By Oluwadara Aina and Smiraa Misra With the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill mid-2025, a key provision was that Medicaid spending would be cut by a whopping 15%. While Medicaid is a joint state and federal program, the federal government has control over general rules that all state Medicaid programs must follow, even though each state runs its own program (US Department of Health and Human Services). In California, the program is Medi-Cal. This loss of federal funding

By Kelly Truong & Poornima Dorairaj Harm Reduction and Deconstructing Stigmas The principles of harm reduction, as defined by the National Harm Reduction Coalition, are a set of practical strategies aimed at minimizing the negative health, social, and legal consequences associated with drug use. The ideology behind harm reduction is grounded in social justice and human rights, and focuses on working with people who use substances without judgment, coercion, and discriminatio

By: Smiraa Misra & Rabo Ebieroma Introduction In a case study of California’s houseless population, the following numbers can be found:  39% reported no ambulatory care use over the past year (when needed), 34% reported an unmet healthcare need, and 23% reported an unmet medicinal need. African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics/Latinx people are disproportionately overrepresented in these numbers. Even amongst those in the unhoused population with health insurance–Ca

By: Johnathan Tran, Oluwadara Aina, & Paris Wisemon Standing as California’s culinary nucleus and social center, chock-full of museums and other attractions, Los Angeles is a city of endless renown. But between the glitz and glamor of the city’s latest trends and attractions, resides one of the largest populations of unhoused people in the entire world. The sanitized futurism of premier attractions such as Westfield’s Century City harshly contrasts the lives of the unhoused,

By Chika Anubalu & Ashlyn Ro  Across the United States, there is a significant population of young individuals who often navigate each day without the security of a home or other basic necessities. For youth of color (POC youth), this reality is induced by systemic inequities that make their day-to-day process and journeys even more isolating and dangerous. Houselessness does not simply consist of the lack of shelter; it also strips away any sense of safety, stability, and t

By Katie Chang, Stanley Munoz, & Ethan Hartanto In cities across the country, homelessness has been deemed less a social crisis and more a public inconvenience, one best dealt with through simple erasure. Thanks to “clever innovations” like hostile architecture and camping bans that remove the very spaces unhoused individuals need to exist in, the public has found ways to do just that. Out of sight, out of mind. Because ultimately, this isn’t about addressing houselessness;