For years, the Westside’s FamilySource Center quietly provided a lifeline for low income families in one of the most expensive parts of Los Angeles. When the center closed in early 2023, Councilmember Traci Park publicly cried foul, blaming City bureaucracy for allowing the Westside to lose its only comprehensive anti poverty hub. But records recently made public tell a different story. Park’s office knew for months that the center was about to be eliminated, had opportunities to intervene, and did nothing. As a result, the Westside lost roughly one million dollars a year in federal funding for underserved families.

The closure followed a familiar pattern on the Westside, where long standing community programs, including those once housed at the Vera Davis Center, have been scaled back or eliminated after demographic metrics were used to justify change, even as many low income residents continued to rely on them.

FamilySource Centers are the City of Los Angeles’ primary neighborhood hubs for anti poverty services. They are designed as one stop shops where families can access financial coaching, tax preparation, ESL classes, parenting support, workforce services, immigration help, and emergency assistance. Funded largely through federal Community Development Block Grant dollars from HUD, they are intended to stabilize families and prevent deeper economic crises before they happen, services that are especially critical right now as ICE raids continue to destabilize immigrant families across Los Angeles.

Beyond the loss of workforce and anti poverty services, the closure of the Westside FamilySource Center also eliminated critical immigration legal services that many local families relied on. FamilySource Centers across Los Angeles provide free assistance with DACA renewals, citizenship applications, visas, and legal referrals for people facing deportation. With the Westside center shuttered, that funding disappeared at a moment when ICE detentions and enforcement actions are increasing, leaving community members with fewer resources to protect themselves, their families, and their legal rights. The loss of these services has created an urgent gap in immigrant legal support on the Westside, with real consequences.

The Westside center was operated by the Latino Resource Organization, which had provided family support services in the area since the late 1990s, first out of the Vera Davis Center and later out of the West LA Municipal Building. For decades, these programs reflected a reality City Hall increasingly overlooks: Rising rents and changing demographics do not eliminate poverty. They often just make it less visible.

That support disappeared after the City’s Community Investment for Families Department issued a new request for proposals for FamilySource Centers in 2022. Under the new RFP, CIFD redrew service areas using census and equity data to focus on what it defined as the highest density of poverty. Council District 11 was excluded entirely, even though the Westside had long been home to a FamilySource Center serving low income residents.

Internal City records show CIFD identified in advance which existing centers would lose funding as a result. The West Los Angeles FamilySource Center operated by LRO was named directly. The reason was not performance or compliance, but demographics.

Park’s office was warned well before the funding was cut. In January 2023, Park’s district director contacted City staff about a “proposed $1M cut to their FSC budget for the incoming year.” Follow up emails show the issue remained active as Park’s office considered its budget requests to the Mayor. LRO also warned Park’s staff directly that the loss of funding would shut down the center. In one email copied to Park’s district director, LRO’s executive director wrote, “As you know, the new funding cycle eliminated funding for the CD11 FamilySource Center. In CIFD’s RFP, it stated that the RFP service areas were based on the highest density of poverty in which CD 11 was excluded.”

Despite this, Park did not intervene to protect the funding, seek an exception, or work with CIFD on a transition plan that could have preserved services. There is no record of her office advocating to keep a FamilySource Center on the Westside while the decision was still reversible.

When the funding ended and the center closed, families immediately felt the impact. Clients who had relied on the FamilySource Center for help with rent, tax filing, COVID relief funds, and case management suddenly had nowhere to turn. Many contacted their new elected representative, Councilmember Park. Emails show Park’s office reacting with frustration, rather than compassion. In one message, Park’s district director wrote, “We have received several calls from your clients, stating you have guided them to our office for follow-up on their concerns,” including “calls with specific asks about their unpaid rent, COVID relief efforts, and other commitments made by the Latino Resource Organization that continue to be unmet.”

In the same exchange, Park’s office lashed out at the service provider for directing families to the council office at all. “I find it very disrespectful to misguide clients into thinking that our office can take over their case management,” district director Gabriela Medina wrote. Medina is now Public Affairs Manager with SoCalGas.

LRO pushed back, explaining that clients had not been told the council office would provide services, only that they could contact their councilmember to relay the impact of losing them. With the FamilySource Center closed and no nearby replacement, calling the council office was one of the few options families had left.

The records also show that referrals to other FamilySource Centers offered little relief. LRO informed Park’s office that it had worked with CIFD to refer families elsewhere, but that “many found it difficult to travel the distance.” City staff acknowledged remaining centers were far from the Westside and that the transition would be challenging.

After the closure, Park publicly criticized City staff for failing to maintain a FamilySource Center on the Westside. But the record shows her office had months of advance notice and the opportunity to act before the funding was lost. When the consequences arrived in the form of calls from constituents in need, her office directed its frustration not at the decision that caused the harm, but at the service provider and the families (her constituents) themselves.

In place of the shuttered center, Park later promoted a handful of limited, one off programs such as tax preparation workshops for foster youth. Advocates say these efforts were no substitute for the comprehensive services the FamilySource Center had provided for decades. The result is that the Westside lost its only FamilySource Center and roughly one million dollars a year in federal anti poverty funding, deepening the stratification of a district already marked by extreme inequality. The documents show this outcome was not unavoidable.