Tech companies step up to bring free Wi-Fi to L.A. public housing residents

Nearly 9,000 residents of public housing in Los Angeles will receive free broadband internet access for the rest of the 2020-21 school year as part of a new partnership between the city, Microsoft, and the startup internet service provider Starry. Starting in early Nov, residents of the Jordan Downs, Nickerson Gardens and Imperial Courts housing projects in Watts and the Pueblo del Rio complex in Central Alameda will be able to sign up for the service. They join residents of the Mar Vista Gardens, who have had access since Aug. The new partnership comes as L.A. schoolchildren settle into another month of remote learning, and parents and public policymakers alike worry that lower-income students will be left even further behind as they struggle to keep up at home.