Senior writer Doug Smith scouts Los Angeles for the ragged edges where public policy meets real people, combining data analysis and gumshoe reporting to tell L.A. stories through his more than 50 years of experience covering the city. As past database editor from 2004 through 2015, he hunted down and analyzed data for news and investigative projects. Besides “Grading the Teachers,” he contributed to investigations of construction abuse in the community college system and the rising toll of prescription drug overdoses. Smith has been at The Times since 1970, covering local and state government, criminal justice, politics and education. He was the lead writer for Times’ coverage of the infamous North Hollywood shootout, winner of a 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Between 2005 and 2008, Smith made five trips to Iraq on loan to our foreign desk.
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The disappearance of more than 700 RVs from the rural Antelope Valley reported in the 2026 homeless count is baffling locals who say the number of unpermitted vehicles has only increased.
A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled Thursday that the Trump administration acted capriciously and arbitrarily in suspending the county’s lead homelessness agency in an attempt to impose its preference for treatment-based programs.
As a federal judge weighs whether to block the Trump administration’s suspension of the region’s lead homelessness agency, two members of the president’s cabinet came to Los Angeles to plead their case.
The homeless count recorded 638 beds at Union Rescue Mission that went uncounted last year, leading to a reported 24% rise in homelessness on Skid Row.
LAHSA, the organization at the forefront of the Los Angeles city and county response to homelessness for more than 30 years, is fighting a Trump administration attempt to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
The numbers from this year’s point-in-time homelessness count delivered a major blow to Bass, who is seeking reelection and has made the issue a central part of her agenda.
Activists climb a 100-foot pine tree at Muir High School to protest a controversial Pasadena Unified School District plan to cut down nearly 200 trees.
An infusion of new funds approved by Congress this year and a waiver of eligibility procedures have staved off a potential crisis that could have left 4,200 back on the street, local housing officials reported.
Prefab home builders are rolling out new designs to appeal to Eaton and Palisades fire survivors. They see an opportunity to overcome doubts about factory-built housing.
As the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs prepares to build housing for thousands of veterans at its West Los Angeles campus, security has become a challenge for an unincorporated area that is miles from the nearest sheriff’s station.