West

Santa Monica business owner offering one-way flights to get homeless out of California

Published

8 months ago

October 14, 2025

Santa Monica business owner offering one-way flights to get homeless out of California

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A Santa Monica business owner has launched a grassroots initiative to address California’s growing homelessness crisis, stepping in where he says city and Los Angeles County leaders have failed to act.

Roughly three weeks ago, Santa Monica property owner John Alle and fellow business owners in the southern California city hatched a plan to help reduce homelessness on their streets, through a targeted and voluntary family reunification program. Their goal is to assist individuals who have been homeless for less than a year and are actively seeking help, by reuniting them with loved ones in their hometowns — where they’re more likely to get the support they need to succeed.

Through the nonprofit Alle co-founded, the Santa Monica Coalition, a small group of local donors personally fund travel expenses for these trips. They’ve also implemented an AI-powered hotline to efficiently handle the flood of incoming requests.

Since the program’s launch in June, the hotline has received over 500 calls, and they’ve completed the reunification process for eight people so far, according to Alle.

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Homeless encampments line the boardwalk on Venice Beach in Los Angeles. (Reuters)

“I think it’s a scalable solution that’ll work over and over because there’s motivation,” Alle told Fox News Digital. “And this is valuable as an asset when cities and counties are desperate for fixes right now and spending way too much with no results and missing funds.”

Alle shared videos of two people boarding trains and planes to their homes in Pennsylvania and Wyoming this week through the program. They talked about feeling unsafe living in California and wanting to reunite with their families.

Alle hopes to eventually transition the project to a nonprofit organization that is equally committed to the reunification model. He believes the simple strategy is going to have a bigger impact than “housing and other expensive, frankly, go-nowhere methods that are being tried and have been tried over the last three or four years” by the local government.

“The homelessness and the crime is increasing at the same rate as the increase in funding. And that’s not a good sign. It shows it’s not working,” he said.

Alle said the program isn’t intended to help everyone, but it is one step in the right direction.

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People and the homeless spend time in an area known for illegal drug use at the corner of Alvarado Street and Wilshire Blvd. in MacArthur Park, in the Westlake District on December 12, 2024. (Getty Images)

“There’s different levels of homelessness,” Alle said. “There’s mentally ill people who need drastic help, institutional help, that we’re not equipped to help. And there are drug addicts, alcohol addicted, that need help with special programs. Our program is focused on those that have been here for less than a year, and they’re motivated. They’re contacting us.”

Participation in the program is open to anyone who meets a few key criteria. Candidates must have identification to travel through the airport, and a family member or friend must commit to receiving them upon arrival. Alle’s team personally verifies these arrangements with family beforehand to confirm their willingness and capability. Each participant must also sign a waiver agreeing that they are going along with the program of their own accord.

Alle says the county and city’s solutions aren’t helping the situation and have made the tourist destination a hotbed for violent crime and homelessness.

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Santa Monica, California business owner says businesses are hurting and residents feel unsafe in the area due to rampant crime and homelessness. (iStock)

“Our city has been taken over by the mentally ill and addicted who desperately need help,” the Santa Monica Coalition says in a flyer on their website telling people to stay away from the city. “Sadly, many of them refuse shelter and services. The City Manager and City Leaders hide behind policy adoptions and limitations as their reasoning for not taking action towards resolving the human catastrophe at hand. Meanwhile, their lack of political will makes for everyone’s loss.”

Santa Monica residents and business owners who make up the nonprofit are calling on city leaders to take action on the city’s rising crime and homelessness.

“We’re really trying to push our city leaders, who have been ignoring the depravity on the streets, the crime, the theft, the homelessness that’s not being addressed,” Alle told Fox News Digital.

The coalition filed a lawsuit against the LA County Public Health Department, its director, Barbara Ferrer and the Venice Family Clinic, last year over the county’s needle distribution program to the homeless. Clean needles are handed out as part of the county’s “harm reduction” effort, which also includes the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone.

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A sign on a wall next to Langer’s Deli urges LA Mayor Karen Bass to resign in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on May 1, 2025. John Alle says local businesses have urged Bass to keep city streetlights on at night to deter crime. (Getty Images)

The LA County Health Department released a statement in 2024 defending the harm-reduction efforts, saying they are “well demonstrated to reduce overdose deaths, reduce the public use of injectable drugs, reduce transmission of communicable diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis), increase access to substance use services, reduce the use of emergency medical services, and increase public safety.”

Gangs are also a huge problem for business owners and residents’ safety, Alle says. He shared photos of his properties vandalized by MS-13 and other cartels as recently as last week. But he says city officials have turned a blind eye to the problems plaguing Santa Monica.

“It’s gotten out of control,” Alle described the situation. “We’ve got cartels — MS-13 and the 18th street gang, very active in that area. We have crews every day painting up their tagging because if we don’t paint it over the next day, it becomes a competition and a source of friction among the other cartels over who controls the area.”

Gang graffiti on one of John Alle’s properties in LA. (The Santa Monica Coalition)

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health told Fox News Digital that a proposed judgment had been entered in favor of LA County and Ferrer last month in LA County Superior Court regarding the needle distribution lawsuit filed by Alle and the Santa Monica Coalition against county officials.

The Santa Monica City Council told Fox News Digital it already has a reunification program that it started in 2006.

“The city of Santa Monica has a longstanding reunification program administered by our Homelessness Prevention & Intervention (HPI) Division called Project Homecoming. Project Homecoming was launched in 2006 and has reunited over 3200 individuals who are experiencing homelessness within the city of Santa Monica with family and friends living elsewhere. Individuals are identified by our trusted and professional partners who perform outreach within the city of Santa Monica on a daily basis,” a spokesperson for the city said.

Kristine Parks is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Read more.

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Utah

San Juan County assessor resigns after allegations of being ‘unfit’ for office

Published

29 minutes ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

San Juan County assessor resigns after allegations of being ‘unfit’ for office

SALT LAKE CITY – The San Juan County assessor has resigned partway through his second term, following a recommendation that he be removed from office.

Rick Meyer’s resignation became effective on Monday, according to San Juan County Commissioner Lori Maughan. A copy of Meyer’s resignation letter was not immediately available.

This comes after the Utah State Tax Commission determined that Meyer had failed to follow the law and was “unfit to perform his duties.” In a letter last week to San Juan County commissioners, the tax commission recommended “the immediate removal of the San Juan County assessor from office to protect the public interest and restore the integrity of the property tax system in San Juan County.”

Among other things, Meyer was accused of failing to tax agricultural buildings, misclassifying property, and giving property tax exemptions to certain parcels, including vacant land, when he shouldn’t have.

The recommendation to remove Meyer from office was the first under a recent state law giving the Utah State Tax Commission more power to take corrective action against county assessors who aren’t doing their jobs properly. Assessors play a major role in the property tax process by determining the value of property throughout their counties.

Yet, it was unclear whether the San Juan County Commission could have actually removed Meyer from office had he not stepped down.

With Meyer’s resignation, the San Juan County Assessor’s Office has just one employee left. Deputy assessor Nathan Pitts will run the office until the San Juan County Republican Party recommends a replacement and the County Commission appoints one.

“It’s me holding down the fort here,” Pitts told KSL on Thursday, noting that he has spoken with the Utah Association of Counties and the state tax commission about plans for this interim period. “Everybody’s on board to assist and try to make it the best as we can, (but) I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me.”

Pitts said he does not plan to run for county assessor to replace his old boss.

“That is not my intention at all,” he said. “I’m quite content as a deputy assessor.”

Meyer was first elected as San Juan County assessor in 2020 and won reelection in 2024. His current term was set to conclude in 2029.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Washington

Storm Team4 Forecast: Much-needed morning rain before sunny afternoon

Published

44 minutes ago

June 19, 2026

Press Room

Storm Team4 Forecast: Much-needed morning rain before sunny afternoon

4 things to know about the weather:

Some needed rain early
Sunshine On the way
Nice, dry weekend
Stormy Monday

Most of the area will get at least some rain this morning but a cold front will push the rain out and bring the sunshine back by early this afternoon.

Southern Maryland and the Northern Neck of VA will get the most rain (1/4” to 1/2”) while the Shenandoah Valley will be lucky to get much more than a few hundredths of an inch. Southeast Virginia is likely to get over 1” of rain. I-95 travel South of Richmond, and I-64 towards Virginia Beach, could be slowed by the rain. Here in our area, the rain will be over by noon and sunshine will be making a quick return.

Steady, northwest winds will bring much lower humidity levels and ensure a beautiful weekend for all of the Capital Pride activities and Father’s Day on Sunday.

Afternoon highs will mostly be in the low/mid 80s today and Saturday and the mid/upper 80s on Sunday.

Better still, overnight lows tonight and Saturday night will fall into the 50s north and west of Dulles Airport and the low-60s in metro D.C.

Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.

Clouds will return late Sunday afternoon and rain chances will arrive late Sunday night. All of the forecast models are still showing a high chance for rain for Monday into Tuesday. This doesn’t look like a blockbuster event but rain totals of around 1/2” still look like a good bet.

All of our region is still in drought with extreme drought conditions for most of central Virginia and all of the Delmarva Peninsula. That Monday storm is pretty much our best chance for rain over the next 10-14 days. Thankfully, the long range temperature outlook is for daytime highs to stay in the 80s all the way through next week.