Back to Show
SoCal Connected
'Substandard of Living' and 'Back From The Brink'
Season 8
Episode 902
SUBSTANDARD OF LIVING
In this episode, SoCal Connected's Deepa Dernandes meets with Dario Pini, a landlord who calls himself a savior of Santa Barbara’s working class, but the City—and many of his tenants—have a different take on Pini. SoCal Connected looks at whether this self-proclaimed savior is actually a slumlord, and why it's taken officials nearly three decades to stop him.
BACK FROM THE BRINK
Get an exclusive look at one of country's most beautiful and least visited national parks and see why it's often called the Galapagos of North America. It's home to one of the biggest comebacks in wildlife history. Travel with Val Zavala to the Channel Islands and learn how the Island Fox came back from the brink of extinction.
Sign up now for inspiring and thought-provoking media delivered straight to your inbox.
Support Provided By

25:42
A look at the profiteering behind two of America's fastest growing diseases affecting millions of Californians.

25:30
"SoCal Connected" profiles how some local governments have used political borders to dilute minorities' power, and what is being done about it.

27:17
One of the nation's top high school athletes was on a path to the NFL, but instead became the poster child for what's wrong with L.A.'s mental Health system.

27:34
The LA Times may have found its savior in Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, but how will the other local newsrooms in LA be rescued?

27:10
One woman strives to prove her innocence from behind bars.

26:59
This half-hour retrospective reviews Zavala's role in covering some of the region's most critical events and key influencers.

26:59
A look at the spike in the number of employers retaliating against undocumented workers when they complain of stolen wages. What is the legal loophole that transforms neighborhoods and gets developments built without consent from the community?

27:59
With the rise of the super-temp, comes the increase income inequality. What happens when half the workforce are gig workers? SoCal Connected follows an Uber driver who lost his job and is struggling to support his family as an independent contractor. Ho

27:50
SoCal Connected takes a deep dive into L.A.'s housing, the idyllic Apricot Farms and the Los Angeles teenager who took on the oil industry, city hall and the Catholic Church to curb urban oil drilling in her neighborhood - and won.

25:45
Nearly a million frozen embryos are stored in labs across the nation.

28:29
As new developments pop up all over L.A., many are asking, 'Who approved that?'

26:59
The price of freedom for some in the L.A. County Jail system is simply to high a cost. As much as a quarter of the 17,000 in LA's jails are there simply because they cannot make bail. Condors were close to extinction when officials took an aggressive appr