Steve Lopez

Columnist

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been an L.A. Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards for his reporting and column writing at seven newspapers and four news magazines, and is a three-time Pulitzer finalist for commentary – in 2012, for his columns on elder care; in 2016, for his columns on income inequality in California; and in 2018, for his columns on housing and homelessness. He is the author of three novels, two collections of columns and a non-fiction work called “The Soloist,” which was a Los Angeles Times and New York Times best-seller, winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and the subject of a Dream Works movie by the same name. Lopez’s television reporting for public station KCET has won three local news Emmys, three Golden Mike awards and a share of the Columbia University DuPont Award.

Latest From This Author

California

Column: College students don’t have enough money to eat. Their classmates are feeding them

California

Column: College students don’t have enough money to eat. Their classmates are feeding them

Pantries, food bank and restaurants are trying to meet the challenge of hunger in Los Angeles.
California

Column: We should be ashamed, but when it comes to Amazon, we just can’t help ourselves

California

Column: We should be ashamed, but when it comes to Amazon, we just can’t help ourselves

I’m pretty sure Cyber Monday put us just one or two deliveries away from the end of the world.
California

Column: The nature lover of skid row: Homeless man comes to the rescue of a trapped bird

California

Column: The nature lover of skid row: Homeless man comes to the rescue of a trapped bird

Things looked grim for Freddie the sparrow, but luckily, the man who accidentally trapped him had a conscience.
California

Column: Rains push L.A. trash into Ballona Creek. He plucks it out

California

Column: Rains push L.A. trash into Ballona Creek. He plucks it out

Josey Peters first picked up trash with his father along Lake Michigan many years ago. Now 57, he’s pulling debris out of Ballona Creek.
California

Column: I met a cabbie who built a great life and family. Then a passenger killed him downtown

California

Column: I met a cabbie who built a great life and family. Then a passenger killed him downtown

He was a musician, a father and a husband. He was killed driving his cab.
California

Column: As L.A.’s homeless crisis worsens, no one is in charge. That has to change

California

Column: As L.A.’s homeless crisis worsens, no one is in charge. That has to change

What we’ve got isn’t working. A call for new strategies and solutions on homelessness

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Lopez: When a homeless camp rises outside your window: ‘You have no idea the hell I was living’
California

Column: In Hollywood, I found the intractable collapse of homelessness amid the glittering boomtown

California

Column: In Hollywood, I found the intractable collapse of homelessness amid the glittering boomtown

Hollywood has never been as dominated by homelessness as skid row, but in both places you can find the stark juxtaposition of thriving commerce and intractable collapse.
California

Column: When an L.A. homeless camp rises outside your window: ‘You have no idea the hell I was living’

California

Column: When an L.A. homeless camp rises outside your window: ‘You have no idea the hell I was living’

For these Hollywood residents, L.A.'s homelessness crisis is on their doorsteps: disturbing human suffering, unrestrained drug use, and festering illegal dumps.

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Column: In Hollywood, I found the intractable collapse of homelessness amid the glittering boomtown
California

Column: Young people come from around U.S. to live on Hollywood’s streets. How much more can we take?

California

Column: Young people come from around U.S. to live on Hollywood’s streets. How much more can we take?

They came to Hollywood from Ohio, Tennessee, Idaho, Oregon, and ended up on the streets. One thing they have in common: past trauma.
California

Column: In the dysfunction of L.A. homeless policy, one cop tries to make a difference

California

Column: In the dysfunction of L.A. homeless policy, one cop tries to make a difference

A former marine is now a cop, walking the streets of Hollywood on the homelessness beat. She sees a flawed strategy, haphazard execution and discouraging results.