LA Squawk Box for Friday, October 9, 2026

Want to wield real power on homeless services? Get to this 11 a.m. meeting. Operation Skid Row touted by a DTLA residents group and Joey Tuccio called a publicity stunt by LACAN. And more.

What’s happening today?

Want real power in helping to decide who gets to lead homeless services in Los Angeles County? Get over to this 11 a.m. meeting today (it’s virtual too)

UPDATE: The meeting was IMMEDIATELY adjourned, and the audience was told that the Zoom capacity of 1,000 was reached and they were not able to take up the agenda items because of that. There is expected to be another meeting scheduled, but the CoC chairs and their attorneys did not offer immediate details on that. The Los Angeles Continuum of Care board later issued a statement (full text below and here) that in part read, “Today’s meeting was meant to be the final step of the court-ordered process, but it could not continue because the online platform had reached capacity, which would have prevented additional members from casting their votes. In order to ensure transparency and participation, the items were continued and will be re-noticed as quickly as possible.”

There is a big meeting at 11 a.m. about a big topic – homelessness – that most of us in Los Angeles County are probably able to participate in. Yet not that many people even know about it. It’s a key meeting of an extremely obscure body called the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, which might potentially include most of the people in Los Angeles County (though we may not even know it!), where we could potentially have real power to help decide who will take on some incredibly important leadership roles for tackling homelessness in Los Angeles.

The reason those leadership roles are up for grabs is because the Trump Administration recently ordered the suspension of federal funding for the joint powers authority that has been in charge of homeless services delivery for the last three decades — the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which the federal government accused of failures and mismanaging homeless services (although some will view this as political targeting).

The LA city and county governments – which don’t always get along – had been the two big halves of that joint powers authority. But they’re going through a divorce and custody battle of sorts, right now, in which they’re each separately competing against each other to apply for some of the most key lead roles, as LAHSA prepares to exit the scene.

So to figure out if this is a meeting you are meant to be at and participate in, just answer this question: Are you someone who is “interested in collaborative, solution-oriented planning to address homelessness in LA County (with the exception of Glendale, Long Beach, and Pasadena)”?

If you are, then you can participate – no, actually, let’s go further – you can vote on recommendations on the agenda, because you would be part of the “general membership” of the Los Angeles Continuum of Care that’s holding a meeting at 11 a.m. today. You can do this by going in person to the meeting in downtown Los Angeles, or you can attend online (details are in the agenda and at the end of this section).

One of the lead roles you would be deciding on is who will be in charge of conducting the annual “point-in-time” homeless count – to name a well-known one that gets endlessly covered by “the media” and that elected officials tend to fixate on because it affects their track record (it often serves a report-card role, however much you have doubts about the count methodologies).

But also, there are a couple of actually important roles that unhoused people in particular could care the most about, especially if you’ve scratched your head to figure out the the rhyme and reason of how LAHSA decided whether you got certain services or placed into housing. And maybe especially critically, you could be deciding at this meeting who gets to handle the often sensitive information that you’re giving to homeless services providers as you apply for services and housing.

And if you’re wondering why you’re hearing about this so late, you might not be the only one. Some people only found out about it when they got a non-election “get out of the vote” (GOTV!) text blast from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s office urging people to vote AGAINST recommendations to hand over the reins to Los Angeles County.

The blast mentioned that the city (which is the government entity Bass is part of) had asked for shared responsibility. It argued that giving the responsibilities of managing cases and deciding how people got housing or services, solely to the county, would boot the city of Los Angeles – where the majority unhoused community live – out of the leadership roles it had for decades now and that the city should have because of the outsized responsibilities it undertakes to address homelessness (including building housing and shelter).

The text blast said, “Given 62% of the County’s unhoused population lives in the City of Los Angeles, the City needs to be able to directly control and be accountable for the operational responsibility of this new Continuum of Care administration replacing LAHSA.”

But perhaps most intriguingly, it said, “You have the chance to ensure this new system includes shared roles and responsibility guaranteeing better transparency and accountability. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD by joining the COC meeting either in-person or online and VOTING NO on Items 1.2 and 1.3.”

Woah, we can vote? That’s quite some news there.

Voting in favor of the items that the mayor’s office pointed to would designate to the county the two actually important roles of 1) case management and 2) deciding the criteria and process for how housing and services are even decided for people. City officials say no, they want to do those things (the city did not apply for a lead role that involves applying for federal funding).

And here is who is the favored candidate, and it’s not LA city, which didn’t get recommended for the two really important roles it wanted. A panel that was evaluating the applications for the Los Angeles Continuum of Care board (which is a smaller panel of people mostly from services providers organizations) had scored the county the highest on their applications. They’re set to present their evaluations to the courts, which is in the midst of this due to ongoing litigation related to the Trump Administration’s effort to suspend LAHSA’s funding, and to the federal government, namely the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

But should people vote for LA city or LA county to have those roles? The push isn’t being done for that with much fanfare, and with less of the rah rah sis boom bah spirit of the mayor’s office, at least not publicly.

Last evening, Los Angeles County posted a bare-bones message on social media saying that, “Friday, October 9th is an important day for all LA County residents and entities interested in collaborative, solutions-oriented planning to address homelessness.” They then shared the 11a.m. time of the meeting and a link to information about how to attend the meeting.

Finally, most people who could be voting at this meeting will likely learn about it after the fact, but if you happen to be the lucky few, there is some background information, posted on the Los Angeles Continuum of Care website, that goes into how applicants scored that shows that LA County is going into this meeting with the highest score on all four of their applications, for whatever that is worth (we got a straight-A student, here!). But even then, many people at the meeting earlier this week where the scores were discussed raised concerns that there was not enough information about how those scores were even reached.

If you are unsure what to make of the city and county, I consulted governance expert and longtime observer of LA politics, Raphe Sonenshein, on the cultural differences between the two government entities and how that plays into this governance contest. He explained the different jurisdictional roles that might drive some of those differences, while also explaining what the city and county might each be best at doing. Sonenshein, notably, said that ultimately the two need to be working together.

Those who want to attend today’s 11 a.m. meeting virtually need to register via the Zoom here. People who want to attend in-person would need to get themselves to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority 1st floor commission meeting room at 637 Wilshire Boulevard. That’s just right next to the 7th/Metro train station, if searching desperately for parking isn’t you’re thing, or you have the option to take public transit.

Full text of the statement from the Los Angeles Continuum of Care board, on the LA Continuum of Care’s general membership’s 11 a.m. meeting on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026 ending, before any of the agenda items could be taken up:

LA Continuum of Care Board Statement on Continuation of Today’s General Membership Meeting

Today, LA CoC was fully prepared to hold a vote to replace LAHSA, who had been designated by the LA CoC to perform important roles in the region’s homelessness response system. The process to select new entities was handled via a public and transparent procurement process with independent reviewer scoring. The vote had to be continued today to ensure that all LA CoC members would be able to participate, given an unexpectedly high number of individuals who joined the online meeting.

The need to replace LAHSA came after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended LAHSA, preventing it from continuing to perform those roles, and a federal court order from Judge Carter requiring the LA CoC to accept applications for other entities to take on those responsibilities. Those roles include submitting the region’s consolidated application for federal funding, coordinating the homeless count, overseeing the region’s homelessness data, and matching unhoused people with available housing. Today’s meeting was meant to be the final step of the court-ordered process, but it could not continue because the online platform had reached capacity, which would have prevented additional members from casting their votes. In order to ensure transparency and participation, the items were continued and will be re-noticed as quickly as possible.

The LA CoC will continue to work diligently to comply with Judge Carter’s strict deadlines and preserve the LA region’s ability to control and prioritize available federal homelessness funds.

What just happened?

A raid called Operation Skid Row touted by powerful officials as shutting down drug dealing disrupted and "terrorized” a larger community, says LACAN

A gaggle of federal and local officials partnered on “Operation Skid Row,” which depending on who you talk to was either a great thing and something that was much needed, or an incredibly disruptive “political publicity stunt” by not only the Trump Administration but also local officials that ultimately terrorizes the Skid Row community. You can read the coverage by the LA Times here.

“You guys! Oh my god, I just got a message and they’re doing a huge sweep on Skid Row right now, so I’m racing to Skid Row right now. It’s on the news. There’s so many arrests. Oh my god! Oh my god!” Joey Tuccio said in a post Thursday morning with a caption that read, “It’s happening!!” He thought the operation was a great thing.

And Cassy Horton, a founder of DTLARA (a group of people who live in downtown Los Angeles), also welcomed the operation, writing that, “This is a big deal for public safety and compassionate care and support for the most vulnerable people living Downtown and in Skid Row.”

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Community Action Network posted that several SRO buildings where disabled people and formerly unhoused residents live were raided as part of the operation. And they did NOT think this was a good thing that has happened.

The group posted on their Instagram page that “Skid Row residents demand dignified treatment, not armed forces shutting down our streets and homes at the request of opportunistic politicians.” They said that they expect “tall tales” to be spread about what happened. Instead, they wrote, “Skid Row residents know that public safety comes from making sure people have decent quality permanent housing, access to healthcare, nutritious food, and clean water, and non-abusive sanitation services.”

The office of LA City Council member Ysabel Jurado — whose constituents consist of people across the spectrum on how they feel about the operation — sent out a press release that says the council member was calling for an “urgent briefing, verifying conditions with community partners and identifying resources for affected residents.”

Her office was also “seeking answers from law enforcement, checking conditions with residents and community partners, and identifying assistance for those affected,” the press release said.

In a statement directly attributed to the council member, Jurado explained that “reports that Skid Row residents are being prevented from returning to their tents and accessing their belongings are deeply concerning.

“People must be able to access essential medication, medical equipment, and care, and residents deserve clear information about restrictions affecting their homes and safety.”

Her office’s press release also said that while law enforcement has described the operation “as targeting drug trafficking” that doesn’t mean that this “stated purpose” removes “the responsibility to protect residents’ rights and well-being.”

“I am calling on the agencies involved to explain the scope of these restrictions and ensure there is a safe process for residents to obtain essential belongings and reach services,” Jurado’s statement said. “Skid Row residents deserve protection from exploitation and violence, and they deserve dignity and accountability from the institutions responsible for their safety.”

A couple more things…

The Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance is hosting a “conversation with the candidates for City Council in District 9, Estuardo Mazariegos and Jose Ugarte” on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 6:30 p.m., that will revolve around the topic of sustainability. It’s happening on Zoom and there will be Spanish interpretation, which is thanks to funding from the Voices Neighborhood Council, according to alliance’s regular newsletter that you can subscribe to here. The candidate forum info and registration page is here.

And a pro-Nithya Raman independent expenditure committee, Estamos con Nithya, released poll results on Thursday that puts the council member, Raman, 10 points ahead of Mayor Karen Bass in the mayor’s race. You can read the memo here.