Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) was honored for its outstanding leadership in addressing women’s homelessness. DWC, along with esteemed partners Angel […more…]

The Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) is the only organization in Los Angeles exclusively focused on serving and empowering women experiencing […more…]

Of the more than 66,000 unhoused people living on Los Angeles County’s streets, over 20,000 are women.  One of them […more…]

At Step Up, which offers permanent supportive housing to the unhoused in Los Angeles, eviction is not an option. Instead […more…]

For years, Los Angeles police have been challenged by how to respond to calls about unhoused Angelenos. Then came CIRCLE, […more…]

The 2013 murder of an 8-year-old named Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother and her partner, dominated the headlines of the Los Angeles Times and every other news outlet in the region. Outraged, the County Board of Supervisors empaneled a Blue Ribbon Commission to make recommendations to improve the county’s sprawling child welfare system. One called on child-serving public agencies to partner with philanthropy. Philanthropy stepped up with one of its most prominent cheerleaders, Wendy Garen, the longtime President and CEO of The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. In the near decade since, Garen, with partners across philanthropy and [...more...]

Growing up in the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles, Bobby Grace’s parents fervently hoped he would become a doctor. Upon taking math and chemistry at UCLA, Grace realized that was not a likely path for him. Then he wandered into a political science class and discovered a different calling. Three years later, Grace was elected Undergraduate Student Body President of UCLA. Upon graduating, he saw his friends head off to law school; feeling compelled to continue to use his leadership skills for public service, he followed suit. Today, Grace works in the L.A. County DA’s office as the Assistant [...more...]

(Editor’s note: This story is being co-published with Impact Alpha.) As a parting challenge to his successor, outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced in April the settlement of a longstanding lawsuit over homeless housing. Their responses to the homelessness crisis may well determine the winner of next week’s primary election for mayor of the nation’s second-largest city. The frontrunners are Rick Caruso, a successful developer, and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, who made Joe Biden’s short list for vice president. The legal agreement, if ratified by the City Council and the presiding judge, will compel the city to move 60% of its nearly 29,000 [...more...]

The American tax code favors the generous by offering significant financial benefit to those that give to charity. On the […more…]

As told to Daniel Heimpel Since 2004, Antonia Hernández has led the California Community Foundation (CCF). Over those nearly two […more…]

Redeploying charitable foundation investments could be the needed difference in stemming a homegrown humanitarian crisis. Ricardo Barron just started his shift at the “tiny home village” on a traffic-choked Alvarado Street in Echo Park.  He is sitting at a steel table, an umbrella shielding the already hot L.A. sun. Behind him are 38 neatly spaced 64-square foot shelters. Inside each is a man or woman who has found succor from the ravages of the street. Most are sleeping, it’s early yet.  Nearly three decades before, and about a mile south of here, a then-21-year-old Barron got into an altercation outside [...more...]

Susan Dempsey’s son Mark was in college when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The illness changed his life, causing him […more…]

The mission of LA Family Housing can be summed up in one sentence, according to President and CEO Stephanie Klasky-Gamer: […more…]

From its roots as a shelter for adolescent Latinos in 1989, Jovenes has become a leading provider of support services […more…]