Doug Smith

4 days ago | latimes.com | Doug Smith |Michael Wilner

President Trump signed an executive order Friday directing the Department of Veterans Affairs to create a National Warrior Independence Center for homeless veterans on its West Los Angeles campus. The order set a goal of housing up to 6,000 homeless veterans at the center and ordered federal agencies to “ensure that funds that may have been spent on housing or other services for illegal aliens are redirected to construct, establish, and maintain” it.

1 week ago | sacbee.com | Doug Smith

LOS ANGELES -- When the unknown number popped up on her phone, Jocelyn Escanuela was in the checkout line at Walmart. She still can't explain why she picked up and then listened to a cold-caller's pitch that sounded a lot like a scam. She had been selected to receive a grant of $6,000, the caller told her. And she would have a personal assistant to help her get her through her "crisis."How did they even know she was in a crisis? It turned out the caller was legitimate.

2 weeks ago | latimes.com | Doug Smith

Jocelyn Escanuela, 26, shown at her Pomona apartment, took part in a random trial to test the effectiveness of cash payments in helping prevent homelessness. When the unknown number popped up on her phone, Jocelyn Escanuela was in the checkout line at Walmart. She still can’t explain why she picked up and then listened to a cold-caller’s pitch that sounded a lot like a scam. She had been selected to receive a grant of $6,000, the caller told her.

3 weeks ago | latimes.com | Doug Smith

The authors of the Measure A half-cent homelessness sales tax that went into effect April 1 infused it with broad goals such as reducing the number of people who become homeless each year and increasing the number leaving encampments. To give the public tools to measure its success — or failure — they included a process to add concrete targets and time lines after county voters approved the measure in November.

3 weeks ago | latimes.com | Doug Smith

After nearly a decade of unprecedented taxpayer spending on homelessness with little to show in improvement on the streets, the giant nonprofits behind the measures that secured that funding asked voters to double down. To assuage concerns that past funds may have been dispensed rashly, leading to waste and abuse, the authors of two new tax measures wove into them a complex system of oversight to increase transparency and accountability.