The Brief

Single-family homes, condominium owners, and property owners with four or fewer units can now get up to $8,000 to install a heat pump HVAC system.

It’s part of a new round of rebates funded by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. The first round is still open and provides rebates for clean energy home upgrades for a variety of appliances in low- and middle-income apartments.

Why it matters

Heat pumps can both heat and cool your home and are extremely efficient, which means they can help you save hundreds of dollars a year on your electric bill. Heat pumps are up to five times more efficient than traditional heating and cooling systems, meaning they can provide five times more cooling or heating power than the electricity they consume.

And because they don’t burn fossil fuels (like a traditional gas furnace) and are a lot more efficient than traditional A/C units, heat pumps not only improve indoor quality, but can help significantly cut climate pollution as more households install them.

These rebates aim to spur the adoption of heat pumps to fight climate change, while helping people cut energy costs. So if your gas furnace or A/C is on the fritz, consider upgrading to a heat pump.

What do the rebates cover? 

As we said earlier, this is the second piece of new federal rebates to increase the adoption of clean energy appliances at home. This particular rebate gives income-qualified, single-family homes between $4,000 to $8,000 to install a heat pump HVAC system.

You can get the rebates upfront as an instant discount or as a paper check from the contractor after installation.

Keep in mind these rebates don’t cover electrical panel upgrades, which may be necessary depending on your home. However, these rebates are stackable with other financial incentives. Learn more about state and local clean energy incentives at switchison.org and climateaction.ca.gov.

Who’s eligible? 

Low- and medium-income single-family homes, as well as properties with four or fewer units — such as mobile homes, duplexes, and condos — are eligible.

Homeowners or tenants making between 80% and 150% of the area median income can get up to $4,000 toward a heat pump HVAC system, and those with incomes less than 80% of the area median income will be eligible for up to $8,000.

For example, a four-person household in Orange County with an income of $129,750 or less would be eligible for the $8,000 rebate, and an income of $236,700 or less for the $4,000 rebate. A four-person household in L.A. County with an income of $110,950 or less would be eligible for the $8,000 rebate, and an income of $208,050 or less for the $4,000 rebate. You can check your eligibility here.

What if I’m a renter?

In L.A. city, 63% of households rent their homes, as do 54% in L.A. County, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Only the home or property owner can apply for the rebate, however, renters can encourage their landlord to apply. If your landlord pays the electric bill, tell them this can help them save money. If they don’t, tell them it will help you save money, improve your indoor air quality, and increase the value of their property.

If you’re worried about a heat pump HVAC upgrade leading to an increase in your rent, that’s valid, and something local nonprofits and researchers are working to address through policy (see our previous coverage on that here).

The L.A. City Council recently voted to eliminate a local provision allowing landlords to evict tenants in cases where “substantial remodel” work will take more than 30 days, which tenant advocates applauded as a necessary step to ensure renters are not punished by clean energy upgrades.

As the federal rebate rules currently stand, owners and landlords of low-income apartments or other rental properties who receive an income-qualified rebate are not allowed to raise rents due to energy upgrades or evict tenants to rent at higher rents for a minimum of two years.

If you rent on a property with more than four units you can check out our story on available rebates for a variety of clean appliances, such as induction stoves and heat pumps.

How do I apply? 

Only the homeowner or property owner can apply.

You can check eligibility and apply for the rebates here. You need to work with a certified contractor, which you can find here.

What’s next? 

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to “terminate” many of the clean energy rebates for consumers from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. California is still awaiting approval from the Department of Energy for additional consumer rebate programs, so many of these rebates may be at risk under a Trump administration.

If you’re considering going solar, getting an electric vehicle or need to upgrade your electrical panel and want to benefit from federal financial incentives, time is of the essence. Check out this guide from the nonprofit Rewiring America to learn more about all the existing federal incentives for clean energy home upgrades.

Other clean energy resources 

How long a Los Angeles County resident lives can depend on where they live in the area, and the gap between the county’s richest and poorest communities has gotten wider over the past decade, according to a report released this week.

Average life expectancy countywide is 80.5 years, according to the report by Measure of America, a program of the Social Science Research Council. That’s down 1.6 years from the group’s previous report, released in 2017.

The Portrait of Los Angeles County measures how Angelenos are doing neighborhood by neighborhood, using a metric called the Human Development Index, or HDI. The index combines life expectancy, educational attainment and personal earnings into a single well-being score between 0 and 10.

The county’s HDI crept up to 5.64, from 5.43 in the previous report. That was far short of a county goal set in 2017 to raise L.A. County’s HDI by a full point.

“The main reason for this anemic progress is COVID and the disproportionate impacts it had on different groups of Angelenos,” said Kristen Lewis, director of Measure of America.

Drug overdoses and cardiovascular disease also contributed, the report says.

The report was produced in partnership with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health and supported by a group of philanthropic funders including the James Irvine Foundation, Cedars-Sinai and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Life expectancy in L.A. County map graphic produced by Measure of America

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Measure of America

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A widening gap

The report details disparities between L.A. County’s wealthiest communities — where life expectancy went up — and poorer ones, where it dropped.

“What we saw in terms of change over time is that the areas that were already doing well are doing better,” Lewis said.

The gap between the longest-living and shortest-living communities is more than 16 years. Average life expectancy in Westwood was 88.1, compared to 71.8 in the Antelope Valley community of Sun Village.

Lewis said she drove to Sun Village during the research process and found no grocery stores and no sidewalks.

"It would be very hard to make healthy choices in that environment,” she said.

While median personal earnings rose countywide since the last report, they didn’t keep pace with dramatically rising housing costs.

In every L.A. County neighborhood, a resident earning the local median salary would need to work more than 40 hours a week to afford median housing costs, according to the report. In 31 L.A. County neighborhoods, that figure exceeds 80 hours.

The report sorts L.A. County neighborhoods into five tiers of well-being, based on where they fall on the Human Development Index, from “precarious L.A.” to “glittering L.A.”

No community in the county scored below 3.0 on the HDI and landed in the lowest tier in the 2026 report. That’s an improvement from 2017, when six areas fell into that category, including Cudahy, Westmont and Southeast Los Angeles.

The latest report examined L.A. County death records between 2019 and 2023. The earlier report had looked at 2010 through 2014.

One bright spot, according to researchers, was that educational attainment improved significantly. The share of adults with a bachelor's degree rose by more than 18%.

Measure of America's breakdown of the '5 L.A.s', rated via the Human Development Index, or HDI.

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Disparities abound

Latinos saw the steepest decline in life expectancy of any major racial group, falling 3.7 years to 80.7 years of age.

The report attributes this largely to COVID-19, noting that Latino Angelenos are disproportionately concentrated in frontline jobs and are more likely to live in overcrowded, multigenerational households, both factors that increased exposure to the virus.

Asian Angelenos have the longest life expectancy, at 86.2 years. Black Angelenos live to 72.9, on average, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders to just 71.2.

Black mothers remain nearly four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white or Asian women.

Lewis said the disparities across neighborhoods are based on policy choices.

“There's nothing natural or inevitable about inequality,” Lewis said. “It was really decades of deliberate decisions, policies and investments designed to advantage some groups of Angelenos while excluding others that really created this landscape of inequality we see today.

Measure of America rankings of the top and bottom L.A. County neighborhoods by Human Developent Index score.

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Measure of America

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What comes next

Lewis said she hopes local officials and community organizations use the report to guide planning, programming and investment decisions.

After the first report in 2017, the city of Los Angeles relocated some workforce development sites based on neighborhood HDI scores, and the county Department of Mental Health used the findings for needs assessment, according to the report.

Kalene Gilbert, a coordinator at the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, said the department used the 2017 report to decide where to pilot community school programs, targeting areas with the worst education disparities.

“If we're really serious about equity in L.A. County, it's reports like this that really help make that a reality because this provides that understanding of where the need is at a really detailed level,” Gilbert said.

The report’s underlying data end in 2023, before several major crises hit L.A. County.

The January 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed thousands of homes and displaced tens of thousands of people.

Federal immigration enforcement raids that summer disrupted daily life in immigrant communities, leading the Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency in October.

The passage of the federal budget bill in July 2025 cut $750 million in annual funding for the county's public health system, according to the report.

None of that is reflected in the latest HDI scores.

Gilbert said those crises are already affecting the people DMH serves. She said immigration raids have made some clients afraid to leave their homes for appointments, forcing the department to shift toward telehealth.

“We consistently hear concern about just even coming out into the community,” Gilbert said.The report's interactive portal, where residents can explore data for their neighborhoods, is available at Measure of America's website.

In the heart of L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood, a 6,000-square-foot space looks to provide mental health care services for Los Angeles Unified School District students, as well as for kids and young adults ages six to 25.

For years, mental health has been a top concern for L.A. youth, many of whom experience high-level stressors, including housing insecurity, gun violence and discrimination in and outside school.

Last year, the L.A. County Youth Commission’s annual report revealed mental health was the top concern for youth, with education and employment falling close behind.

The commission surveyed 856 youth across the five different districts of the county, 524 of whom listed mental health as a top concern. The majority of the youth who selected mental health as their main concern were Latino and system-impacted.

Witnessing rising health care costs and deep cuts to mental health funding in California led Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers to expand their critical outpatient services for youth, also known as their Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program (GCAOP).

With a new location for its GCAOP inside the Chinatown Service Center, the Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers hope to reach more children and youth who can benefit from therapy, medication management and psychiatric care.

On Tuesday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the new location for the GCAOP in Chinatown. She began her remarks by thanking Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers “for stepping up,” with the new facility expected to serve more than 230 youth annually.

“This place will provide the healing needed to prevent challenges from escalating into crises,” Bass said. “Make no mistake, we have a long way to go, but my administration and leaders like those at Gateways are turning the tide on major challenges like mental health that have been ignored for decades.”

Last year, the U.S. Department of Education, under the Trump administration ,announced it would stop funding roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools. The department claimed that the grants were awarded under the Biden administration, a decision that was said to conflict with the current administration's priorities.

Aside from terminating the 2025 grants, the department also proposed an additional reduction for the 2026 fiscal year. These consecutive cuts would reduce resources for school counselors and psychiatrists, something that for school districts like LAUSD can be detrimental.

As L.A. Public Press reported earlier this year, LAUSD enrollment has dropped due to ICE raids spreading across L.A. County and many LAUSD staff, including counselors, have indicated that in times like these, the hiring of more trained attendance counselors and investing in mental health support are vital.

Despite that, for many LAUSD campuses, especially in low-income neighborhoods, staff shortages, including counselors and therapists, are a reality.

To combat some of the local shortages when it comes to mental health, the Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers are partnering with LAUSD to provide outpatient services to students, including individual and family therapy and psychiatric evaluations across more than 15 of the district's campuses.

“Our program is designed to meet young people where they are, whether that’s in school, at home, or here in the new Chinatown Service Center location,” said Charlotte Bautista, director of Gateways Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program. “We know early access to mental health care can change the trajectory of a child’s life, and we are providing a safe space where families can heal, grow and thrive together.”

Charlotte Bautista, director of Gateways Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program, said this expansion also allows for more students and families who deserve consistent, high-quality care to be reached, reducing waitlists and out-of-pocket costs.

“Our program is designed to meet young people where they are, whether that’s in school, at home, or here in the new Chinatown Service Center location,” she said. “We know early access to mental health care can change the trajectory of a child’s life, and we are providing a safe space where families can heal, grow and thrive together.”

This story was produced by CALÓ News, a news organization covering Latino/a/x communities.

The L.A. City Council voted Wednesday to study how large property buyers may be preventing Angelenos from becoming homeowners.

The vote follows a housing department study released in October that found large landlords, like property management companies and investment firms, owned a growing share of L.A. properties.

Rapid property buys by these organizations may lead to residents being displaced and limit opportunities for prospective homebuyers, the report states.

The new study approved this week will attempt to weigh how much added risk large property owners’ businesses are placing on tenants, homeowners and small landlords.

President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom have proposed regulating housing purchases by institutional investors — a group of the very largest corporate landlords.

“It’s shameful that we allow private equity firms in Manhattan to become some of the biggest landlords in many of our cities,” Newsom said at his State of the State address in January.

Trump issued an executive order in January to limit institutional investors’ ability to buy single-family homes.

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez pushed for both housing department studies, saying she hopes the City Council will use the research to make policy that helps first-time homebuyers and mom-and-pop landlords to build generational wealth.

“Mass consolidation and monopolization” of L.A. housing stock puts the first attempt at home ownership out of reach for many young adults and families, she said at Wednesday’s meeting.

More on the October report

The Los Angeles Housing Department found that corporations and other large organizations owned a growing share of L.A.’s housing stock from 2018 to 2023.

The biggest change in ownership was the large organizations’ share of two- to four-unit buildings in the city, which increased by 29% over the six years studied. The report raised concerns that these organizations are targeting relatively small buildings that are often associated with small landlords.

When it comes to single family-homes, more than 1-in-5 properties was found to be sold to an organization and not an individual buyer over the six years studied.

The department also noted that there is some evidence behind concerns that “large corporate landlords may be associated with more evictions, more habitability violations, and overall higher levels of housing insecurity for renters.”

The report listed three companies that each agreed to pay out millions of dollars in recent years after facing allegations of unlawful practices as landlords: K3 Holdings, Wedgewood Homes and Invitation Homes.

According to the housing department report, K3 Holdings ranks as having the fastest-growing inventory of properties over the six-year period. The company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit in 2023 that alleged they illegally targeted long-term Latino residents for displacement from properties in Koreatown and Highland Park.

Wedgewood Homes takes the top spot in flipped L.A. properties, the study found. That company agreed to pay $3.5 million in 2021 after allegations that the company unlawfully evicted and harassed tenants in order to quickly resell homes.

The housing department found Wedgewood Homes sold nearly 400 homes in the six-year period of its study. The company resold 81% of those homes in less than a year at an average price increase of 33%, the study found.

Invitation Homes is one of the largest owners of single-family rentals in the U.S., the report said, and the company agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit over allegations of illegal rent increases for around 1,900 California homes.

K3 Holdings and Wedgewood Homes have previously denied any allegations of wrongdoing, and court documents show Invitation Homes Inc. did not admit or deny liability in the lawsuit against the company.

LAist reached out to all three companies about the report’s findings. They did not immediately provide additional comments.

Other council members weigh in

At the Wednesday meeting, council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he appreciated the effort going toward solving this issue.

“When I first took office [in 2015], eight out of every 10 residential units that went up for sale were bought by a corporation,” he said about the area in South L.A. where District 8, 9 and 15 meet.

Harris-Dawson said because the corporations were buying up properties, working people were squeezed out of the housing market in the once-affordable area.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez also criticized corporations and large investors.

“Homes that should be places where people put down roots, raise their kids and build generational wealth are increasingly treated like commodities in an investment portfolio,” Hernandez said.

Councilmember John Lee welcomed the study, but said he blames the consolidation on the council’s own policies that make it harder to be a property owner.

“I don’t even know if we need a study,” he said. “I think we understand why there’s more corporatization of ownership in our city. It’s the over restrictive policies of this council.”

The story first appeared on The LA Local.
Editor’s note: This is part of our “My LA” series — a look at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

It’s Jan. 11, 2025, and I’m sitting in a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles fighting the overwhelming urge to cry.

I just learned my house survived the Eaton Fire, but I can’t shake the tremor in my friends’ voices who lost theirs. The fire is 15% contained — four days into what would become the second-most destructive fire in California history.

Across from me sits Francisco Sánchez, associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under President Joe Biden, who oversees the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience. Sánchez flew in from Washington, D.C. to see the devastation caused by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

In disaster-response circles, he’s something of a legend. He helped coordinate the rapid conversion of the Houston Astrodome to house families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. But he’s also about to lose his job. The Trump administration is set to take over the federal government in nine days.

I run through the facts about Altadena. One in five residents is Black. One in four is Latino. The median age is 45.

We talk about resiliency and rebuilding. We talk about neighbors banding together to collectively bargain with contractors. We talk about the Army Corps of Engineers choosing not to conduct soil testing in Altadena — the first time it has declined to do so after a major fire in two decades.

But it’s the last thing Sánchez tells me that stays with me a year later.

“You have to fight like hell to make sure what happened in Hawaii doesn’t happen to you,” he said. “They will turn Altadena into condos, if you let them.”

Firefighters battling a blaze in Altadena

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Breathing was difficult

In the spring, the calls began.

Neighbors scattered across Los Angeles County started receiving offers from real estate agents and private equity firms that had quietly moved into the region.

Before the fire, private acquisitions accounted for about 5% of home sales in Altadena. Four months later, they accounted for nearly 50%.

What Sánchez warned about was already happening. Breathing was still difficult on my block.

The Eaton Fire began as a wildfire but quickly became an urban fire. The Los Angeles Times compared the toxicity levels in our area to New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

I worried about neighbors — mostly people of color — whose homes survived but who had little choice but to return quickly because they lacked sufficient insurance coverage.

I worried about the air we were breathing. But no one seemed able to tell me who was responsible for monitoring it.

At the disaster center on Woodbury Road, sympathetic county officials told me the state of California oversaw air quality. I called my state senator, Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez.

Pérez, a newly elected Democrat and former mayor, took my calls — and those of my neighbors — seriously. She contacted the governor’s office and spoke with the team responsible for air quality in Altadena.

The response she received was: “It’s complicated.” That might have been the understatement of the year.

The My LA series looks at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

Moments of grace

Months passed.

It became heartbreaking to watch Altadena residents leave LA altogether because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else in the city. It was even harder to watch my neighbor across the street sell his home after placing an “Altadena Is Not for Sale” sign on his lawn.

Still, amid the devastation, there were moments of grace.

Volunteers from across Los Angeles flooded the greater Pasadena area to help after the fire. Residents leaned on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mutual aid networks, family members, local churches and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. 

I volunteered at — and relied on — community donation centers myself. One of the most meaningful was the Pasadena Community Job Center, which served the region’s undocumented population.

Even though my home didn’t burn, I had to evacuate after high levels of lead were detected inside.

From wherever I was staying, I drove an hour to attend town halls, join community meetings, ask questions at disaster centers and speak with elected officials.

Nearly half of Altadena — an unincorporated foothill community long known for its diversity and working-class stability — had burned.

Firefighters battle to save a home

Only one firetruck

Months later, Sánchez called again.

He was no longer a federal employee, but he still checked in on me and my neighbors. He suggested I attend a Crisis Management Academy at Hayes Boone in downtown LA, where he sat on the board.

I pulled my suit from a vacuum-sealed remediation bag and went.

By chance, I sat next to Rick Crawford, the emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court and a former battalion chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

I told him I lived west of Lake Avenue — historically the predominantly Black, Latino and working-class side of Altadena.

Nineteen of the 20 deaths from the Eaton Fire occurred there and only one firetruck was initially sent to that side of town.

Evacuation notices arrived hours later than they did in wealthier neighborhoods east of Lake Avenue — if they arrived at all. My family never received one.

I asked Crawford if he believed racism explained the disparity. He told me something worse might have happened.

The night before the fires, he said, officials knew a severe wind event was coming. Yet staffing levels were not increased.

“Business as usual,” he called it.

When the Palisades Fire ignited, city resources were quickly stretched. The city turned to the county for help. When the Eaton Fire exploded, the county deployed the firefighters it had left to protect Altadena.

By the time flames reached west of Lake Avenue, resources were gone.

A failure of preparation turned into a failure of response — one that hit my side of Altadena hardest.

The Fair Oaks Burger restaurant became a community rallying point

The sounds of construction

One year later, Altadena is still waiting.

Friends who lost their homes are waiting for settlements from Southern California Edison Co., which investigators believe caused the Eaton Fire, to determine whether they can rebuild at all.

Trial is scheduled for January 2027. A judge recently ordered Edison to produce witnesses when called, criticizing attempts to prolong the discovery process for attorneys representing fire victims. A grand jury is also considering whether to indict the utility company in connection with the 19 deaths in Altadena.

Those of us who have returned do what we can to support one another — and the small businesses trying to survive.

In those days, my business meetings happened at Miya, Unincorporated Coffee or Fair Oaks Burger.

Community advocates — including Altadena for Accountability and Altadena Rising, along with Pérez — pushed the California Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the evacuation response in West Altadena.

Walking along Altadena Drive, I thought about the homes and gardens that had once lined the street.

Reconstruction has begun, slowly. The sound of construction — loud, constant — is an inconvenience. But it’s better than the eerie silence that followed the fire.

On Mariposa Street, I passed the empty space where Amara Kitchen and Altadena Hardware had once stood.

Next door, something new appeared. Betsy, the restaurant from chef Tyler Wells — who also lost his home in the fire — was drawing diners from across LA for its live-fire cooking.

It lifted my spirits to see people coming to Altadena again. But as a local resident, I still struggled to get a reservation.

Maybe that was the first glimpse of what rebuilding might look like: those with money and privilege dining easily, while the rest of us remain on the waiting list.

The rebuild is slow. The pain is enormous. But the resilience of Altadena is fierce.

We fight for accountability, truth and justice. We fight for the right to rebuild our town as it once was. Most of all, we fight for one another.

Because, as labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones once said: “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

Is your neighborhood changing? We want to hear your story. Whether you’ve lived on your block for forty years or four, we want to know: What does “home” mean to you right now?Share a brief memory or a thought on how your neighborhood is changing with us at pitches@thelalocal.org. We’ll feature some of our favorite responses in our newsletter, and if your story sparks something deeper, we may reach out to commission a full-length piece (yes, we pay our writers!)

The post ‘Pray for the dead, fight for the living’ — How Altadena is battling to rebuild without being displaced appeared first on LA Local.