Landless in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Mayor’s race between incumbent Karen Ruth Bass and District 4 Councilwoman-challenger candidate Nithya Raman largely boils down to nuances in their homelessness strategies. Bass’ signature Citywide Inside Safe program “ISP” and Raman’s single CD4 hotel shelter site, Highland Gardens “HLG,” their respective interim housing programs, are, by most measures, quite similar. Exclusive da...

LA Alliance for Human Rights claims to hold the “homeless(ness) industrial system” accountable, a mission that appeals to the majority of people in Los Angeles, (espescially readers of @ roofless !) regardless of housing status. Audit The Government recently wrote about a City defense attorney’s conflict-of-interest in the LA Alliance case, claiming on a Substack livestream that homeless people ar...

This article was written by Ruth , who lives on the streets of LA. 🆘 Councilwoman Nithya Raman has targeted me for yet another sweep on Monday, 8/3 🚜 Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. 🚐 If you can help move my belongings into a van on Sunday 8/2 after 5pm, I would really appreciate it! 📦 ✍️ Edited by Zachary Ellison , who was displaced by...

Homeless people of Los Angeles “audited” #LAAllianceforHumanRights. We discovered a back-dated amendment to the City’s 2022 settlement agreement which essentially put bounties on our dwellings. For the City and County of LA to comply with LA Alliance for Human Rights’ 2022 settlement agreement, the City and County must make certain data available to court monitors selected by U.S. Judge David O. C...

With her face framed by giant Labubus, and possibly a Funko figurine wearing a colorful hat, Mayoral candidate and District 4 Councilwoman Nithya Raman sat side-by-side with popular Los Angeles-based Twitch streamer Hasan Piker to promote the Council District 4-elect’s late decision to launch her own Mayoral Campaign. UPDATES: * Last updated 9 hours ago: The New York Times has the latest analysis...

I’m Ruth and I live outside in Los Angeles. This article follows-up on one I wrote in October 2023: 🔗 All data is linked at the end of the article, so you can check it out and draw your own conclusions! Please let me know what you think in a comment. 66% of people who enrolled in Inside Safe are indoors. 4,994 Participant Statuses: * 3,305 indoors * 1,606 outside * 83 deceased Nearly 5,000 people...

70-year-old Benito Flores uses a square frame in his tidy, green front yard as a mini-billboard to oppose state violence: “KEEP FAMILIES TOGETHER.” —Reclaimer Benito Flores’ sign PRESS RELEASE Mr. Flores has no rent debt. He has no behavioral issues. He has a codified right to purchase the home he’s occupied for over five years, which he would like to rightfully own. With all of these factors in h...

I’m Ruth roofless . I’ve been unsheltered in the City of Los Angeles continuously since 2017. I write about corruption and housing policy from the streets and host live Displacement X Spaces discussions on Sundays at 7pm PST on Twitter, where I’m @rooflesser. Federal Housing Choice Vouchers “HCVs”, also called “Section 8” are our country’s #1 “safety net” against mass homelessness. In the City of...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com

I’m Ruth and I’ve been living in public in the City of Los Angeles for around eight years. I’m one of Ava’s many advocates (including Ava herself!) trying to facilitate her transition into sustainable, dignified housing. For those who participate in the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Count , which has been delayed for one month because of the #LAfires, Ava V. may be a mark on a tally sheet or a tap in a...

The passage of County Measure A in the November elections committed an estimated $1 billion in additional sales tax revenue for homelessness services and affordable housing initiatives. Two bodies now exist to administer these funds, which will be available for collection on April 1, 2025 (no joke!) with the first tranche of funding entering government accounts sometime in June 2025. In approving...

Los Angeles City council member Nithya Raman sat resolutely and declared in City Administrative Officer “CAO” Matt Szabo’s Homeless Strategy Committee meeting on December 9th to staffers from the Housing Department (LAHD), Housing Authority “The HACLA,” and Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) that she wanted: “a map of encampments” with an overlay of outreach teams. Moments before, Chief City Legi...

“Somehow at some point” parts 1 and 2 were originally published together by CityWatchLA in their newsletter on December 5th, 2024. I’m Ruth @roofless and I write about homelessness and housing in the City of Los Angeles. I’ve lived on the streets here continuously for seven years and first experienced displacement in 2003. I write a Substack series with USC whistleblower Zachary Ellison about the...

“Somehow at some point” parts 1 and 2 were originally published together by CityWatchLA in their newsletter on December 5th, 2024. I’m Ruth @roofless and I write about homelessness and housing in the City of Los Angeles. I’ve lived on the streets here continuously for seven years and first experienced displacement in 2003. I write a Substack series with USC whistleblower Zachary Ellison about the...

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved by a vote of 4-0-1 a motion to study the feasibility of creating a new homelessness response agency on November 26, right before the Thanksgiving holiday. As noted by Los Angeles Times journalist Doug Smith writing on the notable approval, the County Chief Executive Office under Fesia Davenport will need to produce: “a feasibility report in 60 d...

Finding housing in Los Angeles isn’t easy, much less finding the perfect units for potential tenants within a building. At the City Administrative Officer’s (CAO) pivotal Homeless Strategy Committee meeting on Thursday, November 7, Assistant City Administrative Officer Edwin Gipson remarked that he felt like he was “looking for unicorns” in making placements. Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe...

“keep talking about me” 19-year old Mohammad “Moe” (he/him) has enchanted the cat-loving Internet with a gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride involving his aloof ragdoll cat, Leo, as they dodge quadcopters and IDF tanks in Gaza. In September, Moe’s cat, Leo (to whom Moe refers using both he/him and she/her pronouns, sometimes within the same tweet) was injured in his eye and leg while outside on the s...

The City of Los Angeles is in deep trouble, and all the finger-pointing in the world won’t solve it, much less presentations and proclamations. Los Angeles City Hall is a world away from Agoura Hills where developer Izek Shomof was recently cited on October 21, for violating Los Angeles County building codes in converting outbuildings for residential occupancy. According to electronic records prov...

“Leadership in L.A., someone is going to have to fall on a big, fat grenade to really change the way housing is produced,” read the quote from “economist and co-director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness,” Jason Ward, in the Los Angeles Times story by journalists Doug Smith and Liam Dillon. Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Repea...

“The City of Los Angeles is undoubtedly going broke,” warned Controller Kenneth Mejia on September 26 in social media posts on Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter: “In the last year, the City has spent HALF its RESERVES,” he wrote, noting that: Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. “Just ONE year ago, the Reserve Fund was historically stro...

$100/hour for 10 continuous years One of the Los Angeles Police Department’s many overtime sources amounts to 88,353 hours, or 10 continuous years of 24/7 overtime at $8.36M. The account, earmarked for housing and services for homeless people, seems to keep replenishing, only to get diverted away from the intended unhoused recipients again. At a generous rate of $94.62 per hour, LAPD siphons OT fr...

Newsom on the News, MRod: “a noose” At the beginning of August, Governor Gavin Newsom materialized under I-5 to help Caltrans abate an unremarkable pile of litter. Taking the “sweep” assignment literally, he was filmed flourishing an actual broom before tossing it atop a modest trash heap, where it landed next to a sun-faded American flag throw pillow. Later, he’d grandstand to a FOX News reporter...

“The VA is doing everything possible to help veterans and their families remain in their homes…” — Veteran Sarah Kallassy in a video that appeared on the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ official YouTube channel three weeks ago. On Friday, September 6, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter’s decisive opinion in Powers v. McDonough firmly reiterated the legal foundations that grant disabled veteran...