Latest news with #Angeleno
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. homeless population drops again. And yes, there's reason for hope
For nearly two decades, an official count confirmed what all of us could see: more and more people living on sidewalks, streets and other marginal spaces all over Los Angeles County. So it felt like only good news this week when the county's homeless agency announced a 4% decline in the homeless population and a 10% decline in those living in the street. To go a bit deeper than the numbers, I got hold of my colleague, Doug Smith. A deep thinker who's covered every big story in L.A., Doug has become The Times' foremost expert on homelessness. Here's what the essential Doug Smith had to say: What did you make of the latest figures? I expected it. I drive around a lot, as does [City Hall reporter] Dave Zahniser. We both have seen the difference made by [the city's] Inside Safe and [the county's] Pathway Home programs. Many of the largest encampments have been eliminated. Should we be hopeful that L.A. is finally tackling this problem? The [city and county] programs are very expensive and are barely two years old. The big question is how much more they will be able to expand, or even maintain the number of hotel and motel beds they now have. Does Mayor Karen Bass, or any other individual or group, deserve credit for this decline? She does, but she's not the only one. One of the most important initiatives is Housing for Health, a program created by L.A. County Department of Health Services when Mitch Katz was running it. It targets frequent users of the public health system. Judge Carter has forced the county to create 3,000 new mental health beds (still in the works). [California Community Foundation Chief Executive] Miguel Santana is now on the newly-created housing board that will be Proposition HHH on steroids. Janey Rountree at the California Policy Lab at UCLA has done more than anyone else to make usable information out of the oozing mash of data coming out of homeless services agencies and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. What are a few things that will be needed to keep moving people off the street? We are finally, mercifully, moving beyond the ideology of 'Housing First' as the one and only solution. The system has improved, but is still stuck in the binary thinking of interim vs. permanent housing. When you visit encampments, you quickly identify people for whom neither of those is the right first step. Some need detox and drug treatment, some long-term mental health treatment and some jail. The first two are woefully scarce, so they tend to all end up in jail. There are several valiant private enterprises out there trying to figure out a conventional financing model to build affordable housing. I hope they figure it out. Is there anything the average Angeleno can do? They can pat themselves on the back already for doubling the sales tax. Even if the recent trend continues, it's going to be a long way to 'Problem solved!' Try to be equally empathetic with the people living on the street and the people whose houses and businesses they live in front of. Finally, don't be too harsh in judging those in positions of responsibility who have made only incremental progress. Yes, they're imperfect. But all they have is local levers to budge a problem that has macro social and economic causes. The 2025 Emmy nominations have been announced. The best comedy category is stacked, with fan favorites including 'Abbott Elementary' and 'The Bear.' Who should win? Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. On July 17, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew continued their historic journey to the moon, which launched from NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. the day before. On July 20, two of its astronauts became the first people to step on the surface of the moon. For the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, The Times measured the mission by heartbeat. Jim Rainey, staff writerDiamy Wang, homepage internIzzy Nunes, audience internKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
Eater
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
Susanna MacManus, Longtime Owner of LA's Original Taqueria Cielito Lindo, Dies at Age 82
Susanna MacManus, a co-owner of Olvera Street institutions taquería Cielito Lindo and restaurant Las Anitas, died in her sleep at the age of 82 on Wednesday, June 25, due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. For decades, MacManus — a second-generation Angeleno — was the face of Cielito Lindo, a taqueria where most people would order the combination number one — an order of two beef taquitos drowned in a complex avocado salsa and a side of refried beans with melted cheese. Just after the founding of the city of Los Angeles in the 1780s, the area that became known as Olvera Street (Placita Olvera) was a thriving commercial hub until the 1920s, when it began to decline. Los Angeles socialite Christine Sterling led the revival of the area in 1930. It was there that McManus's grandmother Aurora Guerrero eventually opened a small retail shop on Placita Olvera and later sold food out of a neighboring stall. Guerrero, who immigrated from Huanusco, Zacatecas, arrived in Los Angeles with her children to search for her husband, a bracero who had come to the U.S. three years prior. Sterling asked her to come up with a different recipe than what was being served at other restaurants on the street, and Guerrero settled on taquitos covered in her original avocado sauce. The dish earned her the chance to open Cielito Lindo in 1934, named after a Mexican folk song popularized by the great mariachi singers. As for the taquitos, their rise to fame was swift in a segregated Los Angeles, where many white Angelenos and tourists alike got their first taste of Mexican culture. Taco USA author Gustavo Arellano has argued that this was the birthplace of America's interest in tacos, and Los Angeles became an epicenter of Mexican American cuisine. Guerrero's daughter Ana Natalia Guerrero went on to open Las Anitas in Olvera Street and other locations. On June 12, 1943, Ana Natalia gave birth to Susanna MacManus in Lincoln Heights, as Cielito Lindo was celebrating nine years in business. MacManus eventually married Carlos Eduardo MacManus, not too long after his arrival in Los Angeles from Mexico City in the 1970s. Susanna received a bachelor's degree at Cal State Los Angeles and went on to earn a master's degree in Spanish at UCLA. She taught Introduction to Spanish at Occidental College in Eagle Rock in the 1980s and 1990s while completing coursework for her Ph.D. 'She was teaching full time and raising us, and never got around to writing her dissertation,' says Carlos Eduardo Jr. Ana Natalia died in 2000, and the following year Susanna stepped in to run Cielito Lindo along with her sister, Diana, who served as the CFO. Her other sister, Marianna, became a silent partner in the restaurant. Susanna MacManus in her youth. I interviewed Susanna for my 2017 book, LA Mexicano, getting to experience her sharp wit and gregarious nature firsthand over in-person interviews and multiple phone calls. She joined me for some events, including my book release at Vroman's in Pasadena, where her team served Cielito Lindo's iconic taquitos in avocado sauce. To this day, it's difficult to fathom how easily she just shared the recipe for the salsa, something so good that customers slurp it up from their plates and order it to-go. I remember telling her that I knew she couldn't give up the recipe for the salsa, and she just cut me off mid-sentence. 'Why not? I'll give it to you,' said Susanna with one corner of her mouth turned up. That's just the way she was. Susanna continued to come to events to represent Cielito Lindo. 'She loved being on stage, but above all, carrying on the legacy of the family,' says her son Carlos MacManus Jr. 'I loved how she would talk to random people [in line], like this older gentleman with his grandkid and he would say, 'I would come here with my grandfather as a kid and now I'm taking my grandchild,'' says Susunna's daughter Viviana MacManus, 'She was so touched by that importance.' Beyond her profession, MacManus had a thirst for knowledge, and particularly oral histories. According to her children, she had hoped to document the stories of her customers and their connection to Cielito Lindo, and took a keen interest in young people. 'You know, she even tried to be hip with all the lingo with the music, that new music to keep up with the current generation,' says Carlos MacManus Jr. Susanna's outgoing, infectious nature that helped Cielito Lindo stay relevant and help maintain its status as a Mexican American and Los Angeles institution. It may have been Susanna's outgoing, infectious nature that helped Cielito Lindo stay relevant and help maintain its status as a Mexican American and Los Angeles institution. 'I know that for her, the connection to how important Cielito Lindo is in the story of immigrant Los Angeles needed to be preserved,' says Viviana. In 2017, Cielito Lindo was featured on CNN's Parts Unknown, where the late-Anthony Bourdain discussed Mexican culture in Los Angeles with Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano and comedian Al Madrigal over plates of olive green salsa. There's a satisfying comfort and simplicity in dredging crispy taquitos into a tart, fruity salsa alongside refried beans and shards of melted cheese. Cielito Lindo's signature recipe was born out of desperate times. Susanna's grandmother, Aurora, on her own as a single mother, crafted an unforgettable recipe and secured a restaurant space for posterity. 'The women always took care of business, and my mom grew up very independent since her mom, Ana Natalia, always worked,' says Carlos Eduardo MacManus Jr. Carlos Eduardo recounted a story that his mother told him that she would pass out in one of Cielito Lindo's booths to take a nap while her mother served locals and tourists their post-church ritual of crispy taquitos slathered in salsa. It held true for me as well after attending the No Kings protest in Downtown Los Angeles on June 14. Many of those who participated in the march ended up at Cielito Lindo for combination #1. Dragging pro-immigration banners, marchers full of hope sought the timeless comfort of Chicano food. One pair of elderly women commented on how there was no place to sit, so I directed them to Las Anitas restaurant, where they could enjoy their taquitos in air conditioning surrounded by an array of pastels. The rally took place less than two weeks before Susanna's passing, which followed the March 2025 death of her younger sister, Diana Robertson. The restaurant will remain in the family as the fourth generation of Cielito Lindo sorts out the details. Seamlessly, the line keeps moving on Olvera Street as another leader of this storied institution becomes etched into the legacy of an immortal combo plate. 'Mom always thought of the restaurant as a sort of nexus or a gathering place of solidarity and community for the immigrant population in Los Angeles,' says Carlos Eduardo MacManus Jr. Susanna MacManus is survived by her husband, Carlos Eduardo MacManus, sister Mariana Robertson, and children Carlos Eduardo MacManus Jr. and Viviana MacManus. Cielito Lindo's taquitos with avocado salsa. Bill Esparza Eater LA All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Los Angeles Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
BofA Directs Additional $1 Million to Los Angeles Nonprofits for Evolving Fire Recovery Needs
Latest Round of Grants Brings BofA Fire-Relief Contributions to Over $3.5 Million As Los Angeles hits six months since the onset of the January wildfires, Bank of America continues to support impacted clients, employees and communities and their evolving recovery needs. Most recently, BofA directed more than $1 million in additional philanthropic capital to local nonprofits that are providing resources, ranging from helping small businesses reopen and families navigate complex legal, insurance and debris removal needs to providing health and trauma counseling, as well as ongoing housing and supplemental food resources. The latest round of giving brings BofA's total fire-related contributions to more than $3.5 million, in addition to helping thousands of its clients and hundreds of employees and their families with their recovery needs. These efforts have been led by Bank of America Business Banking president Raul A. Anaya, an Angeleno who was tapped by company CEO Brian Moynihan to focus full time on leading the company's recovery efforts. 'Having helped clients through disasters over many years, Bank of America has the expertise, capital and connections to help Los Angeles rebuild following this tragedy. From our immediate initial response to the fires in January to pivoting as needs change over time, our aim is to help all Angelenos recover. We're doing this together with the region's incredible public, private and nonprofit sectors,' said Anaya. Small business relief and recovery have been a notable focus for the bank, including $400,000 recently directed to small businesses through three local Community Development Financial Institutions to provide technical coaching and low-cost microloans. This is in addition to funding and support to chambers of commerce and other business support entities, as well as awarding BofA grants directly to impacted small businesses. Additionally, having two of its own financial centers destroyed by the fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, BofA quickly opened a temporary mobile center and has committed to rebuilding new permanent financial centers in those communities. The company also leveraged its vast experience to successfully reunite more than 2,000 safe deposit box clients with their possessions from the two locations that were destroyed by the fires, thanks to a team of nearly 100 vault and safe box experts. Bank of America leaders have also been working with government officials and other leaders on ways to help impacted homeowners and communities through issues ranging from insurance challenges to rebuilding needs. Information was sourced from Bank of America. To learn more, contact
Los Angeles Times
10-07-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Six months after fires, more than 800 homeowners in Palisades, Altadena have sought permits to rebuild
More than 800 homeowners in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas affected by January's wildfires have applied for rebuilding permits, according to a Times analysis of local government permitting data. Of those, at least 145 have received approval to start construction on major repairs or replacement of their homes in the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu and Pasadena and in Altadena and other unincorporated areas of L.A. County, the analysis found. At events this week commemorating the fires' six-month mark, state and local leaders have celebrated the pace of cleanup efforts, touting their completion months ahead of schedule. Nearly 13,000 households were displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, which ripped through the communities Jan. 7 and 8. 'Now we turn the page to rebuilding, and we're doing it with a clear plan, strong partnerships and the urgency this moment demands,' Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. Weekly data analyzed by The Times show an increasing pace of permit applications submitted to local authorities. Homeowners, architects and contractors working on approved projects praised the process as speedy and efficient. But some residents said that despite official promises of removing barriers and rapid turnarounds, they've been mired in delays. At many sites, construction is already underway. Five years ago, while pregnant with her second child, Alexis Le Guier and her husband, Andrew, moved into a newly constructed five-bedroom home in the Palisades' Alphabet Streets area. A lifelong Angeleno, Le Guier wanted to take advantage of the neighborhood's schools and walkability, as well as live closer to her parents in Brentwood. The day after the fire, they started making calls to rebuild their home. 'The thought of moving was unfathomable,' said Le Guier, 41. 'Of course I'm coming back. I can't imagine being anywhere else.' The Le Guiers, who were underinsured, benefited from having recent architectural plans, which saved them significant time and money. They made minor changes before submitting them to the city and received their permit 40 days later in early June. Their foundation was poured last week and lumber was delivered to the site soon after. Many of the homeowners who have secured permits similarly had recent plans to work from or other advantages, such as quick insurance payouts, according to several architects and contractors. State and local officials have attempted to streamline the permitting process, especially for those who want to build homes comparable to the ones destroyed, by waiving some development rules and fees and opening 'one-stop' centers that centralize planning and building reviews. Jason Somers, president of Crest Real Estate, a development firm, said the efforts have helped city plan checkers respond to applications with urgency. 'They are getting us permits quicker than we've ever seen before,' Somers said. Somers' firm is working on nearly 100 fire rebuilding projects, primarily in Pacific Palisades. Most of its clients, Somers said, aren't ready to submit plans because they're designing custom homes different from what they had previously. Somers said the city's response so far encouraged him, but the test would come as the volume of applications increased. 'We shall see what the workflow looks like when we see 1,000 projects,' he said. As of July 6, 389 homeowners had submitted applications to rebuild in the Palisades, roughly 8% of the 4,700 residential properties destroyed or majorly damaged by the fire, according to The Times' analysis. Property owners often need multiple permits. In addition to one for the main structure, the process might involve permits for demolition, electrical infrastructure, swimming pools, if included, and more. The Times' analysis counts one application for each address no matter how many supplemental permits may be required. Additionally, the L.A. County data are limited to submissions that already have cleared an initial review by county planners. Generally, applications at both the city and county level have been rising every week. The week of June 22 had the largest number for both the city and county with 36 and 34 submissions, respectively. The city has approved nearly a quarter of those it's received. L.A. County has issued permits for 15% of its 352 applications as of July 6, covering Altadena and unincorporated areas affected by the Palisades fire. In Pasadena, 20 property owners have submitted with two approved. For Malibu, 77 homeowners have submitted applications with none approved. On average, it's taken 55 days for the city of L.A. to issue a permit, including time it's waited for applicants to respond to corrections, The Times' analysis shows. The county process is slower. Once an application has been cleared by county planners, it's been another 60 days on average for a building permit to be issued, according to the analysis. Newsom and others, notably former L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, have criticized the pace of permitting, saying that recovery should be further along. On social media, fire survivors have lamented the red tape they've encountered. Roberto Covarrubias, who has lived with his family in Altadena for a decade, said county officials haven't delivered on their promises to make the process as fast as possible. His home was built in 2009 and he went to various offices seeking the original architectural plans — his paper copies burned in the fire — only to be told they didn't exist. Weeks later, after Covarrubias hired a new architect, the county said it had located electronic plans for his old house. Covarrubias wants to add a cellar to his new home to house the water heater and other machinery. County officials told him doing so would require additional soil testing, which he estimated would take a month and cost another $7,000. After three weeks of back-and-forth with his architect, Covarrubias said the county relented. Any delay matters, he said. He wants to get ahead of the rush for workers and materials. And his insurance company will not release his payout until his rebuild permits are approved. 'It's like a waterfall effect,' said Covarrubias, 50, an IT engineer. His project remains in the permitting pipeline. City and county officials have had to work through growing pains as they've attempted to implement the flurry of executive orders and programs designed to speed rebuilding. Property owners had waited weeks in the spring, for instance, for guidelines on accessory dwelling unit construction. Last month, after sustained pressure from homeowners, the county agreed to waive permitting fees and refund those who already have paid. (The city waived its fees in April.) Both the city and the county continue testing ballyhooed artificial intelligence software to offer instant corrections to initial permit applications, with activation scheduled for this month. The city has no immediate plans to hire additional staff or contractors to review permits because its staff is meeting its benchmarks for reviews, according to Gail Gaddi, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. 'However, we will continue to assess the needs of the department and will consider any adjustments as needed,' Gaddi said. By contrast, County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents areas affected by the Eaton fire, believes the county will need to add to its workforce to meet the demand. 'There needs to be additional staffing whether it's contractors or permanent staffing,' said Helen Chavez Garcia, a spokesperson for the supervisor. One of the more promising ways to expedite permitting is through preapproved architectural designs. The idea is that property owners could pick a model home that local governments already have signed off on, meaning the only further review needed was for issues specific to individual sites. The process has been credited for helping rapid recovery in Santa Rosa after the 2017 Tubbs fire. Here, Somers' firm is developing a suite of 50 plans called Case Study 2.0, named after the mid-20th century showcase of Southern California architecture. A newly formed San Gabriel Valley nonprofit, the Foothill Catalog Foundation, separately is hoping to design 50 model homes by the end of the year, said Alex Athenson, an architect and co-founder of the initiative. The catalog has had one design, a three-bedroom bungalow called 'The Lewis,' approved by L.A. County. Athenson expects to submit nine more by the end of the month. If a homeowner chooses a preapproved home, Athenson said, the entire permitting process could take two weeks or less. 'It would be incredible if homeowners can have that ease of access to starting construction,' Athenson said.
Los Angeles Times
09-07-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Let's Los Angelize L.A.
Almost since the first suburbs were built in Los Angeles, there have been worries that adding density would 'Manhattanize' L.A., rendering it so crowded with new vertical development as to be unrecognizable to longtime residents. In the 1980s, as battles over growth heated up, one local slow-growth group dubbed itself Not Yet New York. But Los Angeles has always been a city with a knack for reshaping itself by looking to its own architectural past. In particular, medium-density designs such as bungalow courts and dingbat apartments have welcomed waves of newcomers for more than a century while becoming architectural emblems of upward mobility and a particularly Southern Californian design sensibility — informal and optimistic. We have never needed a return to that kind of development more than now, in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, even as public discussion has focused mostly on rebuilding exactly what was lost. With affordability pressures as intense as ever, now is the time not to Manhattanize but, once again, to Los Angelize L.A. As longtime advocates for design excellence and policies to boost housing production, we believe there is nothing more Angeleno than the reinvention of the so-called R1 neighborhood, the single-family zone that first emerged in L.A. with the Residential District Ordinance of 1908. R1 zoning shifted into overdrive in 1941 when tract houses emerged to replace the bean fields of Westchester, near what is now Los Angeles International Airport. It wasn't until 2016, with the appearance of a new state law allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, that the R1 neighborhood evolved in any meaningful way. Even the most ardent champions of ADUs — aka granny flats or casitas — couldn't have foreseen how widely popular they'd become. Today, about one-fifth of new housing permits in California and a whopping one-third in the city of L.A. are ADUs. Still, the granny flat is no silver bullet. The housing affordability crisis in Los Angeles demands a more ambitious approach than adding new residential development one small unit at a time. State laws allowing as many as 10 apartments on a single-family lot have been on the books for several years now. But homeowners and developers have been slow to take advantage of them, and many California cities have dragged their feet in making them truly usable. The result has been a stalemate, with Los Angeles among the cities struggling to take the important step past the ADU to begin producing additional missing-middle housing in real volume, even as rents and home prices continue to climb. The city's Low-Rise LA design challenge was organized in 2020 to help break this logjam. Many of the winners incorporated design lessons clarified by the COVID-19 pandemic, when we learned that second, third and fourth units in R1 zones might offer not just rental income or an extra bedroom but the flexibility to quarantine or work from home while building stronger ties with extended family and neighbors. A new initiative — Small Lots, Big Impacts — organized by cityLAB-UCLA, the Los Angeles Housing Department and the office of Mayor Karen Bass builds on Low-Rise LA with a focus on developing small, often overlooked vacant lots, of which there are more than 25,000 across the city, according to cityLAB's research. The goal is straightforward: to demonstrate a range of ways that Los Angeles can grow not by aping the urbanism of other cities but by producing more of itself. Winners of this design competition, announced at the end of May, placed six or more housing units on a single site, sometimes dividing it into separate lots. One proposal created rowhouses, slightly cracked apart to identify individual homes and entrances as they cascade along an irregular site. A communal yard opens to the street in another project, with roof gardens between separated, two-story homes atop ADUs that can be rented or joined back to each of several main houses on the site. Other designs show that vertical architecture, in the form of handsome new residential towers from three to seven stories, can comfortably coexist with L.A.'s low-rise housing stock when the design is thoughtful enough. A key goal of the competition was to produce new models for homeownership. When land costs are subdivided and parcels built out with a collection of compact homes, including units that can produce rental income or be sold off as condos, a different approach to housing affordability comes into focus. Those who have been shut out of the housing market can begin to build wealth and contribute to neighborhood stability. The traditional R1 paradigm, in addition to limiting housing volume, suffers from a rigid, gate-keeping sort of logic: If you can't afford to buy or rent an entire single-family home in an R-1 L.A. neighborhood, that part of town is inaccessible to you. Many of the winning designs, by contrast, create compounds flexible enough to accommodate a range of phases in a resident's life. In one development, there may be units perfect for single occupants (a junior ADU), young families (a ground-level unit with a private yard), and empty-nesters (a home with a rooftop garden). As with the granny flat model, construction can proceed in phases, with units added over time as circumstances dictate. Having served on the Small Lots, Big Impacts jury, we see signs of hope in its rendering of L.A.'s future. The real proof lies in the initiative's second phase, set for later this year, when the city's Housing Department will issue an open call, based on the design competition, to developer-architect teams who will build housing on a dozen small, city-owned vacant parcels, with tens of thousands of privately owned infill lots ready to follow suit. If the winning schemes are built, Los Angeles will once again demonstrate the appeal and resiliency of its architectural DNA. Manhattan: Eat your heart out. Dana Cuff is a professor of architecture, director of cityLAB-UCLA and co-author of the 2016 California law that launched ADU construction. Christopher Hawthorne, former architecture critic for The Times, is senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture. He served under Mayor Eric Garcetti as the first chief design officer for Los Angeles.
