Either way, what both men insist they didn’t do is transmogrify into the bane of exoplanet researchers everywhere – “planet killers” – people whose work dents or even erases work that might bring humanity closer to hooking up with other intelligent life forms.

“This isn’t a flaw that we just discovered,” Han said. “It’s something people were already worried about. We just (brought) out the details of it.”

The “it” Han is talking about is light. Specifically, he’s referencing solar light that’s essential to finding and observing exoplanets (planets that reside outside our solar system), and that sometimes – when issued by more than one star – can prompt a miscalculation of a planet’s size and composition.

Even more specifically, Han is talking about solar light viewed through NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, which launched seven years ago and has become the space telescope of choice in the fast-growing world of exoplanet research. To date, researchers have used TESS to confirm the existence of 638 exoplanets, or slightly more than 10% of all the exoplanets currently known to exist, and to find another 7,655 celestial bodies that are still subject to research that might confirm or disprove their status as exoplanets.

In exoplanet research – which is key in the search for intelligent life – light is a huge deal.

Exoplanets are discovered only after they pass in front of the light generated by the star that serves as their version of the sun. By blocking light, an exoplanet’s shadow can reveal its size and composition and, by inference, its potential to host intelligent life.

That’s been the theory, anyway.

According to a paper with the on-the-nose title “Hundreds of TESS Exoplanets Might Be Larger than We Thought,” written by Han and Robertson and others, and published this week in Astrophysical Journal Letters, light contamination (light generated by more than one or more nearby star) might be skewing a lot of what planet hunters have been finding via TESS technology.

In all, about 200 TESS-observed exoplanets were remeasured by Han and Robertson – using software that 25-year-old Han wrote when he was an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara – and found to be much bigger, and more liquid, than previously believed.

Those findings, in turn, suggest there might be fewer smaller, rocky Earth-like planets than recently believed.

“Our studies show that a large number of the (planets) observed are larger than their first measurements. And this reduces the population, and changes the likely frequency, of Earth-like planets,” Han said.

That said, it’s too soon to know if that reduces humanity’s prospects of bumping into extraterrestrials.

More bigger planets might mean more moons, and some of those moons could host life if they’re in the so-called “habitable” zone – not too close, not too far – from their sun. What’s more, other recent work, including discoveries by other researchers at UC Irvine, have found that tens of billions of white dwarf stars once believed to be non-starters in the search for life might, in fact, generate enough heat to make a planet habitable.

Instead of blunt questions about extraterrestrials, Han and Robertson hope their work will help lead to inquiries about how planets form, what planets are made of, and what types of atmospheres they can and can’t support.

“Astronomers are really curious about what the typical solar system looks like. Does it look like ours? What we’re finding is that a lot of solar systems don’t look like ours,” Robertson said.

“When you start to take planets and move them from one box to another, it changes what we think we know about solar systems.”

Or, as Han added, “it changes planet formation theory.”

It also means doctoral candidate Han, and 39-year-old Robertson, an associate professor – both of whom have discovered or helped discover their own exoplanets – have produced research that upends work that some of their compatriots have spent years fine-tuning. Though scientific inquiry should mean new information is always welcome, humans, even scientists, don’t always like learning that they might be wrong.

“I’m not sure everybody feels great about this. But my understanding is if we see something that shouldn’t be overlooked, we should be happy to see it,” Han said.

“I am sure they will be pleased to get more accurate results.”

The research came together quickly.

Last year, Han was testing his software by remeasuring some TESS-viewed exoplanets. When he presented the results to Robertson, Han noted that his measurements were uniformly bigger than the sizes listed in published papers about those planets. Han assumed the error might be in his software; Robertson wondered what it would mean if the software was accurate and the data about the planets was wrong.

“We were sitting around a conference table, together, when we had the initial aha moment,” Robertson said.

“We had to brainstorm what kinds of tests we could and should do.”

In November, Han began the process of reading research papers on about 230 exoplanets. He also began the process of remeasuring each one, generating hundreds of printouts of zeroes and ones. Those were eventually transformed into data showing that all but about 30 of the measured planets were, on average, much bigger, and more liquid, than previously believed.

On Monday, July 14, Han and Robertson –- along with co-authors Timothy D. Brandt, Shubham Kanodia, Caleb Cañas, Avi Shporer, George Ricker and Corey Beard – published their results.

Those results could quickly change the hunt for habitable planets.

Han noted that while his calculations aren’t “an easy fix,” they do present a path other researchers can use before they publish data about their planets. Han and Robertson also said the software isn’t a commercial product, and is being made available to the research community. They also both suggested other software might be in development that soon could leapfrog what Han has created.

Their focus, they said, is to expand what’s known – and to raise new questions – about planets outside our solar system.

Astronomers, for now, don’t even have a strict definition for what a planet is or isn’t (or for “life,” for that matter). Accurate details about the planets we’ve observed to date could lead to one.

“There has been a robust discussion about this result,” Robertson said. “Our hope is that it continues.”

Glover oversees the Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core at UCI’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders. She has helped develop educational and diagnostic tools to help older adults improve their cognitive health.

The “Ask the Doc” livestream session can be accessed via youtube.com/@UCIMIND/streams or on Facebook.

Over the next decade, the number of people 85 years old and older living in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties will jump by more than 72%. That’s a 10-year window when the 85-plus crowd in the four counties is forecast to expand, on average, by nearly 24,000 per year.

By the time it’s done, in 2035, the four-county population is expected to include 565,493 people ages 85 and up, a pool of so-called “super seniors” that will be slightly bigger than the current population (all ages) of Long Beach and West Covina combined.

That’s not a negative, of course. The vast majority of those older people will be quite pleased to be alive. And they figure to provide the community with valuable life experience and wisdom, and maybe a lot of grandparent-level kindness.

But, collectively, they’ll also present challenges. And how we answer those challenges, according to senior advocates, could push Southern California into a full-blown eldercare crisis.

Consider:

About 1 in 3 super seniors will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia. There currently aren’t enough memory care centers or medical experts who can help people with Alzheimer’s, and nobody expects dementia-related services and hiring to keep pace with the coming surge in demand.

About half of the people in that 85-and-up cohort will need daily assistance to maintain their health and dignity, either from a skilled nursing home, an assisted living center or regular visits from an in-home caregiver, professional or family.

Today, some lower-priced skilled nursing and assisted-living centers already have waitlists. But the new economic drivers of eldercare – surging demand and fewer government dollars to pay for the help – suggest those waitlists will only grow.

And, critically, a solid 1 in 3 of those super seniors won’t have enough income, or private insurance, to pay for much or any of their long-term care.

Though the poverty rate for seniors in each of the four Southern California counties is only slightly higher than the overall poverty rate for all ages, a different measure of financial hardship – one that tracks whether a household income can or can’t cover “basic needs,” such as food, health care and housing, in a particular community – shows that a lot of local seniors are broke.

A 2023 report from the advocacy group Justice in Aging suggested the “basic needs” poverty rate for seniors living in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties ran between 28% and 37%.

All of it suggests that eldercare – already a problem for tens of thousands of local households – is about to get tougher.

“We’re not even close to prepared for this,” said Jim McAleer, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Orange County, a nonprofit that helps Alzheimer’s patients and their families.

“Not only is the senior population growing, but the younger people are moving away,” he added, via email.

“We already see way too few physician specialists, in things like neurology and gerontology. And it will get worse.”

First age, then politics

Yet, for all that, the rise of the 85-and-up crowd is only part of why McAleer and other local advocates fear that dignified old age is about to become tougher to achieve.

Current political trends, they argue, could add stress to the region’s already rickety, immigrant-dependent network for eldercare. That stress, they fear, could produce a have vs. have-not world for people in their last stages of life, with wealthier seniors still getting the kind of care we see today and everybody else scrambling.

At risk, according to some, are some traditional pillars of eldercare:

Nursing home and assisted-living beds – already expensive – could become completely out of reach for a huge number of seniors if Medicaid (known as Medi-Cal in California) is slashed at levels projected in the “big, beautiful” domestic spending bill recently approved by the House and now being debated by the Senate.

Likewise, skilled in-home health care – an option used more in Southern California than in any part of the country – also could be priced out of reach as federal funding dries up.

Even lower-skilled aid givers – the small army of immigrants, legal and otherwise, who provide lower-priced, in-home help for thousands of older people in Southern California – could become expensive or impossible to find as immigration enforcement tightens.

The upshot of it all could be grim.

At least some seniors, including some who have never been poor previously, figure to become homeless in the coming years, a trend that’s already well underway. Others might wind up relying on family care, a trend that could derail careers for thousands of middle-age children and in-laws and make it harder for them to save for their own retirements.

If nothing else, the proposed cuts threaten the existence of lower-priced skilled nursing homes, a category of care that is particularly reliant on federal dollars.

“Eliminating key Medi-Cal funding will result in staffing shortages, reduced admissions and facility closures,” said Corey Engel, a spokesman for the California Association of Health Facilities, a trade group that represents skilled nursing homes.

“Given that Medi-Cal is a primary payer for long-term care services, especially for low-income seniors, such cuts would put a financial strain on some facilities.”

But beyond the extremes, and even beyond the money, experts and advocates say an eldercare crisis could push tens of thousands of Southern California seniors – and their families – to a financial and emotional ledge.

“Advocacy groups have been yelling for years about this, (but) it’s fallen mostly on deaf ears,” McAleer said. “It’s going to cost lives and dollars. People with no insurance will be forced into the most expensive forms of public health care.

“Or they will die.”

Economics of eldercare

Not everything that might wind up in the spending bill is bad for seniors, or would accelerate an eldercare crisis.

In fact, supporters argue that one proposal still on the table – reducing or eliminating taxes on Social Security – could boost monthly incomes for about half of the people who currently get a Social Security check. For beneficiaries who have income beyond Social Security, the reductions could be worth a few hundred dollars a month.

Critics counter by saying it’s bad economics.

For one thing, wiping out taxes on Social Security would push up by a year – from 2033 to 2032 – the date when an unadjusted Social Security program’s trust fund is expected to run dry. For another, critics note that the people who most need financial help – seniors who rely exclusively on Social Security – would see no gain because they’re already too poor to pay federal taxes.

But other economic issues linked to the spending bill, as it pertains to eldercare and proposed cuts to federal health spending, might not touch seniors at all.

Medi-Cal is a critical component of one of the biggest sectors of Southern California’s economy: health care. An estimated 1.25 million residents of the four counties work in some area of health care, and more than 110,000 work in nursing homes or assisted living centers, according to an April report from economists at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

In a separate report, Labor Center experts project that Medicaid cuts approved in the House version of the spending bill could result in up to 217,000 lost jobs in California as soon as next year. They add that economic output in the state could fall by as much as $37 billion and tax revenue could fall by up to $1.7 billion.

“Medi-Cal is critical to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other health care providers; their suppliers,” wrote Labor Center economist Laurel Lucia. The program, she added, also boosts “local businesses where health care workers spend their income.”

But while economists track numbers that show the rise and fall of seniors or health workers around the state, Elizabeth Ramirez, a 58-year-old Ontario homemaker who takes care of her 90-year-old mother-in-law, focuses on just one number that matters a lot to her and her family: $14.

That’s the hourly wage she’s paid as an in-home caregiver, money she gets from a Medi-Cal-funded program known as In-Home Supportive Services. She’s one of 40,626 people in San Bernardino County who are paid to help care for someone in a home, and one of nearly 450,000 in the four-county region who hold jobs connected to in-home health services.

It’s unclear how much Medi-Cal money, or if any of those jobs, will go away. Final terms of the spending bill haven’t been reached.

Still, Ramirez, who described herself as “politically conservative and socially on the fence,” is watching closely.

“If Medi-Cal stops paying, or cuts back, I’ll keep doing this. I mean, we don’t have any choice,” she said.

“It just means we’ll be a little poorer, too.”

Ramirez, who emphasized that she’s not “in the caretaking business,” said her pay is an important bonus but less than half what she made in her previous job, as a school librarian in Utah. Economists note that pay for in-home care services tends to be a win for taxpayers because it helps keep people out of tax-funded nursing homes, which in Southern California cost upward of $130,000 a year for each patient.

Ramirez likes it because of what it means for her family. Her college-age children don’t have to work to support the household. And her husband, who works in a supermarket, doesn’t have to pull as many overtime shifts as he might otherwise.

She said it lets her focus on her routine, which has become centered on doctor visits and prescriptions, making meals, cleaning and helping a woman she described as “my second mom” take a bath.

“She needs a little help, but she’s cool, too,” Ramirez said of her mother-in-law, whom she declined to name.

“It’s a privilege to care for her, not a problem,” she said.

“Except,” she added, laughing, “for the times when it is a problem.”

Officials at UC Irvine said Tuesday, June 10, that the school and the museum have signed a “nonbinding, exploratory letter of intent” that could eventually result in UCI’s Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art being housed in the same 53,000-square-foot gallery at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts that currently houses the Orange County Museum of Art.

But school officials indicated the merger would be about much more than shared space. Everything from a new director to a new museum name are on the table.

“It’s only just now getting started. And a lot of things are being discussed, but nothing is final,” said Mike Uhlenkamp, UCI’s assistant vice chancellor of communications and media relations.

For local art lovers, a merged museum could create a venue with more than 9,000 permanent pieces, including about 4,500 paintings and other works controlled by UC Irvine that are considered prime examples of California art.

A merged museum also could create new resources for UC Irvine’s fine arts program, which currently has about 250 undergraduate and graduate students. The Orange County Museum of Art’s home, opened in 2022, includes studios and other workspaces as well as galleries. And museums, generally, are viewed as key resources for aspiring artists.

Also, any mashup of UC Irvine and OCMA almost certainly would produce future programs and shows that could boost the county’s art scene. Mergers of local universities and museums in Chicago and Baltimore, among other cities, have been viewed as positive for both artists and art patrons.

But, for now, all of those outcomes are just theories. Talks are expected to conclude in the fall, and final approval for any deal will have to come from the University of California Board of Regents.

Also, the discussion announced Tuesday is just a formal version of talks that UC Irvine and the Orange County Museum of Art – both of which were started in the early 1960s – have held informally, on and off, for decades. Different leaders of both institutions have, at times, viewed a combination as mutually beneficial, but timing or finances or land use questions have always gotten in the way.

If the new talks result in a merger, it’s likely that UC Irvine would become the combined entity’s lead partner. The school has vast resources and expertise. And, for decades, its fine arts program has been viewed as a West Coast hub for everything from performance art, in the early 1970s, to digital art in the early 2000s.

The school also been raising money to build or acquire a museum – either on campus or nearby – for several years. A $2 billion fundraising program launched in 2019, Brilliant Future, included an art museum as one of the key projects to be financed. That program is expected to end this year, and UC Irvine officials could not say Tuesday how much money has been raised specifically for a new museum. Uhlenkamp said the school has started to talk with museum donors to alert them about any possible merger.

But it’s not clear what role money might play in any potential deal.

The Orange County Museum of Art – founded by 13 women, on Balboa Peninsula, in 1962 – has found seemingly secure footing since 2022, when it moved from Newport Beach to its current home. The move ended years of space-hopping and speculation about the museum, which has long focused on artists from California and the Pacific Rim. The new home also helped boost museum attendance. Since the start of 2023, about 250,000 people a year (who can get free admission through at least 2032 courtesy of a $2.5 million gift from Moti Ferder, chief executive of Lugano Diamonds) have been visiting the galleries.

Still, a merger with UC Irvine could solidify Orange County Museum of Art’s long-term role in the county. Earlier this year, the current director, Heidi Zuckerman, said she plans to leave when her contract expires in December, and it’s not known if there’s a candidate in line to take her place. Calls to the Orange County Museum of Art were not returned Tuesday.

It happens that UC Irvine also is seeking a new full-time director for the Museum of California Art, a decision that was made months before talks about a merger became public. Uhlenkamp said candidates for the job are being contacted about what might be in the works, a move that could change their employment plans.

“It’s not like they’d get to be building something from the ground floor. So it would be different in that regard,” he said. “But it’s both a different challenge and a different kind of opportunity.”

It’s unclear what UC Irvine or OCMA would do, or if either entity would change, if the merger doesn’t happen. The school is currently showing art at a temporary gallery in the Airport Tower building near John Wayne Airport. The current show – “California Kinship: Painting Homelife in the Golden State Before 1940” – is a 47-piece exhibit. The school owns more than 4,000 paintings – most of which are kept off campus – and the temporary space near the airport includes about 15,000 square feet of galleries. Uhlenkamp said if a merger isn’t approved, the school would continue to seek a permanent museum, but it has no specific place in mind.

Instead, a blocked merger with Orange County Museum of Art could serve as a speedbump, however small, in the school’s effort to be more closely integrated with the broader community of Orange County.

Though UC Irvine has a long history as a strong academic institution, it has stepped up its efforts in recent years to play a bigger role in county life. Political polling on Orange County, a revived baseball program, a soon-to-open public hospital – all are some of the ways the school has pushed to connect with the county.

Art could be next.

“A partnership with (Orange County Museum of Art) would be part of our effort to be a public resource,” Uhlenkamp said. “It’s a natural.”

The U.S. Department of Justice says Sharma – who in the 2010s was a regional leader in the drug and alcohol recovery industry – made $149 million worth of fraudulent insurance claims between 2014 and 2020. Prosecutors also say Sharma’s company ran up $29 million in unnecessary urinalysis tests that were conducted by Sovereign-owned labs, and that the company paid more than $21 million in illegal kickbacks to so-called “body brokers” who steered insured addicts into Sovereign-owned clinics.

Sharma, 61, of Tustin, was picked up at Los Angeles International Airport after returning from a trip, officials said. He was expected to spend Thursday night in federal custody and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday.

• Also see: Former rehab mogul’s take on fed charges: ‘You can indict a ham sandwich’

Sharma could not be reached for comment. Officials said late Thursday that Sharma does not yet have a lawyer but he is expected to have one during his arraignment.

A one-time Sharma employee, Paul Jin Sen Khor, 45, of Irvine, who worked as Sovereign’s cash management and accounts payable supervisor, also was arrested Thursday. He was charged with a single count of conspiracy and one count of making illegal payments for referrals to clinical treatment facilities.

Khor pleaded not guilty Thursday during his arraignment in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. A federal judge scheduled a July 29 trial date, and Khor was released on $20,000 bond.

If convicted, Sharma faces up to 20 years in federal prison for each wire fraud count. Also, he and Khor face up to five years in federal prison for each count of conspiracy and up to 10 years in prison for each count of kickbacks, which prosecutors describe as “illegal remunerations.”

The criminal filings against Sharma and Khor mark the latest episode in a long-running saga that involves Sovereign, specifically, and, more broadly, the drug and alcohol recovery industry in Southern California.

In 2017, the Southern California News Group published Rehab Riviera, an investigative series that looked at widespread fraud, abuse and neglect in the drug and alcohol recovery industry in the region.

Among other things, the series found that the industry faced little state or federal oversight and that virtually anybody could start a recovery center. The series also found that many operators were wooing addicts to recovery operations in Southern California, often paying body brokers to bring them insured clients.

And, critically, the investigation found that many rehab operators were abusing loopholes in Obamacare – which requires insurers to pay for addiction recovery – and billing insurance companies tens of millions of dollars for extended, sometimes repeated, stints at rehab.

Many of those allegations were aired during a 2022 civil court case involving Sovereign and insurance giant Health Net.

Though Sovereign initially filed suit against Health Net, demanding payment for insurance claims, the health giant eventually won when a Los Angeles jury ordered Sharma and his company to pay nearly $45 million in damages and interest.

After a seven-week trial, the jury took a day to find that Sharma and his company acted with “malice, oppression or fraud,” and that Health Net had proved Sharma violated the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organization Act.

Beyond insurance fraud, the industry, widely, has been criticized by families of recovering addicts, and health care advocates, who say poorly run recovery centers have led to several deaths and, more commonly, poor health outcomes. The SCNG investigations have found several people died, often by drug overdose, at rehab centers that didn’t follow medical protocols or simply didn’t check up on patients.

The father of one former Sovereign patient said Thursday that he welcomed the criminal fraud charges against Sharma, but doesn’t feel it covers the scope of what he views as negligence by Sharma and his company.

“I’m very pleased that Sharma was arrested for his billing fraud, (but) the indictment does not address how Sharma did not provide promised professional treatment that has sentenced our family and other families to a lifetime of grief,” said Allen Nelson, whose son, Brandon Nelson, hanged himself in 2018 at a Sharma-owned sober living home that had claimed Nelson would be receiving top-of-the-line mental health treatment.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed “Brandon’s Law,” which prohibits recovery operators from misrepresenting or making blatantly false claims about the services they offer or where they’re located.

In 2023, the Nelson family won $11 million in a wrongful death claim against Sharma and his company.

Among other things, the claim said a Sharma-owned sober living home did not tell potential customers that in 2008 his license to practice psychiatry was revoked in the United Kingdom for conduct deemed dishonest, unprofessional and misleading.

Nelson said he plans to attend Sharma’s arraignment in Los Angeles.

The stakes were high. If Ngũgĩ slipped into his native Gikuyu, the language of his village, he was beaten with a cane and forced to wear a sign with messages such as “idiot” or “donkey.”

“It was about more than the words. It was about control,” said Munyao Kilolo, a doctoral candidate at UC Irvine, where the man Kilolo and others called “Professor Ngũgĩ” spent the last decades of his life as a teacher and friend.

“The idea was to minimize, maybe eradicate, a culture.”

So it was deliciously ironic that Ngũgĩ, who died Wednesday at age 87, became a perpetual Nobel candidate by writing everything from novels and plays to memoirs and children’s books and essays in Gikuyu.

After gaining critical acclaim in the 1960s as a young English-language author from Kenya – telling stories about East African people in the language of their colonizers – he turbo-charged that career by penning his 1980 novel, “Devil on the Cross,” in Gikuyu.

That he composed an African-language novel while serving a year as a political prisoner in Kenya – and wrote it on prison-issued toilet paper – only added to Ngũgĩ’s growing literary mystique.

“That book was written on toilet paper. That part is true,” Kilolo said, laughing. “But you have to understand that the toilet paper, in Kenya, particularly in a prison, is quite different from the toilet paper you experience in this country.”

What was key, according to Kilolo and others, is that Ngũgĩ created a world in the language used by the characters – and, often, the most ardent readers – of the story. English, French, Spanish; the languages of European colonizers around the world became no more or less important than the hundreds of languages spoken by people native to Africa and the Americas.

Ngũgĩ’s choice to use their words – and his growing acclaim – gave those people a voice.

“Our African languages were continually subjugated,” Kilolo said. “The world made everything African, especially our languages because that’s where our culture resides, unimportant.

“But Professor Ngũgĩ changed that,” Kilolo added.

“The very existence of that text was important.”

Language itself was often a theme. In many of his best reviewed novels – “The Wizard of the Crow” and “Petals of Blood,” and in memoirs such as “Birth of a Dream Weaver,” or the influential critique “Decolonizing the Mind” – Ngũgĩ touched on the idea that language can be a form of control, and that imagination can be an act of power.

The choice to write in Gikuyu also changed the nature of what he wrote, according to Kilolo and others. Stories told in languages with long oral traditions shift a little, depending on who is doing the telling and on how the story is being told. The essence of the tale becomes more important than any one phrase or scene.

“African stories are told with movement and sound, and they respond to the audience,” said Kilolo, who worked with Ngũgĩ to translate one of his short stories. “They aren’t initially meant to be written down and put away. They live and change.”

Ngũgĩ’s stories – favoring the oppressed and mocking people in power – were appreciated by several generations of critics. In 2009, he was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and in 2012, he was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle prize. In 2016, he won the Pak Kyong-ni Literature Award. That same year, UCI officials were convinced that Ngũgĩ would win the Nobel Prize for literature, and cancelled a press conference at the last minute when Bob Dylan was named that year’s winner.

If Ngũgĩ’s career arc was largely a success, his life was often shaped by conflict.

Born in 1938, with the name James Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ survived Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s and was in his 20s when Britain gave over control of Kenya to native Kenyans in 1963. Ngũgĩ left the country, in part because he became disillusioned with the country’s new leaders, and he and his family later faced political harassment. His mother was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement, one brother was killed in sectarian violence and another – deaf and mute – was shot dead when he didn’t stop to obey the command of a soldier.

He also was an enthusiastic teacher, according to Kilolo and others. He taught at several universities, including Yale, before coming to UC Irvine in 2002.

“He was curious about everything, and he had tons of energy; millions of plans,” said Adriana Johnson, who teaches Latin American literature at UC Irvine.

“He absolutely loved teaching,” she added. “He was incredibly generous.”

Kilolo, who worked as Ngũgĩ’s assistant and helped translate his short story “The Upright Revolution,” noted that his mentor was also a great friend.

“He probably called me more than I called him,” he said. “But he called everybody, and kept up with people. He was a very good man.”

Ngũgĩ’s death was confirmed Wednesday by his family, who said he died peacefully with family members by his side. UC Irvine officials said he remained a professor at the school. The school said he was survived by nine children, several of whom are writers.

It’s unclear how, or if, Ngũgĩ’s work has changed the role of oppression in Kenya.

Kilolo, 39, grew up in Kenya and, like his mentor, attended boarding schools as a child. And, like his mentor, he was punished for speaking his native language, Kamba.

“There are things still to do in that regard,” Kilolo said.

It’s big money for three small-ish local charities. It’s a model of simplicity in the sometimes byzantine world of charitable giving. It’s a statement of support for the economically disadvantaged, or the unlucky, at a moment when public backing for that world seems to be slipping.

And, above all, it’s a blunt infusion of cash aimed at a problem that seems to be stumping every elected official in America:

Keeping people from becoming homeless.

“This world is very hard for poor people,” said David Gillanders, executive director of Pathways of Hope, one of the three nonprofits getting Samueli Foundation money through the initiative. “And until the last couple years, homeless prevention of the type we’re talking about had an image problem, that it was somehow free money for freeloaders.

“But it’s nothing like that,” Gillanders added. “It’s simply a small bit of help for working people who are struggling in a system that’s not very hospitable to them.

“Our thinking is that we can use this money to help a lot more people.”

Listening works

The money announced last week came only after a pilot program, run by all three nonprofits for most of last year, showed how a smaller amount of cash could keep people housed. Combined, the three charities used about $1.5 million to keep 294 families from becoming homeless. The new deal expands on that.

But it’s also a potential accelerant, something that could spark new ideas in housing, nonprofits and even other deep-pocketed foundations.

For the charities involved, getting $2 million-plus to spend over two years is potentially transformative.

For example, Gillanders’ organization, Pathways, is a Fullerton-based agency helping north county residents with shelter and food that, in 2023, reported charitable revenue of about $3.75 million. So, depending on how you do the math, the Samueli gift could boost Pathways by as much as 53%.

Similar calculations (if smaller bumps) can be made for the two other recipients, both of which provide food and shelter services in central and south Orange County. In 2023, Families Forward, in Irvine, raised $11.6 million, while South County Outreach, also in Irvine, raised about $6.19 million.

For all three nonprofits, the money is enough to cover what for-profit companies might describe as expansion capital and research funding.

“The money makes us a different organization,” said LaVal Brewer, president and CEO of South County Outreach.

“I mean, it’ll help us help a lot more people. And that’s the most important thing,” he added.

“But it also will change us, I think. It’ll let us double down on what is working, and also think of new approaches that, maybe, we wouldn’t otherwise be able to try.

“The flexibility to innovate, that’s a really big part of this.”

That’s true, in part, because the Samueli gift is also an outlier.

Unlike virtually all corporate donations, which typically require recipients to file reams of paperwork that spell out how every penny of that gift is being spent, the Samueli family money (which the organization describes as a “collaborative investment”) comes with almost no strings.

Yes, it’s supposed be spent on a directed goal: to prevent people living on the financial edge from losing their homes. And, yes, at various points, foundation officials will meet with the nonprofits to see how progress toward that goal is or isn’t being made.

But details about how the money is spent, and who it’s spent on, are entirely up to the nonprofits.

It’s a type of charitable giving known as trust-based philanthropy, and it’s only starting to be seen locally after several years of gaining traction in Europe and other parts of the United States.

Samueli officials say trust-based giving is efficient. Instead of spending money and time on oversight, this grant puts more money directly into the hands of people who have shown themselves to be experts at fixing a problem – homelessness – that’s widely viewed as a crisis.

“We really believe in our partners in this,” said Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Family Philanthropies. “They are closest to the problem. And they understand the solutions far better than we will. So we trust them. We trust them to tell us what’s working and what’s not.

“We don’t proscribe,” Spindle added. “We try to listen.”

Cash works, too

For the particular problem at hand – preventing homelessness by helping people on the financial edge stay in their houses or apartments – no-strings cash is particularly useful.

Federal money aimed at helping people stave off eviction typically comes with some rules that, on the surface, seem to make sense. Such money shouldn’t be spent on attorneys, for example. It shouldn’t go to people battling an active addiction. And, critically, it only can be issued to help someone who has been issued a formal notice of eviction.

But that last rule, at least, doesn’t acknowledge living arrangements that are common in high-cost housing markets like Orange County.

“Suppose you have Grandma living with her adult daughter and young granddaughter. And there’s some friction, and Grandma says, ‘You’re out!’ Now, that might not meet the government’s definition of an eviction, but it’s an eviction,” said Madelynn Hirneise, CEO of Families Forward.

“That’s someone we can help.”

Hirneise noted that while the Samueli money might not come with strings, her agency uses some business tools to determine how to spend money.

“There’s a budget line. There’s some predictive analysis,” she said. “There’s freedom and flexibility, but it’s not a blank checkbook.”

But by those standards, Hirneise added, flexible cash is more efficient than if the money came with tighter rules and more oversight.

Flexibility also allows for more common sense.

For a family working multiple hourly jobs, a car breakdown can mean lost income. So, maybe they get help in paying for a repair bill, and that help is toted up as keeping a family in their home. For a family struggling with child care, a kid staying home from school because of a cold or flu might mean a lost opportunity to work. In that case, paying for extended daycare might qualify as a rent subsidy.

The idea, according to the Samueli Foundation’s Spindle, is for the money to be used to fix real, “day-to-day” problems.

“These are things that can happen to anyone,” she said. “But these funds have a one-to-one ability to keep people housed and on their feet.

“It’s a compelling argument.”

Gillanders, of Pathways of Hope, suggested the tone was set during the pilot program.

“The idea was to test how using cash assistance could help,” he said.

“It turns out it helps quite a bit.”

Key moment

The Samueli Foundation money is also at least one other thing:

A response.

While Henry and Susan Samueli have been giving more to charity in Orange County for several years – from about $23 million four years ago to a projected $125 million this year – the latest gift comes at a potential turning point for charities and people who are wealthy enough to fund them.

A day after the Samueli Foundation announced the $7.5 million grant, the House of Representatives passed a federal budget bill that will keep taxes low for most people, particularly wealthy ones, while reducing spending on social programs used by the poor and people who earn hourly wages.

Though final budget numbers won’t be known until after the Senate and House strike a deal, local nonprofits and their benefactors are gearing up for an era in which charities figure to play an increasingly important role in keeping people fed and housed.

Last year, Spindle said nonprofits in Orange County used an estimated $1.6 billion from federal programs. This year, according to other estimates, that number could be reduced by half.

“The funds (from the Samueli family and others) are clearly more important than they’ve ever been,” Spindle said.

While no single charity can make up that gap, Spindle hopes her organization’s no-strings gift will be copied by others.

Spindle described the current era as a moment of “no regrets” philanthropy.

“We’re prioritizing action over perfection.”

And she suggested the idea of funding a housing program, in particular, during a time when federal spending might make it even harder for people to live in the county, should be viewed by people of all political stripes as a smart investment, not a gift.

“I view this as an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Spindle said. “If you’ve an employer in this county, or you want to attract or retain talent, you should care about housing. And if you’re a public official, or a religious leader, you should care about this issue.

“Money in our (foundation’s) bank account is not helping anyone in the community.”

She’s 104 years old (“104 and a half,” she corrects), and, until recently, a life of such length was a statistical quirk, rare enough to warrant news coverage or scientific research or at least a cupcake at the local senior center.

These days that’s only half true. Kahan’s age still makes news, and scientists increasingly are interested in people like her. She still gets the odd cupcake.

But the attention isn’t coming because she’s so uncommon. It’s because she’s not.

In fact, being a Kahan – living to 100 and beyond – might be a glimpse of the future.

“Being this old is fun,” Kahan said. “I recommend it.”

Welcome to Ageville

The number of centenarians worldwide has more than doubled over the past 25 years and demographers at the United Nations project that the 100-something crowd will quadruple by mid-century. Today, the biggest centenarian populations are in Japan (146,000) and the United States (108,000). But, soon, countries like China and India, where the overall populations are huge but the aging curve is only now starting to trend upward, will have even bigger 100-something age bubbles. By 2054, nearly 4 million people around the world will be 100 or older.

The trend is expected to be even more pronounced locally. The state projects that from now until 2050, the ranks of centenarians will jump more than fivefold in each of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Of course, centenarians are just the tip of a bigger demographic spear.

Populations are aging up in most advanced economies, at a rate never before seen in human history. In many countries, older people already outnumber children or they’re expected to in the near future. Aging demographics are reshaping everything from retirement plans and immigration patterns to diaper sales and popular ideals about beauty.

Like many aspects of the aging boom, the rise of centenarians is a mixed bag.

For example, it’s unambiguously good that lifestyle changes and cancer prevention and medical sciences have all improved enough to make it possible for so many people to live so long and, often, so well.

“Every centenarian I’ve met is exceptional,” said Stacy Andersen, who, as co-director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University, has met a lot of centenarians.

“These people have delayed chronic, age-related diseases. That’s the baseline. But many also continue to live vibrant lives, to stay engaged in their community and with their families,” she added. “It’s a wonderful view of what aging can be.”

It’s also unambiguously great that younger relatives and friends – everybody under 100, really – can, if they listen, pick up some life hacks that come with living 100 or more years.

“I still love waking up,” said Kahan, her New York accent still thick after six-plus decades in Mission Viejo and other parts of Southern California.

“You should try to do that. It’s pretty important.”

But good things often come with a cost, and the rise of centenarians presents some huge challenges.

Money, health, family hassles; the same issues that plague younger people don’t go away when someone turns 100. But the ability to leap over those hurdles – or, perhaps, to worry about them at all – drops considerably when you become a centenarian.

“I don’t necessarily want to make it to 100,” said Margo Carle, an ombudsman with the Council on Aging Southern California who works as an independent advocate for older people who live in nursing homes and other facilities.

“I see too much of how it can be,” Carle said.

“If you don’t have money, being 100 can be … Well, it’s not always pretty.”

Stresses for all

For Kahan and her 100-something cohorts, the cost of living isn’t cheap.

Though studies show centenarians generally are more physically robust than other older people, age is still age. About half of the 100-something crowd in the United States has some form of dementia, and most of those people need full-time care.

And even among those with little or no cognitive decline, only a small fraction can live on their own without someone – paid or otherwise – checking in every day to help them.

“My sons are all teachers. And they’ve arranged their schedules, they rotate, so they can stay with me,” said Rudolph Marcus, a 101-year-old chemist and former Caltech professor who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1992.

“That helps me continue with my work,” Marcus said. “I still think about my work every day, to be honest. Some problems I can still solve, some I can’t.

“But I could not do any of that without their help.”

Marcus, who won the Nobel for his work on how electrons jump from atom to atom (something that affects the functionality of solar panels and electric cars, among other things), is an outlier. He lives in the same Pasadena house he shared with his late wife, Laura, who died in 2003. Most people his age live in some kind of congregate setting, which in Southern California can run $5,000 to $15,000 a month.

Given that many newly minted centenarians have outlived their retirement savings, or didn’t have much to begin with, the cost of that care often falls to families and the government.

Soon, half of that equation might change.

A proposal being debated in Congress this month could include big cuts to Medicaid, the federal program that helps pay the costs of long-term care for, among others, centenarians. Those cuts, if passed, could result in lower-quality care or, in some cases, displacement. Other proposed Medicaid adjustments could reduce compensation for in-home care, making it tough for centenarians to live without family help.

For families who don’t want to hire out, or who can’t, the costs of centenarian care can run deeper than money.

Unlike younger retirees, whose adult children typically are young enough to still be working, the children of centenarians often are aged themselves – typically in their 70s or 80s. For them, providing care for an aging parent can be devastating, financially and otherwise.

“In many of the cultures that are common in Los Angeles, it’s an honor to care for your aging relatives,” said Heather Cooper Ortner, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Los Angeles, a nonprofit that helps provide services to people and families battling dementia.

“So it isn’t about people being unwilling to do this, or seeing it as a burden. That’s not always the case,” she said.

“But caring for older people can present an incredible level of stress for family caregivers,” Cooper Ortner added. Food, medical questions and appointments, bathing, bathroom help, fall prevention – caring for a centenarian is, literally, a full-time job. For a child in her 80s, it can be too much.

“It’s not uncommon to see a caregiver pass away before the person they’re caring for,” Cooper Ortner said.

“It’s a very complicated dynamic.”

Survive, delay, escape

The first public service messages warning Americans that smoking causes cancer started airing on television in 1967. A few years later, jogging became a national craze and, over the next two decades, about 25 million Americans started going for a run as a regular part of their lives. Less red meat. More sunblock. Meditation. All of it means one thing:

If you’re on deck to turn 100 this year, you’ve spent about half your life in a world where the phrase “healthy lifestyle” wasn’t a punchline.

It’s one reason, though not the biggest, that explains why so many people are living so long. People who study centenarians – and there are hundreds of aging experts looking into the topic in the United States, Japan and Europe – say genetics and the sheer power of population numbers are even bigger factors.

“At the turn of the last century, life expectancy was about 50. But a lot of things – cleaner water, prevention of infant deaths, antibiotics – made it so a lot more people made it into adulthood. That just means there are a lot more people who are going to have the opportunity to hit 100,” said Andersen, of the New England Centenarian Study.

But at least one projection suggests population numbers alone are only part of the broader trend. Even as more people, overall, hit 100, the ratio of people who reach that age is skyrocketing. According to United Nations data, Japan currently has about 12 centenarians for every 10,000 residents (the ratio in the U.S. is about 3 in 10,000). By 2050, the ratio in Japan will be about 40 out of every 10,000, and in the U.S., it’ll be about 14 out of 10,000.

“Having good, healthy habits can get you about 10 years longer. And it definitely makes those years better, which is important,” Andersen said. “But it doesn’t necessarily get you to 100.”

Genes might.

Andersen said there is no single “centenarian gene.” Instead, researchers have identified about 200 different genes to date that do age-related things like reduce inflammation and boost immune systems. People who have certain combinations of those genes have significantly better odds of making it to 100.

“We’re still trying to understand the relationships between protective genes,” Andersen said. “But it’s more about genetics than we once believed. And we’re learning more about that all the time.”

The New England Centenarian Study, which started in 1994, has tracked the lives of more than 1,800 centenarians, including 123 so-called “supercentenarians,” meaning people who made it to 110 or older. It’s also looked at more than 600 of their children, and more than 400 so-called “controlled” subjects, (usually spouses and relatives of spouses), as a way to identify the balance between genetics, lifestyle and other factors when it comes to cracking 100.

They’ve learned, so far, that so-called “exceptional longevity” – meaning the likelihood of making it to 100 — runs in families. They’ve also learned that many people who tend to live so long hit age-related illnesses later in life, and that they often compress their debilitations into shorter windows.

“Centenarians spend about 10% of their lives with a chronic illness. Others spend about 20% of their lives in that kind of situation, on average,” Andersen said.

The study has identified three basic types of centenarians. About 4 in 10 (43%) are “delayers,” meaning they didn’t experience age-related diseases, like dementia, until age 80 or later. Another 4 in 10 (42%) are “survivors,” meaning they made it to 100 even though they’ve been battling some kind of disease since before their 80th birthday. And about 1 in 7 (15%) are “escapers,” or people who, even at 100, don’t have any age-related disease.

Marcus, the chemist from Caltech, is probably an escaper.

“I don’t play tennis anymore. And I don’t ski. My sight doesn’t really allow it. But otherwise I feel pretty much the same,” he said.

When asked if he’s still learning about himself, at age 101, or if he’s got any advice to someone hoping to live well at his age, Marcus said yes and demurred.

“I’m learning every day. I try to live in the moment. I’d like to think I don’t live in the past and I never thought too much about the future, even when I was younger. And I definitely don’t do it now, at my age,” Marcus said, laughing.

“But I wouldn’t know if that’s what other people should or shouldn’t do,” he added. “It’s just the way I’ve always been.”

Kahan is probably a delayer. She doesn’t have dementia, but she said she battles health issues she declined to offer in detail.

She did offer one tip.

“Every day. I watch some TV, I talk with my friend. I enjoy my day,” Kahan said.

“But time passes very quickly,” she added. “Even at my age, it doesn’t slow down. And I think that means something.”

Anyone interested in participating in the New England Centenarian Study can call 888-333-6327 or email agewell@bu.edu.

One proposed change to a federal initiative known as Commodity Supplemental Food Program could hit about 25,000 local lower-income seniors. Right now, those people get a 32-pound box filled with items like cereal, canned soup and peanut butter each month. It’s unclear how or if those boxes will be delivered under the administration’s proposed replacement plan.

Other proposed cuts to federal housing programs could affect all of the estimated 45,000 people in Orange County who currently tap federal dollars to help pay their monthly rent. About half of those people are 60 or older.

And an initiative that aims to help lower-income seniors earn money so they rely less on the government – the Senior Community Service Employment Program – would be eliminated entirely. That program, according to the Trump plan, “is effectively an earmark to leftist DEI promoting entities like the National Urban League, the Center for Workforce Inclusion and Easter Seals.”

None of the proposed changes are set. The White House memo is a wish list, and details of the budget will need to be passed in the GOP-controlled Congress, probably this summer.

But political experts, nonprofit workers – even an older voter who describes himself as a Trump supporter – all say the White House and its supporters should be wary about that wish list. They say local politicians who support those cuts, and politicians who don’t do much to stave them off, risk walking into a political trap that’s snared others in the past: the ire of voters of a certain age.

“Older people might be ready to get fired up,” said Jimmy Camp, a longtime political consultant in Orange who has worked with candidates across the political spectrum.

“The conditions for it are there, for sure.”

While the White House budget would trim everything from school lunches to clean water projects, many of the groups linked to those programs have little influence in GOP politics. Young children can’t vote, and their parents tend to vote for Democrats. Homeless people are infrequent voters. Climate scientists, physicists, entrepreneurs seeking federal health or research grants – all are relatively tiny voting blocs.

But seniors?

“People my age, we vote,” said John Deal, an 81-year-old retired steel industry executive in Irvine.

“And we don’t forget.”

Tribal politics

Older voters aren’t monolithic.

In November, nationally, voters ages 50 to 64 were far more likely to back Trump than were voters ages 65 and up, according to a post-election survey by AARP.  The middle-age cohort chose Trump (56%) over Kamala Harris (43%), while the 65-and-up crowd split their vote, with 49% going to each candidate.

It’s unclear if that pattern held in Orange County, where 2024 vote results by age group aren’t yet publicly available.

What is clear is that, politically speaking, local older voters tend to punch above their weight. Though people older than 65 account for about 17% of the county’s population, they’ve accounted for closer to 25%, or more, of all votes cast in recent elections.

It’s part of a long-term pattern. About 41% of county voters age 65 and up are so-called high-propensity voters, meaning they routinely turn out for most elections, according to Political Data Inc., which tracks voting trends in California. By comparison, about 27% of local voters ages 50 to 64 qualify as high propensity, something that’s true of 18% of voters age 35 to 49 and only 13% of voters 18 to 34.

All that means one thing: Older voters have the ability – and, according to Camp and others, the propensity – to respond to any perceived political slight by punching back.

“(Older voters) are more affected personally by the things that affect their whole group,” Camp said.

Deal, an older voter who identifies as a Trump supporter, agrees. He believes proposed spending cuts that touch lower-income older people could prompt a political response from local seniors of all economic means.

“Look, I voted for Trump. I don’t necessarily love him, personally, but I support his ideas,” said Deal, who noted that he doesn’t tap into federal programs targeted by the White House but does use Social Security and Medicare.

Taxes, Deal said, “should be lower.” And, in his view, federal spending “goes too far” on social programs.

“But I play cards with people who feel differently. And I can see they’re already getting active, going to their (anti-Trump) marches and whatnot.

“I bet these issues about federal programs will be pretty important for all the people running for Congress or even mayor.”

If federal programs are cut, and if there is a political backlash, it might be sparked more by facts on the ground than by age-oriented identity politics, say people who work with seniors and locals who work on the programs targeted by the White House.

“The (Commodity Supplement Food Program) is used by people 60 or older, who qualify income-wise. It’s for everybody. And it’s in every community, from La Habra to San Clemente, and it largely follows Orange County demographics, with the exception that recipients are slightly more likely to be Asian and Pacific Islander than the county as a whole,” said Mark Lowry, director of Orange County Food Bank, which administers the Commodity Supplemental Food Program in Orange County.

“But all of the people who get those boxes need to get them,” Lowry added.

“It’s income-vetted and, I can tell you, it isn’t a luxury item.”

The 55-year-old program, initially launched as a way to boost agricultural interests, is now only for people 60 and older whose income is 150% or less of the local poverty rate. In Orange County, the monthly income thresholds to qualify for a food box are $1,957 for one person and $2,644 for a couple. About 109,000 people in California and roughly 707,000 around the country get food each month through the program.

Though the White House wants to end the current food box program – saying it has been “misused for DEI and logrolling,” using terms that refer to diversity programs and political favor-swapping – it also hints at replacing it. The memo pitches the idea of using somebody other than nonprofits to deliver “MAHA food boxes,” referring to the federal “Make America Healthy Again” moniker. The memo adds that the boxes should go directly from farms to needy seniors.

But the White House memo also claims the switch would result in a $425 million savings for taxpayers. That number doesn’t include any cost that might be needed to come with a new distribution network for a new type of food box.

In a letter he wrote to other food bank operators who administer the food box program in counties around the country, Lowry suggested the White House proposal – if the administration is sincere about wanting to keep issuing food boxes – might actually result in taxpayers paying more in order to feed needy seniors.

“The Administration claims a $425 million savings by eliminating CSFP,” Lowry wrote. “They provide no cost, however, related to their alternative for MAHA food boxes. The Administration proposes to substitute non-profits who engage volunteers who assemble CSFP food boxes with for-profit companies who will pay employees to package MAHA food boxes. It is reasonable to assume that the Administration is proposing a more costly model that will provide no savings for taxpayers.”

That pattern holds in other safety net changes suggested by the White House. Though the memo says taxpayers would save $163 billion, overall – even when mixing in spending increases for defense and immigration enforcement – there are no cost estimates for proposed replacements mentioned for at least some of the safety net programs.

“The numbers don’t necessarily make sense,” Lowry said.

“Some of this seems like it might backfire.”

Surviving scrutiny

The backfire argument – the idea that budget cuts to social programs might actually mean a bigger tax bill rather than a smaller one, and that cuts to social spending would be a drag on the overall economy – is already part of the pushback that’s emerged in the days since the White House posted its budget memo.

“Safety-net programs do much more than just alleviate individual hardships. They are economic engines… ” wrote Orange County Supervisor Doug Chaffee, chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, in a May 7 letter to Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, whose CA-40 district includes parts of Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

In the letter, Chaffee urged Kim to vote against any cuts to the federal food program SNAP (which was once known as Food Stamps and in California is known as CalFresh), and school-based nutrition programs. He referenced federal research that shows every $1 spent in SNAP benefits generates $1.80 in economic activity, and that every $1 billion spent by taxpayers to boost the SNAP program supports more than 13,000 jobs.

Kim also nudged further into the political pushback against White House budget priorities. Last month, she was one of a dozen GOP House members who signed a letter saying they won’t back steep cuts to Medicaid, an issue that could hamstring the push to reduce taxes and lower the budget, or risk taking health care and health insurance away from millions of lower-income Americans.

And on May 8, Kim’s office issued a video showing her (gently) grilling Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over proposed cuts to the Community Development Financial Institution, a program that provides credit and financial services to underserved communities.

Part of their exchange went like this:

Rep. Kim: “I’d like to urge you to continue your support for CDFI. CDFI Fund programs are statutory, as you know, and this has been critical in promoting the local economy in Orange County. Do you still agree that the CDFI plan has a critical role to play in fostering economic opportunity?”

Secretary Bessent: “We believe that if CDFI officials follow their statutory obligations and do not digress into more ideological boundaries, they can be important institutions.”

What went unmentioned was the fact that the White House wants the program cut.

In its budget memo, the administration said it would end the CDFI program, in part because it believes that past CDFI grants “may have made race determinant of access to loan programs …  and framed American society as inherently oppressive rather than fostering unity.”

But the biggest financial argument against the cuts might be about federal housing programs, particularly in Orange County and particularly as they relate to older people.

The White House projects that taxpayers would save around $34 billion if the federal government ended or trimmed a variety of federal housing programs. That’s a huge number. But senior advocates say those cuts almost certainly would mean more homelessness, and that numerous economic studies have shown that homelessness is, among other things, far more expensive than housing assistance.

“The programs that they’re talking about cutting were set up for a reason. And even though there’s a lot of talk about how they’re wasteful or ineffective, when you look closely at what they do, you usually see something different. They work,” said Trinh Phan, director of state income security issues for Justice in Aging, a nonprofit that offers legal help to senior organizations.

“Cutting rent subsidies will result in more people on the streets. It’s simple,” she added.

Already, the fastest growing demographic in Southern California homeless shelters is people ages 50 and older. And if housing vouchers go away, homeless retirees, as they’re often known, could become common in Orange County.

That, Phan said, will inspire a political response from older voters.

“We’re already seeing a rise in senior homelessness. And that’s a very public issue; people see the homeless and it affects them,” Phan said. “And, beyond the morality of it, it’s much more expensive to try to help someone who is unhoused than it is to make sure they don’t become unhoused in the first place.

“That could wake a lot of people up.”

The idea is simple: Sign up to give to the program online. Then, on Saturday, May 10, leave a bag of non-perishable food out for your mail carrier. They’ll haul it away and eventually that donation will be used to help feed needy people in Orange County.

Launched in 1993, the annual event has grown into the nation’s biggest one-day food drive. For information about how to register, go to the National Association of Letter Carriers website.