Olivia M. Hartwell discovered her calling as a journalist during a summer internship at a community paper in Long Beach, where she spent three months tracking down sources for a story about wage theft at local garment factories. That investigation never ran—the paper folded before it could—but the experience convinced her that local accountability reporting was the work she wanted to do.

Olivia M. Hartwell discovered her calling as a journalist during a summer internship at a community paper in Long Beach, where she spent three months tracking down sources for a story about wage theft at local garment factories. That investigation never ran—the paper folded before it could—but the experience convinced her that local accountability reporting was the work she wanted to do.

Career Path

After graduating from UCLA with a degree in Communication Studies in 2012, Hartwell joined the Pasadena Star-News as a general assignment reporter. Over five years there, she built a specialty in housing and urban development, covering the region’s escalating affordability crisis through data-driven stories and tenant profiles. Her 2016 series on illegal evictions in rent-controlled buildings contributed to a city council review of enforcement practices and earned her a California News Publishers Association award for investigative reporting.She moved to KPCC’s digital team in 2017, where she spent four years covering homelessness policy across Los Angeles County. Her work examined everything from encampment sweeps and shelter capacity to the bureaucratic obstacles facing people trying to exit the streets. In 2020, she completed a Knight Center data journalism fellowship that deepened her ability to analyze public records and housing databases.

Current Focus

At News of Los Angeles, Hartwell covers housing, development, and neighborhood change across the region. She’s particularly interested in stories that follow the money—tracking who profits from new construction, how zoning decisions reshape communities, and what happens to longtime residents when their neighborhoods gentrify. Recent work includes an investigation into investor purchases of single-family homes in South LA and a profile of tenant organizers in Koreatown.A Highland Park resident since 2018, Hartwell spends her weekends exploring the San Gabriel Mountains with her rescue dog, a habit she picked up while reporting on wildfire preparedness in foothill communities.

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