L.A. invested millions in public bathrooms. Why are they closed? Three years into Los Angeles’s new public bathroom program, funding for the remaining four bathrooms is expiring.

NEW: LA cut funding for 14 permanent public bathrooms last year. Councilmember Jurado kept four of those bathrooms open in Skid Row with discretionary funding. Now that funding is set to run out this month.

afrolanews.org/2026/03/l-a-...

@afrolanews.bsky.social

“A quarter to a half of our members have either slowed their visits to their gardens or stopped going completely," said Diana Campos-Jimenez, a lead community organizer for the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, which has helped create 30 urban parks and community gardens across L.A. since 2002.

L.A.’s immigrant gardeners lean on community amid ICE raids Fear is keeping many immigrant residents away from tending community gardens. Advocates say that's harming spaces meant to offer safety.

What's a community garden left to do when its members stop showing up for fear of ICE raids?

afrolanews.org/2026/03/l-a-...

Ownership vs. Subscription:

Subscription = You pay for access
Ownership = You build the platform

L.A. Times subscription = $4/week to read behind a paywall
AfroLA ownership = $10/month to sustain free local news

One extracts. One builds.
#WeOwnThis. Join today: afrolanews.org/we-own-this

Quick reminder:
The L.A. Times = owned by a billionaire
LAist = owned by public radio
AfroLA = owned by Black Los Angeles

Your $10/month keeps it that way.

12 down. 38 to go.
afrolanews.org/we-own-this

12 owners in 3 days.

This is what they funded already:
✅ 2 new investigations starting
✅ 3 student reporters hired for the summer
✅ One Community listening session scheduled

38 spots left.

$10/month = You own Black media that lasts.
afrolanews.org/we-own-this

We Own This. Join: afrolanews.org/we-own-this

Your $10/month = 30 minutes of fair-wage reporting.

Here's what we did in 30 minutes last month:
- Interviewed Altadenans about continued fire recovery
- Fact-checked policy claims from City Council
- Sourced documents for Water and Power follow-up

Imagine what 500+ hours of funds can build.

Helpline callers are connected to counselors who can talk through just about anything: romantic encounters when abuse occurred, concerns about being violent in the future, or that persistent feeling that others don’t like or love them.

A Call For Change Helpine | A Call For Change Helpline A Call for Change Helpline is a free, anonymous, and confidential intimate partner abuse prevention helpline. A helpline for people who use control and abuse in their intimate partner relationships…

The helpline, which expanded to L.A. in May with the help of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, offers its interventions completely confidential and free of charge.

Helpline provides counseling to address – and prevent – relationship violence An anonymous helpline provides an alternative to policing and imprisonment to break cycles of domestic violence.

“If we truly want to end cycles of violence, we have to engage people who are at risk of causing harm.”

A Call For Change Helpline is working to curb #DomesticViolence before it begins by counseling people who want to reframe or interrogate violent thoughts or behavior without involving police.

Small businesses hit hard by Eaton Fire get lifeline funding support Grants are helping Altadena entrepreneurs recover, pay bills and invest in growing their businesses after the wildfires.

For small business owners in #Altadena, the fire hit especially hard. Not only did they have to rebuild their lives, but also their livelihoods. Fortunately, grant funding is helping them get their doors back open to serve their neighbors.

In gentrifying Inglewood, a record café offers community an affordable refuge Asteroid Vinyl Cafe is fostering connection with vintage records, artisanal coffee, and local art.

If you think the "third space" is dead, this #Inglewood spot might just shock you back awake.

California has some of the strongest building fire codes in the U.S., ensuring homes built within areas at high risk of wildfire use fire-resistant materials that can withstand encroaching blazes. Roofs, vents, windows, and walls must meet standards.

But they only apply to homes built after 2008.

How should Los Angeles rebuild? The answer may exist in our building codes. California has some of the strictest building fire codes in the country. For people rebuilding, following them might be the safest way forward.

What if the trick to building back Altadena and the Pacific Palisades is already right in front of us?

What it takes to feel at home again after the Eaton Fire Eaton Fire-impacted residents share their stories about seeking safe water, stability and peace of mind in the first year after the disaster.

Recovery from the Eaton fire looks different for everyone. Every family has its own pressing question that can stand in the way of #Altadena feeling like home again.

Reported in partnership with the LA Reporting Collective
afrolanews.org/2026/02/what...

@sumitlakehornet.bsky.social Thanks! Asteroid Vinyl Cafe is a much-needed space in Inglewood as more locals are displaced and feel disconnected. Rock on!

Together, we’ll challenge our conventional thinking about what it will take to end domestic violence. Above all, we’ll be bringing you stories of hope. Listen to the trailer wherever you get podcasts. New episodes out this Spring.

Support comes from the Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Health equity reporter Elizabeth Moss is setting out to get answers to one really big question — how can we end domestic violence?

In a new limited podcast series from AfroLA, she’s putting this question to the people working on unique prevention solutions.

Gayle Nicholls-Ali, who runs Altadena Photographers from her current home in Montrose, California, take a call while vintage cameras ready for donation are strewn along her sofa.

Vintage cameras ready to be given to Altadena residents impacted by the Eaton Fire.

Dozens of people attended the vintage camera show hosted by Altadena Photographers in October 2025.

Sunny Mills demonstrates tintype photography for curious photographers during the Altadena Photographers camera giveaway

The cameras were given away through @denaphotographers.bsky.social, a group formed to get cameras back into the hands of those who lost them in the fire. Thanks to the group, dozens of Altadena residents left a fall event at the Altadena Library with at least one vintage camera.
📸 by Isaac Ceja

Focusing on healing Altadena one camera at a time Gayle Nicholls-Ali lost her home in the Eaton Fire. She started Altadena Photographers to help her creative community move forward.

Altadena photographers are capturing new memories with the help of a camera giveaway

Volunteers pack produce during Zest Fest 2025. (Eliza Partika/AfroLA)

A quarter of all Angelenos were already struggling to get enough food before this year’s particular challenges began, according to a 2024 study from USC Dornsife. Black (31%) and Latine (32%) individuals were particularly at risk, being three times more likely to experience food insecurity.

How urban food distributions in Los Angeles support communities in need Nonprofits work to provide vital assistance to families during a time of record inflation, ICE raids, food assistance cuts and wildfires.

The need for food aid just kept growing and growing in L.A. this year.

🚒 First it was the wildfires

🧊 Then the ICE raids

✂️ Pile on SNAP cuts

But community groups kept fighting to keep their neighbors fed.

See how they they did it

afrolanews.org/2025/12/los-...

‘We are not moving on’ – How a Pasadena church is helping one senior through wildfire recovery As wildfire relief efforts wane across Los Angeles, churches remain as a trusted fixture for some within the Black community to help navigate recovery long term.

How does an 83-year-old Eaton wildfire survivor rebuild her life? Alice McFerguson is figuring that out right now. An Altadena homeowner who lost everything, she said her church, Holy Assembly Church of God in Christ in Pasadena is keeping her feeling secure.

afrolanews.org/2025/07/we-a...

🤔🤔

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Arrested development: LA stalls rural county’s efforts to make critical airport repairs Airports for air ambulance, firefighting flights at risk, but DWP is ‘stonewalling’

And it's not just homes and businesses affected: Want to repair huge potholes along the airport runway? Better check your lease with LADWP first.

And wait.

And hope you don't need a medivac flight out of there anytime soon.

Water and Power: How LA’s ‘local’ water politics ensnare residents—300 miles away A new investigation reveals how LA DWP has upended Owes Valley locals’ lives and livelihoods

Curious what else LADWP has been up to? Read about the lives upturned by their changes to land leases in our first installment of Water And Power.

A series of tubes that suck up water from the sewage treatment plant to remove large contaminants before it gets filtered into drinkable water.

A county over in the O.C.? They implemented a recycled water program in 2008, an effort that was vetoed by L.A. leaders 25 years ago. With recycled water, O.C.’s residents would experience water loss for as long as the power remains out, or no more than a week, estimate earthquake experts.

A look at large blue pipes supported by smaller silver pipes that are used in the microfiltration process in recycling wastewater.

So how about solutions? Other water systems that service SoCal have successfully built brand new seismically sound infrastructure to sustain the region for months after a major quake.