatric ward was unlocked, not even full, and Morrison saw no one living on the streets with untreated psychosis. The community clinics, where staff and clients share meals, she said, felt “incredibly warm and open and free. You can come anytime to talk to anyone, without an appointment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076574\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076574\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon shows off the small store area at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Morrison said she wept as her first visit came to an end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know what to do with this,” she told her guide. “I run a business improvement district. No one is ever gonna believe me that you guys are so kind and compassionate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was wrong. She cold-called Jonathan Sherin, the then-head of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and he went all in. In 2017, he and Morrison traveled back to Italy for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnYydKZzIGM\">a tour and a conference \u003c/a>focused on the importance of nurturing aspirations, relationships and personal fulfillment in those living with mental illness. Joining them was a small group of Los Angeles County leaders, mental health advocates, law enforcement representatives and a judge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was gobsmacked,” Morrison said. “And that’s how it started.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region served by Trieste’s mental health system is home to fewer than 300,000 people, compared to Los Angeles County’s population of nearly 10 million. Italy has socialized medicine. The U.S. does not. And here, with a crisis on the streets, so many public health officials stress that \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-020-01849-1\">getting people inside \u003c/a>is paramount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The small group of travelers knew they had to adapt their approach to those realities, and for a true community solution, they had to concentrate the effort. They settled on Hollywood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the California Mental Health Oversight and Accountability Commission awarded the county a \u003ca href=\"https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/6e2457e0-2310-4564-a15a-e1c249bbbee2.pdf\">grant of nearly $117 million \u003c/a>for a five-year pilot. The goal: to seed a new culture of recovery in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A crossroads\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That summer, another “misunderstanding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon was arrested for assaulting a drinking buddy, an elderly neighbor at an East Los Angeles apartment building where she’d finally found herself a place. She was facing felony charges and possible state prison time. From jail, she called Swan, who tapped her life savings to get her sister out on bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once Mignon walked free, she refused contact with the family, Swan said, so she wrote the public defender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drug testing, mental health treatment, anything but prison,” she pleaded in a letter, and she begged him to get her sister a diagnosis. “She [has] been needing one for about fifty years, if not sixty,” she said. “I told him!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Poon was back on \u003ca href=\"https://homeless.lacounty.gov/skid-row-2/\">Skid Row\u003c/a>. She was feeling the weight of her age, so she made a choice to head to Hollywood, where neighborhood homeless outreach teams regularly “wake you up and ask you, ‘Why you not housed?’” she said. “Then you explain your situation, and they try to help you get into a shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was her big break. Poon landed at a Hollywood women’s shelter where staff reached out to the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department on her behalf — just as they were layering key pieces of the Hollywood 2.0 pilot into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I got my social worker, therapist and my psychiatrist,” said Poon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, as two of her Hollywood 2.0 clinicians put it, Poon’s inner spirit shines through. Dr. Jonathan Gomez, her first psychiatrist under the program, and Eleanor Bray, her current social worker, described her as charismatic, sweet, welcoming and warm, with a dose of sass and a sense of humor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Gomez first visited Poon in August of 2023 at the shelter, she struck him as “one of the most symptomatically-distressed people I’ve seen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon believed the neighbor she’d assaulted was part of a conspiracy to electronically monitor her and had implanted a device in her foot, he said. She was so focused on this violation that she could hardly finish a sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, yeah, let’s look at your foot,” he said. “Let’s also talk about how much of this comes and goes with your sleep pattern and with the substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon has a diagnosis now: schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. Mania from bipolar disorder can cause psychosis. Poon’s diagnosis is schizoaffective because she sometimes experiences psychosis when she\u003cem> isn’t\u003c/em> manic. But what matters more than that diagnostic label is alleviating distress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076579\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076579\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Program director McKenzie Dowdle, left, helps Mignon Annette Poon prepare lunch for members and staff in the kitchen at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Hollywood 2.0 approach had him visiting her at the shelter once a week. It allowed them to work together to fine-tune her medication regimen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think they help me stay focused, stay positive, stay uplifted,” Poon said of the meds, “helping my thoughts to be clear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, Poon was ready to move to transitional housing. But she was feeling paranoid about her shelter roommate, Gomez said, and told him she might head back to the streets. With his input, her care team got her into \u003ca href=\"https://homeless.lacounty.gov/news/help-at-a-hollywood-hotel/\">The Mark Twain Hotel\u003c/a>, which had just been repurposed as Hollywood 2.0 transitional housing with intensive onsite support — and single rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was there, more than two and a half years ago, that Poon took her last sip of alcohol. Five months later, to her sister’s delight, a judge granted her mental health diversion. If she stayed on course, the felony charges against her would be dismissed. And in September 2024, Mignon’s team helped her move into her very own subsidized apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>“Community will heal us all”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Getting a client medicated, sober and permanently housed is often considered the pinnacle of success. But after years in survival mode, said Bray, Poon’s social worker, finding oneself alone without all the support of transitional housing programs “can be quite shocking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fountain House Hollywood clubhouse had opened its doors on Sunset Boulevard in July of 2024, joining more than 300 others \u003ca href=\"https://clubhouse-intl.org/\">worldwide\u003c/a> that hew to the same philosophy: empowering members to take ownership of their own recovery.[aside postID=news_12074674 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_011-KQED.jpg'] When Poon moved into her own apartment two months later, Bray encouraged her to check it out, and said it’s been “monumental in her recovery.” There, she said, Poon is making friends, collaborating on a common purpose, learning to follow recipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her thoughts still return to memories of that conspiracy to electronically monitor her. In the lexicon of psychiatry, that’s known as a \u003ca href=\"https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9599-delusional-disorder\">fixed delusion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Poon, it’s truth. But she said her medication appears to be helping. Meanwhile, she is embracing the coping mechanisms that she and Bray have worked on together: distraction from the inner life with a focus on the here and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something like cooking is very grounding,” Bray said. “You’re very out of your head, you’re very in your body. Plus the aspect of community, I mean, I think community is really the thing that will heal us all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Final pieces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So far, Hollywood 2.0 has moved more than 700 people off the streets, helping to slash the neighborhood’s homelessness by \u003ca href=\"https://www.rand.org/news/press/2025/07/number-of-unhoused-residents-drops-across-three-la.html\">nearly half\u003c/a> in 2024 alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076580\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076580\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Program director McKenzie Dowdle, left, chats with Mignon Annette Poon as they prepare lunch for members and staff in the kitchen at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s job counseling, and a new welcoming clinic for clients well enough to get there on their own. Poon will soon join them. An urgent care drop-in and peer-respite center is scheduled to open later this year, so those in crisis can be stabilized without the trauma of hospitalization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this fall, at more than 170 members and counting, Fountain House Hollywood will move to a much larger space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A final step is now taking shape: persuading Hollywood businesses and residents \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/hollywood-2-0/volunteer\">to take part\u003c/a>, by donating, hiring participants or committing to spend quality time with them by volunteering, leading classes and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s such a big, big change we’re looking to achieve,” said Morrison, “and that’s why I keep calling it a generational change. This is just the beginning of something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A calm life\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081244\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 731px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081244\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"731\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg 731w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto-160x280.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 731px) 100vw, 731px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sabrina Bradley and her birth mother, Mignon Poon, attended the clubhouse’s 2024 Thanksgiving celebration. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sabrina Bradley)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, Poon returned to criminal court for the last time, for dismissal of her charges. Her life is calm, she said, anchored by the clubhouse — and a budding relationship with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon reached out to her daughter again once she was treated and sober.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She likes strawberry milkshakes, so I would take her to Mel’s Diner,” Bradley said of her mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, they’ve taken two road trips to Las Vegas and are discovering common passions: butterflies, the colors pink — “girly stuff,” Bradley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Her bathroom and my bathroom are like the same, you know, beauty products all over the place, hair products all over the place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still bonding,” said Poon. “We still working on our relationship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state grant for the Hollywood 2.0 pilot program runs out next year. And MediCal, which has helped fund the program, is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051681/local-health-providers-prepare-for-medi-cal-cuts\">threatened by big federal cuts\u003c/a>. But Los Angeles County mental health leaders said they’ll find ways to keep the successful parts of the project going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, they have plans to open clubhouses in six more neighborhoods. Each, they said, could become a hub for community-based healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This reporting was supported in part by California Humanities, the California Health Care Foundation and the California Endowment. It’s part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://novemberinmysoul.com\">\u003cem>November In My Soul\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a narrative podcast co-created by Lee Romney and former public defender Jenny Johnson that is slated for release in 2027\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "The novel experiment in community care, concentrated in Hollywood, was inspired by the mental health system in Trieste, Italy.",
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"title": "A Los Angeles Woman Was Lost. An Ambitious Mental Health Program Gave Her a Sense of Purpose | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Mignon Poon strode into the small clubhouse kitchen \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">in Hollywood\u003c/a> on a morning in late November, a lunch recipe waited on the table: for barbecued chicken, mac and cheese and collard greens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She pulled on a pair of hygienic gloves and, with Motown vibes wafting from a Bluetooth speaker, got to work with two fellow members of the clubhouse, called \u003ca href=\"https://www.fountainhouse.org/services/hollywood\">Fountain House Hollywood\u003c/a>, chatting and singing along as they cooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Poon, 66, this easy camaraderie was nearly unimaginable just three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’d spent decades living with severe, untreated mental illness, bouncing from the streets to homeless shelters. To quiet her mind, she self-medicated with alcohol and, sometimes, hard drugs. It all led to countless nights spent sleeping on the hard ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This place right here saved me,” Poon, whose caramel eyes shine with playful mischief, said at the clubhouse, a bustling collective that operates out of a repurposed Sunset Boulevard office space. “Besides get up and start drinking, I get dressed and come here. It gives me something to look forward to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076577\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076577\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon is pictured at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The private, nonprofit clubhouse is open to anyone diagnosed with a serious mental illness who lives, works or receives mental health treatment in Hollywood. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health doesn’t run it. In fact, there are no clinicians on staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County mental health leaders partnered with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fountainhouse.org/about\">storied New York-based nonprofit\u003c/a> to bring the clubhouse to Los Angeles, so their clients could participate. It’s part of an ambitious multilayered pilot project — which seeks to collaborate with community organizations to build an ecosystem of care that goes well beyond conventional clinical treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fountain House Hollywood is just one piece of that project to remake mental health care in the neighborhood, which officials termed “\u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/hollywood-2-0\">Hollywood 2.0.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollywood 2.0 architects say intensive intervention by clinical teams, who deliver treatment on the streets and in shelters, is a must for people like Poon, who’ve survived unhoused and untreated for years, often with \u003ca href=\"http://www.samhsa.gov/substance-use/treatment/co-occurring-disorders\">co-occurring addictions\u003c/a>. So is safe and stable housing. But true recovery, they maintain, requires more: a sense of agency, purpose, belonging and joy, in community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon, one of Hollywood 2.0’s earliest clients, is thriving. And when it comes to that sense of belonging, she and her care team agree: the clubhouse has been key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who choose to join come on weekdays, set the agenda and commit to one of two work assignments to keep the place running. Poon picked the hospitality team, which does all the shopping, meal planning, cooking and serving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We respect each other,” she said of her peers. “It’s a family. It’s a community. It’s love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A core trauma \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Poon is an elegant dresser who favors rose-tinted glasses that lend her an air of celebrity. She grew up in Albany, Georgia, three hours south of Atlanta. Her mom was born to a Black mother and white father; Her dad was Seminole Indian. “That made me international flavors,” she said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mother earned four college degrees, but was often absent, Poon said, and alcoholism haunted the family for generations. At age 17, Poon ran away from home with a man she described as a pimp and a dope dealer.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> “I didn’t know what sex trafficking meant,” she said. “No one talked about it back then.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He put her on a plane to San Francisco, where she peddled her body and his drugs. In time, she was jailed for selling drugs to an undercover cop. She got out, had a brief relationship, got pregnant, then moved to Los Angeles and was jailed again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted my daughter,” Poon said softly, “so I had her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 20 years old, Poon gave birth on May 8, 1980, just before Mother’s Day, in the jail ward of the county hospital. Her little girl, who she named Sabrina, was premature and drug addicted, and went straight to an incubator. Soon after, Poon lost her child to the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a trauma, Poon said she revisits every Mother’s Day, every Christmas — practically every day. A few years after her daughter was taken from her, she said she called the county to try to get her back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They said, ‘Oh, she’s been adopted,’” Poon said. “That screwed me up. I was depressed and didn’t even know I was depressed. Didn’t take no medication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She didn’t know it, but in addition to depression, she was experiencing cycles of mania and psychosis. Early each morning, as years turned to decades, she’d start drinking. She’d argue with shelter roommates and neighbors, she said, disputes she called “misunderstandings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076576\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076576\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon leads a morning meeting with the hospitality team at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would get places and lose them,” said Poon. “I was homeless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her eldest sister, Rosemary Swan, 69, kept track of Poon’s journey whenever she could: a decade or more in Washington D.C., a long stint on the streets of Atlanta, and through Poon’s travels in the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time she was like a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/blog/understanding-dual-diagnosis/\">dual-diagnosis\u003c/a> case,” said Swan, who noted that mental illness, like alcoholism, also runs in the family. “It just went unmanaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time she spoke to her younger sister, that core trauma came up: the loss of her daughter. So, Swan tried to help Poon find Sabrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For over 25 years, she worried me about it,” Swan said. “I kept telling her, I’m trying, I’m trying. It hurt me that I couldn’t find the child. It’s probably why she went back to California. She never gave up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A reunion\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Poon returned to the streets of Los Angeles. Then, in 2018, while staying at a shelter in South Los Angeles, she picked up her cell phone and went down a rabbit hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She knew her daughter’s first name and birthdate. A Google search yielded gold, because Sabrina Bradley — her adoptive father’s last name — had a booming \u003ca href=\"https://www.skinbysabrina.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorTkD-tr6DmSKh_JklKwcdqZpILJyuVhp4J6FhOfmwPo95nQJS5\">skin care business\u003c/a> and big \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sabrinatoday/\">online presence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12080804\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12080804\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-scaled.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-2000x2667.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-160x213.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/MignonSabrinaReuniteOct2018-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sabrina Bradley and her birth mother, Mignon Poon, embrace after reuniting in October 2018. Today, with Poon in recovery, they’re bonding. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sabrina Bradley)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a child, Bradley said, she’d tell her dad, “The angels are around me, my mom is near me. And everyone would be, like, ‘there she goes in her fantasy world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By age 29, while living in Portland, she made a vow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told myself, I’m going to move [back] to Los Angeles, and I’m going to do two things,” said Bradley, now 45. “Find my mother and create a name for myself in the beauty business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She achieved her second goal, and on a Sunday in 2018, was praying on the first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said God, if you’re real, just give me a sign, just show me that my mom is near me,” Bradley recalled. “I won’t ask for anything else. But if you’re real, please show me. Please show me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That evening, after a schedule packed with clients, her phone rang. The woman on the line asked for “Sabrina, the esthetician.” Bradley assumed she wanted to book a facial. “No,’ the caller responded. “My name’s Mignon Poon. I’m your mom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bradley went straight to the shelter and brought Poon into her home. But her mother was still using drugs, Bradley said, and her mental illness remained untreated. Police showed up at the house more than once when Poon was having what appeared to be a manic episode, banging on the doors of random neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’d been together for just three weeks. Then, Bradley put her mom in a cab, and communications between them went dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me and her had a misunderstanding,” said Poon. “I had to go back to the shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Poon returned to her old life, something was happening in LA County mental health offices and nonprofit community meeting spaces. The project that would come to be known as Hollywood 2.0 was taking shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The right to a whole life\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seed was planted more than a dozen years ago. The Hollywood neighborhood was benefiting from a burst of investment — hotels, housing and retail. But homelessness was also on the rise. \u003ca href=\"https://www.heartforwardla.org/our-staff\">Kerry Morrison\u003c/a>, who then ran Hollywood’s business improvement district, said she came face to face daily with people “that stayed for months if not years in the same alley or the same bus bench.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morrison was not a mental health expert, but she was a community leader. She had helped pull together a \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/about\">coalition \u003c/a>of Hollywood homeless service providers and nonprofits, and in 2013, they identified the people outside “most likely to die unless we intervened.” All were living with serious mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076575\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076575\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The meditation room and library at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2015, she applied for a fellowship to study one question: “Why is it so hard to help people with serious mental illness move from the streets into a safe place, and who is doing it better?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research took her all the way to \u003ca href=\"https://mindsitenews.org/2021/09/29/the-old-asylum-is-gone-today-a-mental-health-system-serves-all/\">Trieste\u003c/a>, Italy, a port city on the Adriatic coast. Trieste had emptied its psychiatric hospital system decades earlier, just like \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7356002/\">California did\u003c/a> starting in the late 1960s. But Trieste shifted instead towards something more holistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than the U.S. top-down approach of “experts” dictating treatment, Morrison said, she witnessed respectful collaboration in Trieste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They talk more about life plans and life aspirations than diagnoses or symptoms,” she said, “and when you operate with that kind of cultural predisposition, all the edges get softened, trust begins to emerge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Social collectives provide paid jobs and community connections to those living with serious mental illness. The hospital’s small psychiatric ward was unlocked, not even full, and Morrison saw no one living on the streets with untreated psychosis. The community clinics, where staff and clients share meals, she said, felt “incredibly warm and open and free. You can come anytime to talk to anyone, without an appointment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076574\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076574\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mignon Annette Poon shows off the small store area at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Morrison said she wept as her first visit came to an end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know what to do with this,” she told her guide. “I run a business improvement district. No one is ever gonna believe me that you guys are so kind and compassionate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was wrong. She cold-called Jonathan Sherin, the then-head of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and he went all in. In 2017, he and Morrison traveled back to Italy for \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnYydKZzIGM\">a tour and a conference \u003c/a>focused on the importance of nurturing aspirations, relationships and personal fulfillment in those living with mental illness. Joining them was a small group of Los Angeles County leaders, mental health advocates, law enforcement representatives and a judge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was gobsmacked,” Morrison said. “And that’s how it started.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region served by Trieste’s mental health system is home to fewer than 300,000 people, compared to Los Angeles County’s population of nearly 10 million. Italy has socialized medicine. The U.S. does not. And here, with a crisis on the streets, so many public health officials stress that \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-020-01849-1\">getting people inside \u003c/a>is paramount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The small group of travelers knew they had to adapt their approach to those realities, and for a true community solution, they had to concentrate the effort. They settled on Hollywood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the California Mental Health Oversight and Accountability Commission awarded the county a \u003ca href=\"https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/6e2457e0-2310-4564-a15a-e1c249bbbee2.pdf\">grant of nearly $117 million \u003c/a>for a five-year pilot. The goal: to seed a new culture of recovery in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A crossroads\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That summer, another “misunderstanding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon was arrested for assaulting a drinking buddy, an elderly neighbor at an East Los Angeles apartment building where she’d finally found herself a place. She was facing felony charges and possible state prison time. From jail, she called Swan, who tapped her life savings to get her sister out on bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once Mignon walked free, she refused contact with the family, Swan said, so she wrote the public defender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drug testing, mental health treatment, anything but prison,” she pleaded in a letter, and she begged him to get her sister a diagnosis. “She [has] been needing one for about fifty years, if not sixty,” she said. “I told him!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Poon was back on \u003ca href=\"https://homeless.lacounty.gov/skid-row-2/\">Skid Row\u003c/a>. She was feeling the weight of her age, so she made a choice to head to Hollywood, where neighborhood homeless outreach teams regularly “wake you up and ask you, ‘Why you not housed?’” she said. “Then you explain your situation, and they try to help you get into a shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was her big break. Poon landed at a Hollywood women’s shelter where staff reached out to the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department on her behalf — just as they were layering key pieces of the Hollywood 2.0 pilot into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I got my social worker, therapist and my psychiatrist,” said Poon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, as two of her Hollywood 2.0 clinicians put it, Poon’s inner spirit shines through. Dr. Jonathan Gomez, her first psychiatrist under the program, and Eleanor Bray, her current social worker, described her as charismatic, sweet, welcoming and warm, with a dose of sass and a sense of humor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Gomez first visited Poon in August of 2023 at the shelter, she struck him as “one of the most symptomatically-distressed people I’ve seen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon believed the neighbor she’d assaulted was part of a conspiracy to electronically monitor her and had implanted a device in her foot, he said. She was so focused on this violation that she could hardly finish a sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, yeah, let’s look at your foot,” he said. “Let’s also talk about how much of this comes and goes with your sleep pattern and with the substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon has a diagnosis now: schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. Mania from bipolar disorder can cause psychosis. Poon’s diagnosis is schizoaffective because she sometimes experiences psychosis when she\u003cem> isn’t\u003c/em> manic. But what matters more than that diagnostic label is alleviating distress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076579\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076579\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_22-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Program director McKenzie Dowdle, left, helps Mignon Annette Poon prepare lunch for members and staff in the kitchen at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Hollywood 2.0 approach had him visiting her at the shelter once a week. It allowed them to work together to fine-tune her medication regimen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think they help me stay focused, stay positive, stay uplifted,” Poon said of the meds, “helping my thoughts to be clear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, Poon was ready to move to transitional housing. But she was feeling paranoid about her shelter roommate, Gomez said, and told him she might head back to the streets. With his input, her care team got her into \u003ca href=\"https://homeless.lacounty.gov/news/help-at-a-hollywood-hotel/\">The Mark Twain Hotel\u003c/a>, which had just been repurposed as Hollywood 2.0 transitional housing with intensive onsite support — and single rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was there, more than two and a half years ago, that Poon took her last sip of alcohol. Five months later, to her sister’s delight, a judge granted her mental health diversion. If she stayed on course, the felony charges against her would be dismissed. And in September 2024, Mignon’s team helped her move into her very own subsidized apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>“Community will heal us all”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Getting a client medicated, sober and permanently housed is often considered the pinnacle of success. But after years in survival mode, said Bray, Poon’s social worker, finding oneself alone without all the support of transitional housing programs “can be quite shocking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fountain House Hollywood clubhouse had opened its doors on Sunset Boulevard in July of 2024, joining more than 300 others \u003ca href=\"https://clubhouse-intl.org/\">worldwide\u003c/a> that hew to the same philosophy: empowering members to take ownership of their own recovery.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> When Poon moved into her own apartment two months later, Bray encouraged her to check it out, and said it’s been “monumental in her recovery.” There, she said, Poon is making friends, collaborating on a common purpose, learning to follow recipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her thoughts still return to memories of that conspiracy to electronically monitor her. In the lexicon of psychiatry, that’s known as a \u003ca href=\"https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9599-delusional-disorder\">fixed delusion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Poon, it’s truth. But she said her medication appears to be helping. Meanwhile, she is embracing the coping mechanisms that she and Bray have worked on together: distraction from the inner life with a focus on the here and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something like cooking is very grounding,” Bray said. “You’re very out of your head, you’re very in your body. Plus the aspect of community, I mean, I think community is really the thing that will heal us all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Final pieces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So far, Hollywood 2.0 has moved more than 700 people off the streets, helping to slash the neighborhood’s homelessness by \u003ca href=\"https://www.rand.org/news/press/2025/07/number-of-unhoused-residents-drops-across-three-la.html\">nearly half\u003c/a> in 2024 alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076580\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076580\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/20260309_MIGNON_23-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Program director McKenzie Dowdle, left, chats with Mignon Annette Poon as they prepare lunch for members and staff in the kitchen at Fountain House Hollywood, also known as “the clubhouse” in Los Angeles, on March 9, 2026. \u003ccite>(Alisha Jucevic/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s job counseling, and a new welcoming clinic for clients well enough to get there on their own. Poon will soon join them. An urgent care drop-in and peer-respite center is scheduled to open later this year, so those in crisis can be stabilized without the trauma of hospitalization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this fall, at more than 170 members and counting, Fountain House Hollywood will move to a much larger space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A final step is now taking shape: persuading Hollywood businesses and residents \u003ca href=\"https://www.hollywood4wrd.org/hollywood-2-0/volunteer\">to take part\u003c/a>, by donating, hiring participants or committing to spend quality time with them by volunteering, leading classes and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s such a big, big change we’re looking to achieve,” said Morrison, “and that’s why I keep calling it a generational change. This is just the beginning of something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A calm life\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081244\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 731px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081244\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"731\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto.jpeg 731w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/SabrinaMignonOriginalPhoto-160x280.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 731px) 100vw, 731px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sabrina Bradley and her birth mother, Mignon Poon, attended the clubhouse’s 2024 Thanksgiving celebration. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sabrina Bradley)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, Poon returned to criminal court for the last time, for dismissal of her charges. Her life is calm, she said, anchored by the clubhouse — and a budding relationship with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poon reached out to her daughter again once she was treated and sober.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She likes strawberry milkshakes, so I would take her to Mel’s Diner,” Bradley said of her mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, they’ve taken two road trips to Las Vegas and are discovering common passions: butterflies, the colors pink — “girly stuff,” Bradley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Her bathroom and my bathroom are like the same, you know, beauty products all over the place, hair products all over the place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still bonding,” said Poon. “We still working on our relationship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state grant for the Hollywood 2.0 pilot program runs out next year. And MediCal, which has helped fund the program, is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051681/local-health-providers-prepare-for-medi-cal-cuts\">threatened by big federal cuts\u003c/a>. But Los Angeles County mental health leaders said they’ll find ways to keep the successful parts of the project going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, they have plans to open clubhouses in six more neighborhoods. Each, they said, could become a hub for community-based healing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This reporting was supported in part by California Humanities, the California Health Care Foundation and the California Endowment. It’s part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://novemberinmysoul.com\">\u003cem>November In My Soul\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a narrative podcast co-created by Lee Romney and former public defender Jenny Johnson that is slated for release in 2027\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "The Eaton Fire Destroyed Altadena’s Lush Greenery. These Volunteers Are Growing It Back",
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"headTitle": "The Eaton Fire Destroyed Altadena’s Lush Greenery. These Volunteers Are Growing It Back | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Beyond the destruction of homes and loss of lives, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071233/a-year-after-the-la-fires-a-journalist-looks-back-on-the-stories-from-his-neighborhood\">ravaged Los Angeles\u003c/a> in the beginning of 2025 was merciless when it came to Altadena’s celebrated green spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than one year later, local advocates are scrambling to save the trees and plants that are still standing and restore what was lost.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altadena only has three public parks. The smallest, the Altadena Triangle Park, sits in the heart of the burn zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before it burned down, Amigos de los Rios, a nonprofit dedicated to creating and preserving Altadena’s green space, used to stand across the street — along with a gas station, a church, and the town’s fabled Bunny Museum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Triangle Park survived, thanks in part to an oasis of lush, shady, native plant and tree life planted by Amigos de los Rios about seven years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Altadena is so beautiful, like the biodiversity is off the charts,” said Claire Robinson, the nonprofit’s founder and managing director. “It had 49% tree canopy in certain areas, which is off the charts for Los Angeles County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074611\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074611\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students from Cal State Northridge’s Urban Forestry program, and local volunteers, are gathering regularly in Altadena to hold tree giveaways and develop smarter replanting strategies with an emphasis on native species. CSUN recently partnered with the L.A. Conservation Corps to expand its efforts. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some Altadena neighborhoods had such thick canopies of trees that it made streets feel as if you were cocooned in a forest community, not in a community just 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Robinson said the fire changed all of that, consuming more than two-thirds of Altadena’s tree life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now, we’re down 30% of what we had, and it’s become fever-pitch important,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need the trees for the heat protection, we need the trees for the protection they provided for the fire, we need them for the sense of history and place. I’m determined that we save every last tree we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire also destroyed Robinson’s home, just a short walk from the park. But none of that has slowed the group’s efforts on the ground. In recent months, Amigos de los Rios has adopted and is actively rehabilitating over 3,500 damaged trees across some four hundred Altadena properties. Plenty of other local advocates are also fighting to preserve surviving trees and restore those lost in the fire. In times like these, dependable services such as \u003ca href=\"https://fastfirewatchguards.com/oklahoma/tulsa/\">Tulsa Fire Watch Guards\u003c/a> help reinforce safety and vigilance while communities rebuild and recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One mile north of Triangle Park, where the concrete gives way to the steep foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Wynne Wilson surveyed the rugged mix of urban and national forest land.[aside postID=news_12071233 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-003-JB.jpg']“We are literally right at the toe of the mountains, we have bear[s], we have wildlife coming through here,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The handsome adobe home she shared with her husband for 30 years used to sit at the back of a roughly half-acre parcel filled with native trees and foliage, much of which withstood the flames. The house, however, did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson has welcomed thousands of people to the property over the years. Some people come to learn about native plants, or to pick up new gardening strategies. Others simply enjoy the property’s serene, park-like setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the fire, Wilson co-founded a nonprofit called Altadena Green and organized an intervention aimed at stopping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from removing native trees that were considered “in the way” – or misidentified as dead or dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We went to meetings at 6:30 in the morning,” Wilson said. “They made it really challenging for us to intervene. But we didn’t stop, and then ultimately we created a following where hundreds of people were ready to march.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kids were going to draw [pictures of] their trees and march with posters of their trees,” she said. “I told [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] that this is where we’re at, so what are we going to do? How are we going to slow down the destruction of the tree canopy that is left?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort worked, saving scores of trees which are now being rehydrated and rehabilitated so they can return to their full, pre-fire health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it’s not just us,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s multiple groups working on this, so I really see positive change for the future. I’d like to also establish a protected tree list for Altadena. Pasadena has an extensive protected tree list; we only have the oak trees protected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074613\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074613\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wynne Wilson of Altadena Green in her expansive garden, scorched by the fire but left largely intact. Her home of 30 years, however, was not so lucky. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a new fight brewing, one with SoCal Edison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, sparking from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054879/federal-government-sues-california-utility-alleging-equipment-sparked-deadly-wildfires\">the company’s equipment\u003c/a> allegedly ignited the Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy company plans to bury power lines to prevent future fires, but Wilson said the first leg of that work could damage the root systems of scores of Deodar cedars and other trees, some of which were compromised by the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of us up here love the community, we love nature, we love our trees. We are warriors for the trees,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal State Northridge sustainability professor Crist Khachikian leads regular student field trips into the burn zone to learn about restoring lost trees and creating defensible spaces around homes. His department partnered with advocacy group Altadena Wild and other local environmental nonprofits to come up with an ambitious tree planting campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For example, the L.A. Conservation Corps. We reached out to them and said, ‘We have this project, would you be able to help us plant?’ And [they] said, ‘Absolutely,” Khachikian said.[aside postID=news_12038756 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/METTE.LAMPCOV.CHURCH.BELL-22-KQED-1020x680.jpg']“So, it’s all about partnerships and creating this ecosystem of people who are willing to help, and it galvanized after the fire, and now it’s taken off into a program that is interesting to lots of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Late last year, Cal State Northridge held its first tree giveaway program in Altadena, distributing dozens of saplings to locals ready to plant. Later this spring, forestry students will conduct an updated field assessment of Altadena’s tree canopy while continuing to sponsor more tree giveaways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also hyper-local, DIY efforts to “regreen” Altadena, plant by plant and seed by seed. After the Eaton Fire tore through Laurie Scott’s West Altadena neighborhood, taking the backyard garden she’d cultivated for years with it, she got the idea for \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/regrow_altadena/\">Regrow Altadena\u003c/a>, a free plant and seed giveaway program that she operates from her front yard in West Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to fix everything, I wanted everything to be fixed. I wanted to make it all to be better, and I knew that I couldn’t,” Scott explained while standing alongside the large plant stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I thought that maybe I could make one thing better for some people, so I started picking up bits of succulents that I found and propagating everything that I can get my hands on,” Scott said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been so hard for all of us. We all need home. We need comfort. And I’ve heard from a few folks that [a plant] really did make just all the difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Beyond the destruction of homes and loss of lives, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071233/a-year-after-the-la-fires-a-journalist-looks-back-on-the-stories-from-his-neighborhood\">ravaged Los Angeles\u003c/a> in the beginning of 2025 was merciless when it came to Altadena’s celebrated green spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than one year later, local advocates are scrambling to save the trees and plants that are still standing and restore what was lost.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altadena only has three public parks. The smallest, the Altadena Triangle Park, sits in the heart of the burn zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before it burned down, Amigos de los Rios, a nonprofit dedicated to creating and preserving Altadena’s green space, used to stand across the street — along with a gas station, a church, and the town’s fabled Bunny Museum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Triangle Park survived, thanks in part to an oasis of lush, shady, native plant and tree life planted by Amigos de los Rios about seven years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Altadena is so beautiful, like the biodiversity is off the charts,” said Claire Robinson, the nonprofit’s founder and managing director. “It had 49% tree canopy in certain areas, which is off the charts for Los Angeles County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074611\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074611\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students from Cal State Northridge’s Urban Forestry program, and local volunteers, are gathering regularly in Altadena to hold tree giveaways and develop smarter replanting strategies with an emphasis on native species. CSUN recently partnered with the L.A. Conservation Corps to expand its efforts. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some Altadena neighborhoods had such thick canopies of trees that it made streets feel as if you were cocooned in a forest community, not in a community just 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Robinson said the fire changed all of that, consuming more than two-thirds of Altadena’s tree life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now, we’re down 30% of what we had, and it’s become fever-pitch important,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need the trees for the heat protection, we need the trees for the protection they provided for the fire, we need them for the sense of history and place. I’m determined that we save every last tree we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire also destroyed Robinson’s home, just a short walk from the park. But none of that has slowed the group’s efforts on the ground. In recent months, Amigos de los Rios has adopted and is actively rehabilitating over 3,500 damaged trees across some four hundred Altadena properties. Plenty of other local advocates are also fighting to preserve surviving trees and restore those lost in the fire. In times like these, dependable services such as \u003ca href=\"https://fastfirewatchguards.com/oklahoma/tulsa/\">Tulsa Fire Watch Guards\u003c/a> help reinforce safety and vigilance while communities rebuild and recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One mile north of Triangle Park, where the concrete gives way to the steep foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Wynne Wilson surveyed the rugged mix of urban and national forest land.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We are literally right at the toe of the mountains, we have bear[s], we have wildlife coming through here,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The handsome adobe home she shared with her husband for 30 years used to sit at the back of a roughly half-acre parcel filled with native trees and foliage, much of which withstood the flames. The house, however, did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wilson has welcomed thousands of people to the property over the years. Some people come to learn about native plants, or to pick up new gardening strategies. Others simply enjoy the property’s serene, park-like setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the fire, Wilson co-founded a nonprofit called Altadena Green and organized an intervention aimed at stopping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from removing native trees that were considered “in the way” – or misidentified as dead or dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We went to meetings at 6:30 in the morning,” Wilson said. “They made it really challenging for us to intervene. But we didn’t stop, and then ultimately we created a following where hundreds of people were ready to march.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kids were going to draw [pictures of] their trees and march with posters of their trees,” she said. “I told [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] that this is where we’re at, so what are we going to do? How are we going to slow down the destruction of the tree canopy that is left?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort worked, saving scores of trees which are now being rehydrated and rehabilitated so they can return to their full, pre-fire health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it’s not just us,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s multiple groups working on this, so I really see positive change for the future. I’d like to also establish a protected tree list for Altadena. Pasadena has an extensive protected tree list; we only have the oak trees protected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074613\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074613\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/250225-REGREENING-ALTADENA-05-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wynne Wilson of Altadena Green in her expansive garden, scorched by the fire but left largely intact. Her home of 30 years, however, was not so lucky. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a new fight brewing, one with SoCal Edison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, sparking from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054879/federal-government-sues-california-utility-alleging-equipment-sparked-deadly-wildfires\">the company’s equipment\u003c/a> allegedly ignited the Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy company plans to bury power lines to prevent future fires, but Wilson said the first leg of that work could damage the root systems of scores of Deodar cedars and other trees, some of which were compromised by the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of us up here love the community, we love nature, we love our trees. We are warriors for the trees,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal State Northridge sustainability professor Crist Khachikian leads regular student field trips into the burn zone to learn about restoring lost trees and creating defensible spaces around homes. His department partnered with advocacy group Altadena Wild and other local environmental nonprofits to come up with an ambitious tree planting campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For example, the L.A. Conservation Corps. We reached out to them and said, ‘We have this project, would you be able to help us plant?’ And [they] said, ‘Absolutely,” Khachikian said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“So, it’s all about partnerships and creating this ecosystem of people who are willing to help, and it galvanized after the fire, and now it’s taken off into a program that is interesting to lots of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Late last year, Cal State Northridge held its first tree giveaway program in Altadena, distributing dozens of saplings to locals ready to plant. Later this spring, forestry students will conduct an updated field assessment of Altadena’s tree canopy while continuing to sponsor more tree giveaways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also hyper-local, DIY efforts to “regreen” Altadena, plant by plant and seed by seed. After the Eaton Fire tore through Laurie Scott’s West Altadena neighborhood, taking the backyard garden she’d cultivated for years with it, she got the idea for \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/regrow_altadena/\">Regrow Altadena\u003c/a>, a free plant and seed giveaway program that she operates from her front yard in West Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to fix everything, I wanted everything to be fixed. I wanted to make it all to be better, and I knew that I couldn’t,” Scott explained while standing alongside the large plant stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I thought that maybe I could make one thing better for some people, so I started picking up bits of succulents that I found and propagating everything that I can get my hands on,” Scott said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been so hard for all of us. We all need home. We need comfort. And I’ve heard from a few folks that [a plant] really did make just all the difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072392/san-francisco-teachers-will-call-for-a-strike-next-week\">San Francisco teachers\u003c/a> are in their third day of a high-stakes labor fight with the district, leaving nearly 50,000 students out of school. And they’re not alone. Across California, more local teachers unions are in active disputes right now, from bargaining breakdowns to strike authorizations and walkouts. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/la-county-identifies-zip-codes-hit-hardest-by-ice\">new report commissioned by LA County\u003c/a> lays out how ICE raids there have hurt some local businesses.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As SF Teachers’ Strike Continues, Others Unions Locked In Labor Fight \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wednesday is day three of the San Francisco teachers’ strike. After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072028/2026-san-francisco-teachers-strike-sfusd-when-sf-union-childcare-after-school-programs-meals\">nearly a year of tense contract negotiations\u003c/a> between the San Francisco Unified School District and the United Educators of San Francisco union, the two sides \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059537/as-deficit-looms-sf-public-school-teachers-threaten-strike-over-fair-contracts\">reached an impasse\u003c/a> in the fall. The union says educators need higher wages that keep up with the rising cost of Bay Area living and fully-funded family health care. The district, however, argues its dire budget crisis makes meeting those demands an impossibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the strike is top of mind for students, families and teachers in San Francisco, labor strife is taking place in several other school districts across the state. Teachers with the San Diego Education Association are planning \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/01/san-diego-teachers-strike/\">a one day walkout\u003c/a> later this month. And members of United Teachers Los Angeles have also \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/lausd-utla-teachers-strike-authorization-vote-what-happens-now\">authorized a strike. \u003c/a>All told, \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/07/united-front-california-teachers-unions-raise-stakes-in-contract-talks-00769866\">Politico reports\u003c/a> that more than two dozen unions across the state are reporting an impasse in new contract negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Mahones is with UC Berkeley’s Labor Center. “They are organizing together across districts with parents and students to demand the schools that every California student deserves,” she said. “Which translates to fully funded classrooms and school sites with appropriate staffing of educators and paraeducators and be able to live in the districts where they serve students. It means having access to appropriate healthcare. So that’s what we’re seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahones said the cost of living in the state is one of the biggest issues as to why these labor talks seem to be stalling out in various school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/la-county-identifies-zip-codes-hit-hardest-by-ice\">\u003cstrong>LA County Identifies The ZIP Codes Hit Hardest By ICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A new report from L.A. County offers a closer look at the economic damage to the region caused by federal immigration enforcement — and at the neighborhoods most affected. \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://opportunity.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LAEDCxDEO-Economic-Impacts-of-Federal-Immigration-Enforcement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>The analysis\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, compiled by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity and Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, identified the neighborhoods hardest hit by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and found that they were more economically precarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers determined that the most targeted ZIP code in the county is 91402, which spans Mission Hills, Panorama City and North Hills in the San Fernando Valley. The report, which was commissioned by the county Board of Supervisors, also found that many small businesses county-wide have lost revenue and customers since ICE ramped up its presence in Los Angeles last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Homeland Security has detained more than 10,000 people in the L.A.-area since June, according to numbers released in December. Its aggressive deportation campaign has altered daily life in Los Angeles, where \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/usc-study-undocumented-immigrants-los-angeles-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>nearly one in five people is undocumented or lives with someone who is undocumented\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072392/san-francisco-teachers-will-call-for-a-strike-next-week\">San Francisco teachers\u003c/a> are in their third day of a high-stakes labor fight with the district, leaving nearly 50,000 students out of school. And they’re not alone. Across California, more local teachers unions are in active disputes right now, from bargaining breakdowns to strike authorizations and walkouts. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/la-county-identifies-zip-codes-hit-hardest-by-ice\">new report commissioned by LA County\u003c/a> lays out how ICE raids there have hurt some local businesses.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As SF Teachers’ Strike Continues, Others Unions Locked In Labor Fight \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wednesday is day three of the San Francisco teachers’ strike. After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072028/2026-san-francisco-teachers-strike-sfusd-when-sf-union-childcare-after-school-programs-meals\">nearly a year of tense contract negotiations\u003c/a> between the San Francisco Unified School District and the United Educators of San Francisco union, the two sides \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059537/as-deficit-looms-sf-public-school-teachers-threaten-strike-over-fair-contracts\">reached an impasse\u003c/a> in the fall. The union says educators need higher wages that keep up with the rising cost of Bay Area living and fully-funded family health care. The district, however, argues its dire budget crisis makes meeting those demands an impossibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the strike is top of mind for students, families and teachers in San Francisco, labor strife is taking place in several other school districts across the state. Teachers with the San Diego Education Association are planning \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/01/san-diego-teachers-strike/\">a one day walkout\u003c/a> later this month. And members of United Teachers Los Angeles have also \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/education/lausd-utla-teachers-strike-authorization-vote-what-happens-now\">authorized a strike. \u003c/a>All told, \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/07/united-front-california-teachers-unions-raise-stakes-in-contract-talks-00769866\">Politico reports\u003c/a> that more than two dozen unions across the state are reporting an impasse in new contract negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Mahones is with UC Berkeley’s Labor Center. “They are organizing together across districts with parents and students to demand the schools that every California student deserves,” she said. “Which translates to fully funded classrooms and school sites with appropriate staffing of educators and paraeducators and be able to live in the districts where they serve students. It means having access to appropriate healthcare. So that’s what we’re seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahones said the cost of living in the state is one of the biggest issues as to why these labor talks seem to be stalling out in various school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/la-county-identifies-zip-codes-hit-hardest-by-ice\">\u003cstrong>LA County Identifies The ZIP Codes Hit Hardest By ICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A new report from L.A. County offers a closer look at the economic damage to the region caused by federal immigration enforcement — and at the neighborhoods most affected. \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://opportunity.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LAEDCxDEO-Economic-Impacts-of-Federal-Immigration-Enforcement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>The analysis\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, compiled by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity and Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, identified the neighborhoods hardest hit by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and found that they were more economically precarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers determined that the most targeted ZIP code in the county is 91402, which spans Mission Hills, Panorama City and North Hills in the San Fernando Valley. The report, which was commissioned by the county Board of Supervisors, also found that many small businesses county-wide have lost revenue and customers since ICE ramped up its presence in Los Angeles last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Homeland Security has detained more than 10,000 people in the L.A.-area since June, according to numbers released in December. Its aggressive deportation campaign has altered daily life in Los Angeles, where \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/usc-study-undocumented-immigrants-los-angeles-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">\u003cu>nearly one in five people is undocumented or lives with someone who is undocumented\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Los Angeles Voters Are Moving Ever Leftward, Shifting Election Politics in America’s Second-Largest City",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This commentary was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How liberal is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">Los Angeles\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That question is very much on the minds of political insiders and observers these days as the city turns to its municipal elections and makes important decisions about its future: how much to invest in public safety, how much to tax its wealthiest residents, how to treat those who live here but without formal immigration documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One trend is clear: Los Angeles leans ever further to the left, a phenomenon that has implications for this year’s elections, which include \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/11/la-mayors-race-karen-bass/\">a mayor’s race\u003c/a> along with campaigns for two other citywide offices and eight seats on the 15-member council that governs America’s second-largest city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the bulwark of conservative politics under the protection of a Republican business leadership and a Republican newspaper, LA has moved steadily leftward in recent decades. The days when Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, could win the support of the electorate are far behind today’s Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of that is evident in voter registration. When Riordan was elected in 1993, more than 30% of the city’s registered voters were Republicans. Today, the number is somewhere around half that. As measured by voter registration, Los Angeles is significantly more Democratic — and less Republican — than New York City, which recently elected Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as its mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But voter registration is just a first cut at the question. Some of the evidence of LA’s shifting political center is more localized and impressionistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Rising liberalism\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Always a city of neighborhoods, Los Angeles in recent years has seen the rise of more liberal activism in many of those communities, some of it owing to vastly improved outreach and voter contact work by the region’s Democratic Socialists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result has been a surge in liberal representation on the City Council, where Democratic Socialists Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman anchor a council that is well to the left of many mainstream Democrats. Those members and a growing number of their colleagues are skeptical of spending more for police and are eager to find new sources of taxation that tap the wealthy. They’re also committed to higher wages for working people and are fiercely protective of LA residents, regardless of immigration status.[aside postID=news_12072234 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg']That program, backed by grass-roots organizing and sophisticated political leadership, has touched voters and made the left far more viable in local elections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political muscle of Los Angeles’ rising liberal faction is demonstrated not just in the number of candidates who identify with the Democratic Socialists, but more broadly in the way it helps shape the policies and priorities of the city generally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was not long ago that support for increased LAPD spending was a unifying city objective. Conservatives favored the idea of stricter enforcement of the law, while liberals saw it as a way to pay for police reform and to empower its oversight. No more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although “defund the police” is a bygone slogan, the LAPD’s critics are plentiful and are unwilling to acquiesce to once-routine budget requests to maintain or expand police ranks. The department today employs about 8,500 officers, well below peak staffing levels and far below the long-sought goal of 10,000. Nevertheless, Mayor Karen Bass’s recent request for additional funding ran into opposition at the City Council.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The council ultimately approved a cut-down version of the mayor’s request, but the compromise will barely allow the LAPD to hold its own against retirements and other attrition. Four council members – Hernandez, Soto-Martinez, Raman and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado – opposed even that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taxing the rich\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of those same forces are at work in the debate over a “\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/01/measure-ula-raman-dead/\">mansion tax\u003c/a>,” a favorite idea of the LA left. The tax, which voters approved in 2022, applies to multimillion dollar real estate transactions, adding a 4% levy to sales over $5.1 million and 5% to properties over $10.3 million (the thresholds are indexed, hence the unusual threshold numbers). The tax revenue goes for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ULA-Motion.pdf\">construction of affordable housing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taxing the rich is always good populist politics, but here it helped frame the city’s changing politics. Bass, for instance, sought to exempt properties affected by the Palisades fire, as she worked to balance her support for affordable housing with her \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/01/la-fires-bass-leaders-california/\">commitment to rebuilding from the fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071076\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071076\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demonstrators, gathering in support of Minneapolis residents following recent ICE actions, hold a vigil and rally in Los Angeles on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Photo by Ted Soqui for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The result has been more confusion than clarity, a testament to the challenges of managing a shifting electorate — especially in an election year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fight over the tax goes on, but its very persistence says something about the city’s leftward drift. It’s inconceivable that Mayor Riordan, for instance, would have supported the mansion tax and hard to imagine voters 20 years ago approving it. Riordan lived in Brentwood in a home that would have qualified for the surcharge, and the emphasis of much of the city’s politics in those days was on safety and job creation, rather than equity or government-backed affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many reasons for the leftward shift, and not all of them are specific to Los Angeles. The nation’s economic \u003ca href=\"https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/#income-inequality\">inequality continues to expand\u003c/a>, and the plight of those left out of economic growth grows increasingly dire and visible in big cities, where opulence and poverty live side by side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s inescapable in modern Los Angeles, with its grand homes, flashy boutiques and grinding homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Trump and the election year\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The local left also has clearly thrived in the era of President Donald Trump. The president, who is fond of denigrating Los Angeles and California, is reviled in Los Angeles. His influence has radicalized liberals, making them willing to vote for new Congressional maps — Los Angeles County \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2025/11/proposition-50-live-results-map/\">favored last year’s Prop. 50\u003c/a> by a staggering 74% to 25% — and rise to the defense of undocumented migrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More purely political changes have contributed as well. Los Angeles in 2015 switched its election schedule from voting in odd-numbered years to coinciding with the gubernatorial and presidential election cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/012126_ICE-WillowBrook_TS_CM_19-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003cfigcaption>Federal immigration agents in Willowbrook on Jan. 21, 2026. Some were involved in a shooting during an early-morning operation in the Los Angeles neighborhood. ICE actions in LA have galvanized many voters on the political left. Photo by Ted Soqui for CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s been a change with mixed results, but one clear consequence has been to broaden the participants in city elections. An electorate once dominated by homeowners and wealthier interests now increasingly includes lower-income voters and renters, whose interests tend to pull the city toward programs such as rent control and away from priorities such as forceful police protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so 2026 is a notable election year for Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One marker of the cycle spinning up came this week, as Mayor Bass held the first of two State of the City addresses to present her view of where the city stands at this moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gathering was illustrative in many ways: Held near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in one of the city’s most Black and Brown communities, it anchored Bass among some of her most loyal supporters. The location also highlighted Los Angeles’ role as host of the World Cup and, in 2028, the Summer Olympics. In a gesture toward civic unity, Bass’ presentation even featured performances by the marching bands of UCLA and USC.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The State of the City\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The audience’s response to Bass’ remarks also said something. She was politely applauded when she highlighted the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-06/la-me-homicide-stats\">city’s historic progress against crime\u003c/a>: Los Angeles had 230 homicides last year, the lowest number since the 1960s and a startling change from the 1990s, when it tallied more than 1,000 homicides several years in a row.[aside postID=news_12072492 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/GettyImages-2260093274.jpg']The audience cheered Bass’s promises to encourage affordability and her record at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/12/la-mayor-bass-homelessness-reelection/\">confronting street homelessness\u003c/a>, which has modestly declined for two consecutive years — small steps but at least steps in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The day’s biggest cheers, however, came when Bass struck her most strident tones. Denouncing Trump’s ICE raids and the “devastating losses of life” caused by its agents, Bass urged her audience to stand up to Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Staying silent or minimizing what is happening is not an option,” she said. “This senseless death, lawlessness and violence must end. And so must the presence of ICE in Los Angeles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audience leapt to its feet at that, giving literal voice to the fact that in today’s Los Angeles, defiance of Trump and Washington are acts of popular politics, not extremism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/02/child-care-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This commentary was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How liberal is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">Los Angeles\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That question is very much on the minds of political insiders and observers these days as the city turns to its municipal elections and makes important decisions about its future: how much to invest in public safety, how much to tax its wealthiest residents, how to treat those who live here but without formal immigration documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One trend is clear: Los Angeles leans ever further to the left, a phenomenon that has implications for this year’s elections, which include \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/11/la-mayors-race-karen-bass/\">a mayor’s race\u003c/a> along with campaigns for two other citywide offices and eight seats on the 15-member council that governs America’s second-largest city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the bulwark of conservative politics under the protection of a Republican business leadership and a Republican newspaper, LA has moved steadily leftward in recent decades. The days when Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, could win the support of the electorate are far behind today’s Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of that is evident in voter registration. When Riordan was elected in 1993, more than 30% of the city’s registered voters were Republicans. Today, the number is somewhere around half that. As measured by voter registration, Los Angeles is significantly more Democratic — and less Republican — than New York City, which recently elected Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as its mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But voter registration is just a first cut at the question. Some of the evidence of LA’s shifting political center is more localized and impressionistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Rising liberalism\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Always a city of neighborhoods, Los Angeles in recent years has seen the rise of more liberal activism in many of those communities, some of it owing to vastly improved outreach and voter contact work by the region’s Democratic Socialists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result has been a surge in liberal representation on the City Council, where Democratic Socialists Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman anchor a council that is well to the left of many mainstream Democrats. Those members and a growing number of their colleagues are skeptical of spending more for police and are eager to find new sources of taxation that tap the wealthy. They’re also committed to higher wages for working people and are fiercely protective of LA residents, regardless of immigration status.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That program, backed by grass-roots organizing and sophisticated political leadership, has touched voters and made the left far more viable in local elections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The political muscle of Los Angeles’ rising liberal faction is demonstrated not just in the number of candidates who identify with the Democratic Socialists, but more broadly in the way it helps shape the policies and priorities of the city generally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was not long ago that support for increased LAPD spending was a unifying city objective. Conservatives favored the idea of stricter enforcement of the law, while liberals saw it as a way to pay for police reform and to empower its oversight. No more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although “defund the police” is a bygone slogan, the LAPD’s critics are plentiful and are unwilling to acquiesce to once-routine budget requests to maintain or expand police ranks. The department today employs about 8,500 officers, well below peak staffing levels and far below the long-sought goal of 10,000. Nevertheless, Mayor Karen Bass’s recent request for additional funding ran into opposition at the City Council.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The council ultimately approved a cut-down version of the mayor’s request, but the compromise will barely allow the LAPD to hold its own against retirements and other attrition. Four council members – Hernandez, Soto-Martinez, Raman and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado – opposed even that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taxing the rich\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of those same forces are at work in the debate over a “\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/01/measure-ula-raman-dead/\">mansion tax\u003c/a>,” a favorite idea of the LA left. The tax, which voters approved in 2022, applies to multimillion dollar real estate transactions, adding a 4% levy to sales over $5.1 million and 5% to properties over $10.3 million (the thresholds are indexed, hence the unusual threshold numbers). The tax revenue goes for \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ULA-Motion.pdf\">construction of affordable housing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taxing the rich is always good populist politics, but here it helped frame the city’s changing politics. Bass, for instance, sought to exempt properties affected by the Palisades fire, as she worked to balance her support for affordable housing with her \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/01/la-fires-bass-leaders-california/\">commitment to rebuilding from the fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071076\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071076\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426-LA-ICE-Protest-TS-CM-01-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demonstrators, gathering in support of Minneapolis residents following recent ICE actions, hold a vigil and rally in Los Angeles on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Photo by Ted Soqui for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The result has been more confusion than clarity, a testament to the challenges of managing a shifting electorate — especially in an election year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fight over the tax goes on, but its very persistence says something about the city’s leftward drift. It’s inconceivable that Mayor Riordan, for instance, would have supported the mansion tax and hard to imagine voters 20 years ago approving it. Riordan lived in Brentwood in a home that would have qualified for the surcharge, and the emphasis of much of the city’s politics in those days was on safety and job creation, rather than equity or government-backed affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many reasons for the leftward shift, and not all of them are specific to Los Angeles. The nation’s economic \u003ca href=\"https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/#income-inequality\">inequality continues to expand\u003c/a>, and the plight of those left out of economic growth grows increasingly dire and visible in big cities, where opulence and poverty live side by side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s inescapable in modern Los Angeles, with its grand homes, flashy boutiques and grinding homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Trump and the election year\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The local left also has clearly thrived in the era of President Donald Trump. The president, who is fond of denigrating Los Angeles and California, is reviled in Los Angeles. His influence has radicalized liberals, making them willing to vote for new Congressional maps — Los Angeles County \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2025/11/proposition-50-live-results-map/\">favored last year’s Prop. 50\u003c/a> by a staggering 74% to 25% — and rise to the defense of undocumented migrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More purely political changes have contributed as well. Los Angeles in 2015 switched its election schedule from voting in odd-numbered years to coinciding with the gubernatorial and presidential election cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/012126_ICE-WillowBrook_TS_CM_19-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003cfigcaption>Federal immigration agents in Willowbrook on Jan. 21, 2026. Some were involved in a shooting during an early-morning operation in the Los Angeles neighborhood. ICE actions in LA have galvanized many voters on the political left. Photo by Ted Soqui for CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s been a change with mixed results, but one clear consequence has been to broaden the participants in city elections. An electorate once dominated by homeowners and wealthier interests now increasingly includes lower-income voters and renters, whose interests tend to pull the city toward programs such as rent control and away from priorities such as forceful police protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so 2026 is a notable election year for Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One marker of the cycle spinning up came this week, as Mayor Bass held the first of two State of the City addresses to present her view of where the city stands at this moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gathering was illustrative in many ways: Held near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in one of the city’s most Black and Brown communities, it anchored Bass among some of her most loyal supporters. The location also highlighted Los Angeles’ role as host of the World Cup and, in 2028, the Summer Olympics. In a gesture toward civic unity, Bass’ presentation even featured performances by the marching bands of UCLA and USC.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The State of the City\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The audience’s response to Bass’ remarks also said something. She was politely applauded when she highlighted the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-06/la-me-homicide-stats\">city’s historic progress against crime\u003c/a>: Los Angeles had 230 homicides last year, the lowest number since the 1960s and a startling change from the 1990s, when it tallied more than 1,000 homicides several years in a row.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The audience cheered Bass’s promises to encourage affordability and her record at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/12/la-mayor-bass-homelessness-reelection/\">confronting street homelessness\u003c/a>, which has modestly declined for two consecutive years — small steps but at least steps in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The day’s biggest cheers, however, came when Bass struck her most strident tones. Denouncing Trump’s ICE raids and the “devastating losses of life” caused by its agents, Bass urged her audience to stand up to Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Staying silent or minimizing what is happening is not an option,” she said. “This senseless death, lawlessness and violence must end. And so must the presence of ICE in Los Angeles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audience leapt to its feet at that, giving literal voice to the fact that in today’s Los Angeles, defiance of Trump and Washington are acts of popular politics, not extremism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/education/2026/02/child-care-california-2/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "a-year-after-the-la-fires-a-journalist-looks-back-on-the-stories-from-his-neighborhood",
"title": "A Year After the LA Fires, a Journalist Looks Back on the Stories From His Neighborhood",
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"content": "\u003cp>My biggest concern on the morning of Jan. 7, 2025, was the wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weather warnings said the Santa Anas would roll in hard with hurricane force velocity. Before sunset, mean wind gusts were already rattling windows and knocking over lawn furniture. Tree branches groaned and palm trees bowed toward the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We followed reports of a fire getting bigger out by the ocean, in the wealthy enclave of Pacific Palisades. Then, around 6:30 p.m., word got out of a brush fire igniting in Eaton Canyon, a few miles from my neighborhood on the southern edge of Altadena. By complying with \u003ca href=\"https://fastfirewatchguards.com\">NFPA fire watch requirements\u003c/a>, commercial and residential buildings will be better protected from fire disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 7 p.m., people were voluntarily evacuating parts of east Altadena and north Pasadena, right below the canyon, as the wind-driven fire exploded and began its destructive western march, eventually tearing a six-mile path across the whole of Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I headed out into the windstorm on foot, around 8:30 p.m. After two decades as a reporter in Southern California, I’ve seen how the Santa Anas can turn a modest brush fire into a virtually unstoppable destructive force that will erase neighborhoods. But this one felt different. There was a fury in the wind that I’d never experienced. And this was my own community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not even knowing what I’d do with the material, I started walking east, recording and narrating what I saw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/KdII2e2Nw7s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lake Avenue cuts through the middle of Altadena, cleaving it into two distinct halves. I could see a fiery glow to the northeast. Embers were starting to blow down like burning snowflakes. I picked up the unmistakable smell of burning structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I crept out a few more times, snapping pictures and shooting video, trying to stay upright. The wind only seemed to grow angrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2:30 a.m., I went out once last time. The windstorm of embers was bigger, and hotter, the fire obviously closer. A small fire crew from the city of Alhambra was just around the corner at the intersection of El Molino Avenue and Highland Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two firefighters had pulled out a manhole cover and were somehow drawing water from the sewer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Get the f–k out of here, now!” one of the firefighters yelled through the howling winds. Houses just two blocks southeast were fully engulfed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I packed a few things and evacuated to the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, but returned on foot at sunrise. By then the winds had calmed, but the sky above West Altadena was black as ink, the sunrise extinguished.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The stay-behinds\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033286/in-fire-scarred-altadena-these-residents-refused-to-leave\">first people I interviewed\u003c/a> after the fire was Justin Murphy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and his brother evacuated their 94-year-old mom, Jane, from her home in East Altadena. Then they raced back up to the house to meet the fire head-on as it tore through the neighborhood. They saved Jane’s house and one across the street. Every other house on the cul-de-sac was destroyed.[aside postID=news_12033286 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250312_Stay-Behinds_JB_00010-1020x680.jpg']Murphy chose to stay behind after the fire, to mop up hot spots and protect the house from looters. Everyone else in the neighborhood was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, I lived through the fire, and I lived after the fire, and I lived kind of as an outcast really,” Murphy told me, still a bit rattled by his experience. “But in a weird way, it made me look at myself and do some self-review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year, I’ve kept walking Altadena, trying to make sense of what happened with as many people who would talk to me, including Eshele Williams. Her family has lived in the same West Altadena neighborhood for 60 years. They lost four houses, all within a block or two of each other. I asked Williams why she and her family have been so willing to tell their story and speak out at local town hall events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve grown up in this community and the only thing that I can do is shine a really bright light on it, on us, and who we have always been and potentially talk about where we should go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Loss and resurrection\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Eaton Fire not only brought flames of destructive fury, it created a demographic earthquake that will shake-up Altadena’s racial and class complexion for the foreseeable future. But that’s something Williams saw coming long before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Altadena has been in transition for a long time, when I grew up here all of my neighbors were Black,” Williams said. “And that has changed over the years, this gentrification of Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071474\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1170px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071474\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1170\" height=\"831\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg 1170w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From top left: Steven Cuevas, artist Alma Cielo, photographer James Bernal and journalist Sasha Khokha pose for a selfie on Dec. 28, 2025 at the site of Cielo’s former home and studio, which were completely destroyed in West Altadena during the Eaton fire. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Alma Cielo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, I invited my old friend and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">The California Report Magazine\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to come down from Northern California and see Altadena in the slow process of recovery. I wanted to introduce her to some of the people that I’ve featured in my stories over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khokha arrived on a bright Sunday morning, so naturally, I took her to church. Since the fire, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church has been worshipping in the nearby East LA neighborhood of Eagle Rock after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038756/an-historic-altadena-church-lost-to-the-eaton-fire-begins-the-long-journey-to-resurrection\">its entire campus in the heart of Altadena\u003c/a> burned down. After the service, senior Pastor Carri Grindon told us that even though this temporary space is a 20-minute drive from Altadena, they haven’t lost any parishioners. In fact, they’ve gained new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People need the community more than they’ve ever needed it before. They need that sense of, we’ve lost so much, but we have each other and we’re not going anywhere,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would compare it to when you’ve had a death in your family. There’s grief, but also there’s tasks. And now people are, at least in my experience, sharing, expressing and processing their grief,” Grindon continued.[aside postID=news_12038756 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/METTE.LAMPCOV.CHURCH.BELL-22-KQED-1020x680.jpg']I’ve talked a lot about grief and trauma over the past year with 94-year-old Jane Murphy. She’s been a mental health therapist for decades and still sees clients every week. Her expansive home, saved from the fire by her sons, is filled with light that floods in from large windows throughout the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love this house. I’ve lived here 64 years,” Murphy told us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Murphy walked us through her later years with grace, irrepressible wonder and with absolute appreciation for whatever or whomever is in front of her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also very funny. Like her answer when I asked her how she’s doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, I’ve been medium rare,” she said. Now, medium rare for me, is the comedy and the tragedy. Because I walk through all this tragedy every day,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is literally true. An avid hiker for most of her life, Murphy still gets out and walks a couple of miles every day through her neighborhood, now peppered with vacant lots, reminders of lost homes and neighbors. And she says a blessing in her head as she passes each one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068927\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB-1536x1023.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jane Murphy, photographed at her home in Altadena, California, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What I have done is I’ve blessed all these lots, blessed the people. I am deeply grateful more people did not die, but I’m very sad for the people in West Altadena who did die,” Murphy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All but one of the nineteen people who lost their lives in the fire lived in West Altadena. Murphy and I may not have known them personally, but we all shared space together in our community, drove the same streets, hiked the same foothill trails, bought groceries or had our cars repaired at the same places. The connection is undeniable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like me and many others, Murphy worries about what comes next for Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hopeful that Altadena will resurrect,” she said. “My fear is that some builders will come in and want to build condos on lots and change the character,” she says, echoing the sentiments of Williams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As rebuilding slowly lurches to a start, outsiders are indeed swooping in and scooping up properties that belonged to Altadena families for decades. Real estate listing firms like Redfin find that roughly half of all vacant lots sold in Altadena since the fire were snapped up by corporate investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire dealt a huge blow not only to homeowners but to renters as well. Scores of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050296/for-altadenas-therapists-trauma-and-healing-from-wildfire-ripple-outwards\">Altadena renters, like Melissa Lopez\u003c/a>, had to scramble to find new places outside Altadena and typically at inflated prices. Standing on the vacant lot where her home once stood on Lake Avenue, Lopez told Khokha and me that coming back to the property is like visiting a grave site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068936\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068936\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB-1536x1089.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Melissa Lopez photographed a year after her home in Altadena, California was destroyed by the Eaton fire. Right: Melissa Lopez shows the Altadena tattoo she got after the fires. Photographed in Altadena, CA, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I know some people are like, ‘I can never go back to Altadena.’ And I always tell folks, I totally respect that, but you can’t avoid grief. It’ll find you, trust me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[But] I find a certain level of comfort when I come, because in many ways, there’s still some foundations, there’s still some rubble, empty lots. It’s the one place where the outsides match my insides.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living now about fifteen miles outside of Altadena, Melissa said renters like her have been largely left out of the re-building process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like we need a survey of — who commits to renting to fire survivors? Who’s committing to rent at reasonable prices?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were starting to really gentrify Altadena even before the fire,” she continued. “There are people saying, yeah, we want renters back. But I haven’t really seen that at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The fire followers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scores of other fire survivors are digging in and taking steps to rebuild. Fresh roots are sinking into the soil that’s come in after the soil that burned. Scorched trees are being rehabilitated, new saplings are being sunk into the earth. Freshly cut wood slats are sinking into freshly poured foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before anyone was drawing up blueprints for a rebuild, others, like Alma Cielo and her husband Paul, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12060753/a-look-at-prop-50-meet-the-duduk-whisperer-altadena-homeowners-resettling-in-rvs\">returned with trailers and RVs\u003c/a> to homestead on their scorched lots.[aside postID=news_12050296 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/2-Gabby-Raices-2000x1500.jpg']They’re going to rebuild their place too, in West Altadena, but they’re not quite ready just yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want to stand here and feel the land healing, and then we’ll be able to know where to go from there,” Alma Cielo said, standing near a cluster of blooming morning glories and next to a fig tree that’s leafing out again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m feeling very grateful, actually, and at peace,” she added. The fire took away a lot of the things that I had been carrying that were simply weight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cielo lost about thirty years of journals that were destroyed in the fire, notes she thought would be the foundation of a memoir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And if I go through those books, you just see a lot of the same cycles of ignorance and trauma. And I really had wanted to burn them years ago, but I didn’t know how I could do that safely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe that’s how she starts the new book, I suggested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” she continued, “about how it was time to write a whole new story without having to constantly reference the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I told Cielo about feeling something similar, about how the fire drew me back to journalism after I’d felt burnt out from covering news for 25 years. The fire gave me a renewed purpose. Maybe I could help my community a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068917\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068917\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB-1536x1023.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alma Cielo stands for a photograph with a Bodhi tree that survived the fire and is now growing back in the spot where her house once stood. Photographed in Altadena, CA, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The fire also deepened my love and appreciation for a place I already held sacred, and helped me connect with my neighbors in a whole new way — by telling their stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much possibility now, there’s so much beauty, there is so much growth,” Cielo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cielo mentioned the concept of “fire followers,” — the trees and the plants that thrive after a fire, that need the smoke and ash in the soil to get that spark to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She, too, is a fire follower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m going to be better after this fire than I ever was before,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Steven Cuevas’s life was forever changed after the 2025 Eaton fire destroyed Altadena. He began documenting his and his neighbors’ loss, and the road to recovery. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>My biggest concern on the morning of Jan. 7, 2025, was the wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weather warnings said the Santa Anas would roll in hard with hurricane force velocity. Before sunset, mean wind gusts were already rattling windows and knocking over lawn furniture. Tree branches groaned and palm trees bowed toward the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We followed reports of a fire getting bigger out by the ocean, in the wealthy enclave of Pacific Palisades. Then, around 6:30 p.m., word got out of a brush fire igniting in Eaton Canyon, a few miles from my neighborhood on the southern edge of Altadena. By complying with \u003ca href=\"https://fastfirewatchguards.com\">NFPA fire watch requirements\u003c/a>, commercial and residential buildings will be better protected from fire disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 7 p.m., people were voluntarily evacuating parts of east Altadena and north Pasadena, right below the canyon, as the wind-driven fire exploded and began its destructive western march, eventually tearing a six-mile path across the whole of Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I headed out into the windstorm on foot, around 8:30 p.m. After two decades as a reporter in Southern California, I’ve seen how the Santa Anas can turn a modest brush fire into a virtually unstoppable destructive force that will erase neighborhoods. But this one felt different. There was a fury in the wind that I’d never experienced. And this was my own community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not even knowing what I’d do with the material, I started walking east, recording and narrating what I saw.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/KdII2e2Nw7s'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/KdII2e2Nw7s'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Lake Avenue cuts through the middle of Altadena, cleaving it into two distinct halves. I could see a fiery glow to the northeast. Embers were starting to blow down like burning snowflakes. I picked up the unmistakable smell of burning structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I crept out a few more times, snapping pictures and shooting video, trying to stay upright. The wind only seemed to grow angrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2:30 a.m., I went out once last time. The windstorm of embers was bigger, and hotter, the fire obviously closer. A small fire crew from the city of Alhambra was just around the corner at the intersection of El Molino Avenue and Highland Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two firefighters had pulled out a manhole cover and were somehow drawing water from the sewer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Get the f–k out of here, now!” one of the firefighters yelled through the howling winds. Houses just two blocks southeast were fully engulfed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I packed a few things and evacuated to the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, but returned on foot at sunrise. By then the winds had calmed, but the sky above West Altadena was black as ink, the sunrise extinguished.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The stay-behinds\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033286/in-fire-scarred-altadena-these-residents-refused-to-leave\">first people I interviewed\u003c/a> after the fire was Justin Murphy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and his brother evacuated their 94-year-old mom, Jane, from her home in East Altadena. Then they raced back up to the house to meet the fire head-on as it tore through the neighborhood. They saved Jane’s house and one across the street. Every other house on the cul-de-sac was destroyed.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Murphy chose to stay behind after the fire, to mop up hot spots and protect the house from looters. Everyone else in the neighborhood was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, I lived through the fire, and I lived after the fire, and I lived kind of as an outcast really,” Murphy told me, still a bit rattled by his experience. “But in a weird way, it made me look at myself and do some self-review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year, I’ve kept walking Altadena, trying to make sense of what happened with as many people who would talk to me, including Eshele Williams. Her family has lived in the same West Altadena neighborhood for 60 years. They lost four houses, all within a block or two of each other. I asked Williams why she and her family have been so willing to tell their story and speak out at local town hall events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve grown up in this community and the only thing that I can do is shine a really bright light on it, on us, and who we have always been and potentially talk about where we should go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Loss and resurrection\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Eaton Fire not only brought flames of destructive fury, it created a demographic earthquake that will shake-up Altadena’s racial and class complexion for the foreseeable future. But that’s something Williams saw coming long before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Altadena has been in transition for a long time, when I grew up here all of my neighbors were Black,” Williams said. “And that has changed over the years, this gentrification of Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071474\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1170px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071474\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1170\" height=\"831\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368.jpg 1170w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_3368-160x114.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From top left: Steven Cuevas, artist Alma Cielo, photographer James Bernal and journalist Sasha Khokha pose for a selfie on Dec. 28, 2025 at the site of Cielo’s former home and studio, which were completely destroyed in West Altadena during the Eaton fire. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Alma Cielo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, I invited my old friend and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">The California Report Magazine\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to come down from Northern California and see Altadena in the slow process of recovery. I wanted to introduce her to some of the people that I’ve featured in my stories over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Khokha arrived on a bright Sunday morning, so naturally, I took her to church. Since the fire, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church has been worshipping in the nearby East LA neighborhood of Eagle Rock after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038756/an-historic-altadena-church-lost-to-the-eaton-fire-begins-the-long-journey-to-resurrection\">its entire campus in the heart of Altadena\u003c/a> burned down. After the service, senior Pastor Carri Grindon told us that even though this temporary space is a 20-minute drive from Altadena, they haven’t lost any parishioners. In fact, they’ve gained new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People need the community more than they’ve ever needed it before. They need that sense of, we’ve lost so much, but we have each other and we’re not going anywhere,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would compare it to when you’ve had a death in your family. There’s grief, but also there’s tasks. And now people are, at least in my experience, sharing, expressing and processing their grief,” Grindon continued.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I’ve talked a lot about grief and trauma over the past year with 94-year-old Jane Murphy. She’s been a mental health therapist for decades and still sees clients every week. Her expansive home, saved from the fire by her sons, is filled with light that floods in from large windows throughout the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love this house. I’ve lived here 64 years,” Murphy told us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Murphy walked us through her later years with grace, irrepressible wonder and with absolute appreciation for whatever or whomever is in front of her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also very funny. Like her answer when I asked her how she’s doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, I’ve been medium rare,” she said. Now, medium rare for me, is the comedy and the tragedy. Because I walk through all this tragedy every day,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is literally true. An avid hiker for most of her life, Murphy still gets out and walks a couple of miles every day through her neighborhood, now peppered with vacant lots, reminders of lost homes and neighbors. And she says a blessing in her head as she passes each one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068927\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-002-JB-1536x1023.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jane Murphy, photographed at her home in Altadena, California, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What I have done is I’ve blessed all these lots, blessed the people. I am deeply grateful more people did not die, but I’m very sad for the people in West Altadena who did die,” Murphy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All but one of the nineteen people who lost their lives in the fire lived in West Altadena. Murphy and I may not have known them personally, but we all shared space together in our community, drove the same streets, hiked the same foothill trails, bought groceries or had our cars repaired at the same places. The connection is undeniable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like me and many others, Murphy worries about what comes next for Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hopeful that Altadena will resurrect,” she said. “My fear is that some builders will come in and want to build condos on lots and change the character,” she says, echoing the sentiments of Williams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As rebuilding slowly lurches to a start, outsiders are indeed swooping in and scooping up properties that belonged to Altadena families for decades. Real estate listing firms like Redfin find that roughly half of all vacant lots sold in Altadena since the fire were snapped up by corporate investors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire dealt a huge blow not only to homeowners but to renters as well. Scores of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050296/for-altadenas-therapists-trauma-and-healing-from-wildfire-ripple-outwards\">Altadena renters, like Melissa Lopez\u003c/a>, had to scramble to find new places outside Altadena and typically at inflated prices. Standing on the vacant lot where her home once stood on Lake Avenue, Lopez told Khokha and me that coming back to the property is like visiting a grave site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068936\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068936\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-013-JB-1536x1089.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Melissa Lopez photographed a year after her home in Altadena, California was destroyed by the Eaton fire. Right: Melissa Lopez shows the Altadena tattoo she got after the fires. Photographed in Altadena, CA, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I know some people are like, ‘I can never go back to Altadena.’ And I always tell folks, I totally respect that, but you can’t avoid grief. It’ll find you, trust me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[But] I find a certain level of comfort when I come, because in many ways, there’s still some foundations, there’s still some rubble, empty lots. It’s the one place where the outsides match my insides.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Living now about fifteen miles outside of Altadena, Melissa said renters like her have been largely left out of the re-building process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like we need a survey of — who commits to renting to fire survivors? Who’s committing to rent at reasonable prices?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People were starting to really gentrify Altadena even before the fire,” she continued. “There are people saying, yeah, we want renters back. But I haven’t really seen that at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The fire followers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Scores of other fire survivors are digging in and taking steps to rebuild. Fresh roots are sinking into the soil that’s come in after the soil that burned. Scorched trees are being rehabilitated, new saplings are being sunk into the earth. Freshly cut wood slats are sinking into freshly poured foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before anyone was drawing up blueprints for a rebuild, others, like Alma Cielo and her husband Paul, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12060753/a-look-at-prop-50-meet-the-duduk-whisperer-altadena-homeowners-resettling-in-rvs\">returned with trailers and RVs\u003c/a> to homestead on their scorched lots.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>They’re going to rebuild their place too, in West Altadena, but they’re not quite ready just yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want to stand here and feel the land healing, and then we’ll be able to know where to go from there,” Alma Cielo said, standing near a cluster of blooming morning glories and next to a fig tree that’s leafing out again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m feeling very grateful, actually, and at peace,” she added. The fire took away a lot of the things that I had been carrying that were simply weight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cielo lost about thirty years of journals that were destroyed in the fire, notes she thought would be the foundation of a memoir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And if I go through those books, you just see a lot of the same cycles of ignorance and trauma. And I really had wanted to burn them years ago, but I didn’t know how I could do that safely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe that’s how she starts the new book, I suggested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” she continued, “about how it was time to write a whole new story without having to constantly reference the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I told Cielo about feeling something similar, about how the fire drew me back to journalism after I’d felt burnt out from covering news for 25 years. The fire gave me a renewed purpose. Maybe I could help my community a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068917\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068917\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-Altadena-Anniversary-012-JB-1536x1023.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alma Cielo stands for a photograph with a Bodhi tree that survived the fire and is now growing back in the spot where her house once stood. Photographed in Altadena, CA, on Dec. 28, 2025. \u003ccite>(James Bernal/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The fire also deepened my love and appreciation for a place I already held sacred, and helped me connect with my neighbors in a whole new way — by telling their stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much possibility now, there’s so much beauty, there is so much growth,” Cielo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cielo mentioned the concept of “fire followers,” — the trees and the plants that thrive after a fire, that need the smoke and ash in the soil to get that spark to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She, too, is a fire follower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m going to be better after this fire than I ever was before,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Palisadian-Post, the community paper that’s been covering the Pacific Palisades for nearly 100 years, printed its final issue on Christmas Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After January’s fires, subscriptions basically fell to zero, as did advertisers, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.palipost.com/a-note-of-grief-and-of-hope/\">memo\u003c/a> announcing the paper’s closure from owner Alan Smolinisky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But its end brings with it nearly a century of memories.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Post remembered\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seaside community of Pacific Palisades was founded by members of the Methodist church in 1922. Six years later, the first issue of what would become the Pali-Post was published to document town life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ A little 12-point, 12-page tabloid, they called the Palisadian” said\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Bill Bruns, a former editor of the Palisadian-Post from 1993 to 2013, and member of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. Before he was editor, Bruns was a loyal reader of the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068749\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bill Bruns (back right) poses for a picture with the rest of the “Palisadian-Post” staff in 2013. \u003ccite>(Bill Bruns/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1934, the paper was purchased by Clifford Clearwater, one of the first settlers of the Palisades. Bruns said Clearwater had been an ambulance driver in World War I, and was the Palisades’s original postal carrier where he would deliver mail by horseback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn’t trained as a journalist, but his life experiences gave him the confidence to keep publishing the paper, serving as its photographer and editor until his death in 1956.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He had a friend who had a little plane and he would take Cliff up and Cliff would shoot these great aerial pictures of the town growing, hanging out of this little plane,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, Clearwater took about 3,000 aerial photos of the community as it developed and grew. All of those pictures survived the Palisades Fire and are stored at the Santa Monica Library for the public to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1950, a rival paper — the Pacific Palisades Post — came on the scene and by the end of the next decade, the two papers would merge to become the Pali-Post that most people think of today.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A ‘heyday’ for community news\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The paper changed hands again in 1981 and a little over a decade later, Bruns began as editor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an average of about 30 pages to fill every week, he said what readers appreciated most was the focus on local news. Reporters went in person to cover stories and were often seen at local meetings, sports events and businesses.[aside postID=news_12068252 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_3022-2000x1500.jpg']“So they knew that they were getting firsthand coverage of what was happening in the town,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Readers like Sue Kohl who lived in the Palisades for 32 years, respected the breadth of its coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Post covered school sports her children participated in. She said it featured plenty of advertisements from neighborhood businesses, including her own real estate agency. She especially liked the small town bulletin feel of the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They talked about local issues. They talked about local residents, whether they were famous or not famous,” Kohl said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of her favorite sections to read was the “Two Cents” column, stray thoughts and opinions from Palisadians. She also appreciated the in-depth obituaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bruns said the obit section was always appreciated by the families since the paper didn’t charge for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Because we didn’t charge, people would write nice obituaries because they weren’t worried about the cost and they would give us a picture and we ran those,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068751\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The old “Pacific-Palisades Post” newsroom from Bruns’ time as editor. After 2013, it was converted into a real estate office by the new owner, which was subsequently lost to the fire. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Patricia Williams/ Bill Bruns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The paper was known for its responsiveness to the community. The staff took pitches from readers, Bruns said, and put the spotlight on Palisadians themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a “golden couples” column for anybody married for 50 years or more; a “young Palisadians” column for enterprising youngsters and a “people on the move” column for the movers and shakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper also announced the first birth in the community each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was kind of a cool thing to be the first baby in the Palisades. They gave them prizes like baby gifts and things. Very local, community driven, small town emphasis,” Kohl said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More than a paper\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That small town emphasis remained a constant.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Gabriella Bock was a reporter at the Pali-Post from 2016 to 2018. She said it her first real newsroom experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ We were a small, tight-knit news team of myself, a sports reporter and one other staff reporter,” Bock said. “So I was able to be taken under their wing and learn a lot in a short period of time.”[aside postID=news_12068653 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_6335.jpg']But the paper was more than just a place to work. When Bock got married, her fellow reporters wrote a marriage announcement in the paper. When she was pregnant, they threw her a baby shower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she heard about the paper closing its doors, she said it was heartbreaking. To Bock it’s not about being nostalgic or sentimental about a former workplace. She sees the giant hole the disappearance of another local newsroom can leave people with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s how people learn what’s happening on their block, in their schools, in their city, and when that disappears, people oftentimes will lose a reason to stay engaged at all,” said Bock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bruns echoes Bock’s sentiment. He saw the paper as a unifier of the community in his two-decade tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just made people feel more like they really liked their town, and the Palisades Post was a crucial element in that whole spirit of community,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kohl, whose home is more than halfway rebuilt, hopes that the spirit will return one day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last time she drove through her old neighborhood of The Alphabet Streets she saw several homes in the process of coming back up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have faith that we will all come back, and I hope that the newspaper finds that as well,” said Kohl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "After last January's devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, subscriptions and advertisers basically fell to zero, according to a memo announcing the Pali-Post's closure. \r\n",
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"title": "The Story Ends for a Nearly Century-Old Community Paper in the Pacific Palisades | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Palisadian-Post, the community paper that’s been covering the Pacific Palisades for nearly 100 years, printed its final issue on Christmas Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After January’s fires, subscriptions basically fell to zero, as did advertisers, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.palipost.com/a-note-of-grief-and-of-hope/\">memo\u003c/a> announcing the paper’s closure from owner Alan Smolinisky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But its end brings with it nearly a century of memories.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Post remembered\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seaside community of Pacific Palisades was founded by members of the Methodist church in 1922. Six years later, the first issue of what would become the Pali-Post was published to document town life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ A little 12-point, 12-page tabloid, they called the Palisadian” said\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Bill Bruns, a former editor of the Palisadian-Post from 1993 to 2013, and member of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. Before he was editor, Bruns was a loyal reader of the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068749\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/2nd-photo-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bill Bruns (back right) poses for a picture with the rest of the “Palisadian-Post” staff in 2013. \u003ccite>(Bill Bruns/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1934, the paper was purchased by Clifford Clearwater, one of the first settlers of the Palisades. Bruns said Clearwater had been an ambulance driver in World War I, and was the Palisades’s original postal carrier where he would deliver mail by horseback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn’t trained as a journalist, but his life experiences gave him the confidence to keep publishing the paper, serving as its photographer and editor until his death in 1956.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He had a friend who had a little plane and he would take Cliff up and Cliff would shoot these great aerial pictures of the town growing, hanging out of this little plane,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, Clearwater took about 3,000 aerial photos of the community as it developed and grew. All of those pictures survived the Palisades Fire and are stored at the Santa Monica Library for the public to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1950, a rival paper — the Pacific Palisades Post — came on the scene and by the end of the next decade, the two papers would merge to become the Pali-Post that most people think of today.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A ‘heyday’ for community news\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The paper changed hands again in 1981 and a little over a decade later, Bruns began as editor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an average of about 30 pages to fill every week, he said what readers appreciated most was the focus on local news. Reporters went in person to cover stories and were often seen at local meetings, sports events and businesses.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“So they knew that they were getting firsthand coverage of what was happening in the town,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Readers like Sue Kohl who lived in the Palisades for 32 years, respected the breadth of its coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Post covered school sports her children participated in. She said it featured plenty of advertisements from neighborhood businesses, including her own real estate agency. She especially liked the small town bulletin feel of the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They talked about local issues. They talked about local residents, whether they were famous or not famous,” Kohl said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of her favorite sections to read was the “Two Cents” column, stray thoughts and opinions from Palisadians. She also appreciated the in-depth obituaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bruns said the obit section was always appreciated by the families since the paper didn’t charge for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Because we didn’t charge, people would write nice obituaries because they weren’t worried about the cost and they would give us a picture and we ran those,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068751\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/newsroom-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The old “Pacific-Palisades Post” newsroom from Bruns’ time as editor. After 2013, it was converted into a real estate office by the new owner, which was subsequently lost to the fire. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Patricia Williams/ Bill Bruns)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The paper was known for its responsiveness to the community. The staff took pitches from readers, Bruns said, and put the spotlight on Palisadians themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a “golden couples” column for anybody married for 50 years or more; a “young Palisadians” column for enterprising youngsters and a “people on the move” column for the movers and shakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper also announced the first birth in the community each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was kind of a cool thing to be the first baby in the Palisades. They gave them prizes like baby gifts and things. Very local, community driven, small town emphasis,” Kohl said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More than a paper\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That small town emphasis remained a constant.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Gabriella Bock was a reporter at the Pali-Post from 2016 to 2018. She said it her first real newsroom experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ We were a small, tight-knit news team of myself, a sports reporter and one other staff reporter,” Bock said. “So I was able to be taken under their wing and learn a lot in a short period of time.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the paper was more than just a place to work. When Bock got married, her fellow reporters wrote a marriage announcement in the paper. When she was pregnant, they threw her a baby shower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she heard about the paper closing its doors, she said it was heartbreaking. To Bock it’s not about being nostalgic or sentimental about a former workplace. She sees the giant hole the disappearance of another local newsroom can leave people with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s how people learn what’s happening on their block, in their schools, in their city, and when that disappears, people oftentimes will lose a reason to stay engaged at all,” said Bock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bruns echoes Bock’s sentiment. He saw the paper as a unifier of the community in his two-decade tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just made people feel more like they really liked their town, and the Palisades Post was a crucial element in that whole spirit of community,” Bruns said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kohl, whose home is more than halfway rebuilt, hopes that the spirit will return one day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last time she drove through her old neighborhood of The Alphabet Streets she saw several homes in the process of coming back up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have faith that we will all come back, and I hope that the newspaper finds that as well,” said Kohl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "sierra-madre-blooming-after-eaton-fire-thanks-firefighters-with-rose-parade",
"title": "Sierra Madre, Flourishing After Eaton Fire, Thanks Firefighters With Rose Parade Float",
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"headTitle": "Sierra Madre, Flourishing After Eaton Fire, Thanks Firefighters With Rose Parade Float | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>With just weeks to go before the Tournament of Roses Parade, the noise level — and stress level — were rising at a warehouse in the foothill town of Sierra Madre, just north of Pasadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I woke up and I was like, in panic mode,” florist and longtime Sierra Madre Rose Float Association volunteer Ann McKenzie said. “(From now) until Jan. 2nd, our world is totally absorbed. We’re in a float-driven world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKenzie is part of the small, core group of year-round volunteer float builders. As lead florist and project coordinator, her job is arguably one of the most important: overseeing the float’s overall floral design and purchasing all of the flowers that will carpet its massive 53-foot long frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this afternoon, amid a din of welding torches, electric saws and booming classic rock music, McKenzie and other volunteers haggled over those design ideas, crunching the numbers on flower purchases and crunching peanut shells for use on the float.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_3025-scaled-e1766436157234.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068256\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_3025-scaled-e1766436157234.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the middle of the wide float deck sits a life-sized, replica firetruck built from scrap wood and metal. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of the more than three dozen floats covered in flowers that’ll be rolling through the city of Pasadena on New Years Day, only five are built by community groups like Sierra Madre. They’ve been building floats for the parade for 108 years, and this year’s theme is special: the float celebrates first responders and the role they played in protecting Sierra Madre from January’s deadly Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The theme this year is the magic in teamwork and that encapsulates exactly what we are, because we are volunteer run and donation driven,” said the association’s social media chief, and volunteer coordinator Hannah Jungbauer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are one of the towns that lost houses during the Eaton Canyon fire, and this is a nod and homage to the brave people that helped put out those fires,” Jungbauer said, adding that the crew is walking a fine line between whimsy and respectful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this summer, the float was still just a raw skeleton of steel rebar, wire meshing and wood framing. But by early December, playfully surreal imagery began to emerge.[aside postID=news_12043312 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/CLAIRE-SCHWARTZ-L-AND-NINA-RAJ-WITH-A-CHILD_S-DRAWING-RECOVERED-BY-RAJ-AFTER-THE-EATON-FIRE-KQED-1020x765.jpg']On one end of the float, there’s a 9-foot maple syrup bottle with a firehose attached to the top. On the other end, a butter dish the size of a Mini Cooper and a 9-foot stack of pancakes. McKenzie said the faux flapjacks will be sprayed in a flowered shower of faux pancake syrup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As it’s pouring out, it becomes floral and it becomes chocolate roses, coffee break roses and different types of mum [flowers]‘s and it’s just kind of flowing over the side,” McKenzie explained. “It’s going to be really beautiful syrup, it’s going to be a lot!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the middle of the wide float deck sits a life-sized, replica firetruck built from scrap wood and metal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody knows the firehouse pancake breakfast and it’s always a positive fun event,” lead builder Kurt Kulhavy said. We were able to acknowledge our firefighters [with this design] and do it in a very positive and fun way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also going to be completely dismantled shortly after the float’s big day on New Year’s morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell people it’s the biggest piñata you’ll ever build, that] needs to last for a day,” Kulhavy said. “We tear it down every year! The Rose Parade is the Olympics of float building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the only parts not scrapped or sold off each year are the float’s engine and chassis. This year’s version is also a bit more ambitious in size and scope than in years past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_2881-scaled-e1766436574141.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_2881-scaled-e1766436574141.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068258\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The vision for the final product of Sierra Madre’s Rose Parade Float. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jungbauer says that means more flowers, more flax seeds and other organic materials used to cover and colorize the float. Everything parade watchers see on New Year’s Day should be edible, otherwise you’ll get dinged by Rose Committee judges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can see it on a float, you can eat it. If it’s not a fresh floral, you can eat it,” explained Jungbauer. “It will be sushi paper for eyeballs, rice with a nice pearlescent to emulate plastic, or it will be silver leaf that we’re cutting up to show chrome. Everything must be 100% covered in organic material, be it dried or alive,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Trump administration tariffs leading to spikes in the cost of rose float building essentials like flowers and steel, that’s led to some creative short-cutting. Sierra Madre often trades flowers, scrap wood or other materials with the handful of DIY, volunteer-driven float builders, like the nearby communities of South Pasadena and La Cañada-Flintridge, none of whom have corporate funding or sponsorships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some organizations have endowments that fund them, some have city funding, we don’t have any of that,” Kulhavy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said commercially built Rose Parade floats probably cost around $400,000. He’s heard of other makers scraping pennies together to complete a build for around $120,000.[aside postID=news_12033286 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250312_Stay-Behinds_JB_00010-1020x680.jpg']“We do ours for like $50,000. And so, you use building techniques which are very efficient, (but) still have to hold up,” Kulhavy explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[We] still have to get through the parade, still have to pass all the safety inspections. We get very lean on our materials to make it hold up well, but no extra,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Kulhavy’s trusted mechanics is Justin Roberts. At 19 years old, Roberts is already a float building veteran. His grandparents, who were also volunteer float builders, brought him to the Sierra Madre warehouse as a toddler. Soon enough, he began doing odd jobs like sweeping up the warehouse. This year he’s not only helping build the float from the bottom up, he’s also the co-driver on parade day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roberts says he’s grown accustomed to working on the float through New Year’s Eve and into the wee hours of New Year’s Day, until it’s nearly time to embark on the 5-mile Rose Parade route. Then he’d go home, catch a few hours of shuteye, and watch the parade on TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve never seen it in person,” Roberts said. “It’s going to be awesome. You see the crowd along Colorado Boulevard, you know, a lot of people come from far away to see the Rose Parade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And given the theme of Sierra Madre’s float this year, Roberts is an inspired choice to take the wheel as co-driver. He’s studying to become a California wildland firefighter, and hopes to begin his career next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>With just weeks to go before the Tournament of Roses Parade, the noise level — and stress level — were rising at a warehouse in the foothill town of Sierra Madre, just north of Pasadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I woke up and I was like, in panic mode,” florist and longtime Sierra Madre Rose Float Association volunteer Ann McKenzie said. “(From now) until Jan. 2nd, our world is totally absorbed. We’re in a float-driven world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKenzie is part of the small, core group of year-round volunteer float builders. As lead florist and project coordinator, her job is arguably one of the most important: overseeing the float’s overall floral design and purchasing all of the flowers that will carpet its massive 53-foot long frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this afternoon, amid a din of welding torches, electric saws and booming classic rock music, McKenzie and other volunteers haggled over those design ideas, crunching the numbers on flower purchases and crunching peanut shells for use on the float.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_3025-scaled-e1766436157234.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068256\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_3025-scaled-e1766436157234.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the middle of the wide float deck sits a life-sized, replica firetruck built from scrap wood and metal. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of the more than three dozen floats covered in flowers that’ll be rolling through the city of Pasadena on New Years Day, only five are built by community groups like Sierra Madre. They’ve been building floats for the parade for 108 years, and this year’s theme is special: the float celebrates first responders and the role they played in protecting Sierra Madre from January’s deadly Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The theme this year is the magic in teamwork and that encapsulates exactly what we are, because we are volunteer run and donation driven,” said the association’s social media chief, and volunteer coordinator Hannah Jungbauer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are one of the towns that lost houses during the Eaton Canyon fire, and this is a nod and homage to the brave people that helped put out those fires,” Jungbauer said, adding that the crew is walking a fine line between whimsy and respectful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this summer, the float was still just a raw skeleton of steel rebar, wire meshing and wood framing. But by early December, playfully surreal imagery began to emerge.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On one end of the float, there’s a 9-foot maple syrup bottle with a firehose attached to the top. On the other end, a butter dish the size of a Mini Cooper and a 9-foot stack of pancakes. McKenzie said the faux flapjacks will be sprayed in a flowered shower of faux pancake syrup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As it’s pouring out, it becomes floral and it becomes chocolate roses, coffee break roses and different types of mum [flowers]‘s and it’s just kind of flowing over the side,” McKenzie explained. “It’s going to be really beautiful syrup, it’s going to be a lot!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the middle of the wide float deck sits a life-sized, replica firetruck built from scrap wood and metal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody knows the firehouse pancake breakfast and it’s always a positive fun event,” lead builder Kurt Kulhavy said. We were able to acknowledge our firefighters [with this design] and do it in a very positive and fun way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also going to be completely dismantled shortly after the float’s big day on New Year’s morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell people it’s the biggest piñata you’ll ever build, that] needs to last for a day,” Kulhavy said. “We tear it down every year! The Rose Parade is the Olympics of float building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the only parts not scrapped or sold off each year are the float’s engine and chassis. This year’s version is also a bit more ambitious in size and scope than in years past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_2881-scaled-e1766436574141.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/IMG_2881-scaled-e1766436574141.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068258\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The vision for the final product of Sierra Madre’s Rose Parade Float. \u003ccite>(Steven Cuevas/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jungbauer says that means more flowers, more flax seeds and other organic materials used to cover and colorize the float. Everything parade watchers see on New Year’s Day should be edible, otherwise you’ll get dinged by Rose Committee judges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can see it on a float, you can eat it. If it’s not a fresh floral, you can eat it,” explained Jungbauer. “It will be sushi paper for eyeballs, rice with a nice pearlescent to emulate plastic, or it will be silver leaf that we’re cutting up to show chrome. Everything must be 100% covered in organic material, be it dried or alive,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Trump administration tariffs leading to spikes in the cost of rose float building essentials like flowers and steel, that’s led to some creative short-cutting. Sierra Madre often trades flowers, scrap wood or other materials with the handful of DIY, volunteer-driven float builders, like the nearby communities of South Pasadena and La Cañada-Flintridge, none of whom have corporate funding or sponsorships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some organizations have endowments that fund them, some have city funding, we don’t have any of that,” Kulhavy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said commercially built Rose Parade floats probably cost around $400,000. He’s heard of other makers scraping pennies together to complete a build for around $120,000.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We do ours for like $50,000. And so, you use building techniques which are very efficient, (but) still have to hold up,” Kulhavy explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[We] still have to get through the parade, still have to pass all the safety inspections. We get very lean on our materials to make it hold up well, but no extra,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Kulhavy’s trusted mechanics is Justin Roberts. At 19 years old, Roberts is already a float building veteran. His grandparents, who were also volunteer float builders, brought him to the Sierra Madre warehouse as a toddler. Soon enough, he began doing odd jobs like sweeping up the warehouse. This year he’s not only helping build the float from the bottom up, he’s also the co-driver on parade day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roberts says he’s grown accustomed to working on the float through New Year’s Eve and into the wee hours of New Year’s Day, until it’s nearly time to embark on the 5-mile Rose Parade route. Then he’d go home, catch a few hours of shuteye, and watch the parade on TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve never seen it in person,” Roberts said. “It’s going to be awesome. You see the crowd along Colorado Boulevard, you know, a lot of people come from far away to see the Rose Parade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And given the theme of Sierra Madre’s float this year, Roberts is an inspired choice to take the wheel as co-driver. He’s studying to become a California wildland firefighter, and hopes to begin his career next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
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"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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},
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
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"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
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"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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