The Brief

Across California’s public university systems, students, faculty and staff are learning and working in aging academic buildings where air conditioning, roofs, plumbing and electrical systems are either deteriorating or not functional. Every year, maintenance costs for University of California and California State University campuses total a combined $1.5 billion.

But those repairs don’t always get made. The unpredictable nature of the state’s budget means there isn’t always enough money to make all the necessary fixes. State revenue has been sporadic, with hundreds of millions some years and no money in others. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget does not include any money for repairs, known as deferred maintenance, or other infrastructure projects.

Absent a long-term funding plan, the deferred maintenance backlog has grown to an estimated $9.1 billion for the University of California and $8.3 billion for Cal State University as of the 2023-24 school year, driven by aging buildings and increasing costs for labor and parts.

Given the size of the backlog, in 2023 the state Legislature’s budget advisory office urged lawmakers and system leaders to create a long-term funding solution for maintenance. Without those fixes, students and employees have had to endure extreme indoor heat, electrical and plumbing problems, and failing, outdated roofs.

State funding has been sporadic

The state’s public university systems are some of the largest in the nation, both in terms of enrollment and physical size. The UC operates 63 million square feet of academic space across 10 campuses and the Cal State system spans 43 million square feet across 23 campuses. Large physical systems come with large price tags to maintain them, especially as campus infrastructure ages. A majority of both systems' buildings are over 30 years old, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Each year the UC and Cal State systems provide the Legislature with a five-year plan of proposed building improvement projects with cost estimates. This year, one proposed project includes replacing Santa Clara Hall at Sacramento State. Built in the 1960s, the building houses the engineering laboratory and has HVAC, electrical and telecommunications infrastructure that have “exceeded their useful life,” according to the California State University’s five-year plan.

While both university systems have robust tracking to quantify the size and cost of their maintenance backlogs, it's harder to track the amount they spend on deferred maintenance projects. That’s because a building project, like Santa Clara Hall, may include replacement of old or faulty components in addition to other improvements or renovations, like making a building safer during an earthquake. What also complicates matters is the various sources of funding the systems tap to pay for expensive projects.

Noah Galbraith with Students Against Tuition Hikes shows fallen and bulging ceiling tiles inside of King Hall across from the a Pan-African studies office at Cal State LA on Feb. 29, 2024.

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At the campus level, administrators can choose to use a portion of their base budget or reserves saved from previous budget allocations to fund repairs to academic buildings, though some campuses spend “little, if any, ongoing funds” on such replacements, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

In 2013 and 2014, respectively, state legislation granted the UC and CSU systems the ability to issue their own bonds to finance large projects, like entire building renovations or replacements. The systems then pay back the debt from those bonds using their general budget allocation. From 2013 to 2023, the UC financed about $1.1 billion in projects using university issued bonds and Cal State financed roughly $1.8 billion in projects through its own bonds from 2014 to 2023, according to data reviewed by the Legislative Analyst's Office. In addition to financing, both UC and Cal State can use revenue from system investments to pay for building improvements.

But the amount that the campuses and systems have been spending on replacements has not kept pace with the growth of the maintenance backlog. “To have the ongoing funding, to any degree, any amount — the restoration of that would be a significant plus towards working down this inventory,” said Ron Kalich, the director of Facilities and Asset Management for UC.

State support has been sporadic in recent years, largely influenced by the overall state budget conditions. Since 2015, the state has provided $689 million to UC and $784 million to Cal State to fund deferred maintenance projects in addition to making seismic safety and energy efficiency updates. Nearly half of that money came from the 2021-22 budget. That year each system received $325 million. Other years have been more lean. Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget has no allocation for deferred maintenance, nor was there any this year or last year.

We have not seen any designated facility deferred maintenance related funding from the state for a few years now, which has exacerbated critical issues as our campus continues to age,” said Mark Zakhour, Cal State Long Beach associate vice president of the building services division.

The Legislative Analyst's Office recommends the Legislature work with UC and Cal State to develop a plan to provide ongoing funds for future deferred maintenance repairs based on the size of each system’s needs. In the meantime, the Legislature is reviewing a newly introduced bill to put a bond before voters in 2026 that would fund repairs for both systems.

Students and faculty await fixes across the state

In the meantime, students and faculty are in buildings with broken or dilapidated equipment. At Fresno State around 62% of campus buildings are over 60 years old, according to Lisa Bell, Fresno State’s public information officer. Faith Van Hoven, a fourth-year philosophy major, says the air conditioning is so outdated it can’t keep up with the heat. She remembers sitting down during her ethics in criminal justice course on a day when the temperature reached triple digits. She looked up at the ceiling fan as it rotated but felt no reprieve.

“When it gets to be 110 [degrees] here, it can be really, really hot, and there's not always accommodations that are made for students and for the faculty,” Van Hoven said.

She’s tried to push through the heat with a small, personal fan that does little to cool the air. Students like Frederick Lisitsa, a fourth-year double major in philosophy and psychology at Fresno State, choose to avoid the indoor heat altogether.

“I do not stay in that class. I'm like, ‘I will do the homework, but I'm gonna go home,’” he said.

Rats, heat and cold have kept Carolynn Patten, a professor of neurobiology at the UC Davis School of Medicine, and her team from safely conducting research with recovering stroke patients. Her lab is housed within the 86-year-old Hickey Gymnasium building.

“The building is so old and the HVAC system is so decrepit that without exaggeration, in the winter, it will get so cold that we will be working indoors in outdoor jackets, hats, gloves,” Patten said.

The Janss Steps and Dickson Plaza are featured in this aerial view.

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During hotter weather, extreme indoor heat isn’t just uncomfortable for her students and research participants. It affects her temperature-sensitive research equipment. “The temperatures in the room get to a point that they're really out of the operating range for my equipment. And so now I have $2 million of equipment in there that is being compromised just because we can't create the right environment,” Patten said.

Rats have also chewed the cables that power her equipment, leading her to cancel experiments and halt her research. Patten explained that due to the constant delays, her research partner said he will stop payments because he’s not getting timely data.

“The reason we haven't delivered data is we couldn't do experiments,” said Patten. “I will, in no way, do anything that will compromise patient safety. It wasn't safe to do experiments because the rats had damaged their equipment, and now it's going to have an impact on funding my research.”

How maintenance backlogs grow on campus

UC officials say ignoring small fixes can lead to costly repairs down the road. “If you don't do the proper preventive maintenance, you shorten the life cycle of these things, so then they become deferred maintenance,” said Clint Lord, associate vice chancellor of facilities at UC Davis.

That’s part of the reason why money is allocated for operations and maintenance in the budget for any new building project. Money is allocated per square feet to pay for ongoing upkeep of the building. But the cost to eventually replace building components is not included in those building budgets, which is part of the reason why backlogs have grown so large. When something needs replacing every couple of decades there’s no pot of money set aside specifically to pay the replacement costs.

“When the state started funding academic facilities, they missed one key component,” said Shawn Holland, chief of Facilities Operations at Cal State. “What they never considered was, ‘What does it cost to renew that building 20 years later?’”

That’s not the case for all buildings on campus, though. Buildings that generate revenue, like parking structures or dormitories, do have money allocated by square footage to pay for forecasted replacement costs over time. Making that process uniform with academic buildings is one way the state can begin budgeting for the costs of academic buildings that will need new equipment or upkeep in the future, Holland said.

That change wouldn’t impact the current backlog, however. Campuses leaving deferred maintenance projects unfixed can also put a university’s mission in jeopardy, said Matt Gudorf, assistant vice chancellor of facilities at UC Irvine. Emergencies caused by infrastructure failure can displace students, faculty and staff and strain campus operating budgets.

“Now we are impacting people's ability to go to class, to go to their office, to do research,” Gudorf said. “It not only costs facilities more money, but you're disrupting the whole mission of the university, and that's a huge issue.”

Leaving items on the backlog can also make the replacement more expensive as inflation drives up pricing for parts and workers who are qualified to make updates. Inflation has been “the biggest driver in cost increases” of the deferred maintenance backlog at UC, according to Kalich.

Exploring alternative funding

In 2023, the Legislative Analyst's Office proposed that the university systems and lawmakers develop a long-term funding model that would provide universities an ongoing percentage of the value of their deferred maintenance backlog to help bring it down over time. University officials and legislators haven’t done that though lawmakers are looking at ways to increase funding outside of the systems’ budget allocations.

Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista whose district includes San Diego State University, introduced AB 48 to put a bond measure on the 2026 ballot to raise billions of dollars for UC and Cal State to address their growing maintenance backlogs. The bill doesn’t have a dollar amount yet, said Alvarez, who sits on the Assembly Education committee.

“We have to go back and really explain to the voters why this [bond] is important and why we should invest in higher education facilities,” Alvarez said.

A cyclist rides through campus at Cal State Long Beach on July 25, 2022.

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The last time UC and Cal State received money from a statewide bond initiative was in 2006, when voters approved $3.1 billion for community colleges, UC and Cal State campuses to address infrastructure needs.

In 2020, voters rejected Proposition 13, the largest school bond proposal in state history, which would have provided the UC and Cal State $2 billion each to fund infrastructure projects and repairs in addition to $11 billion for K-12 schools and the California community colleges.

Lawmakers included UC and Cal State in an early version of Proposition 2, a school bond measure approved last November, but the university systems were eventually left out to limit the amount of bond money voters were asked to approve. At the UC, where total capital needs are expected to grow to $30.7 billion by 2030, system leaders said they were disappointed to be left off the state bond despite 18 months of lobbying the Legislature.

“Going forward, UC will be exploring other options to address our construction, renewal and deferred maintenance needs,” wrote UC spokesperson Heather Hanson via email.

Cal State trustee Jack McGrory said being left out of the bond was “upside down” at a board meeting in September and urged the board to figure out a plan to secure desperately needed state funding. The deferred maintenance backlog at Cal State is expected to increase by $397 million annually due to inflation and aging facilities, according to Steve Relyea, Cal State’s executive vice chancellor and chief financial officer.

“We've got to figure out some different strategy, some alternative for this, because our buildings are in really bad shape,” McGrory said.

Mercy Sosa and Victoria Mejicanos are fellows with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Topline:

Why it matters: In Los Angeles, you can't get more local than a Tommy's Burger. Consuming the smothered burger — its signature beanless chili dripping through the to-go wrapper — is a rite of passage for many. Eight decades in, the original stand is still standing at Beverly and Rampart.

The details: Friday, noon to 8 p.m. only, you can get 80-cent chili cheeseburgers (limit three per person) at all Southern California and Nevada locations. The anniversary celebration at the original downtown L.A. location includes the Belmont High School Marching Band, a DJ and a resolution from Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez , who represents the area, honoring 80 years of business in California.

The backstory: Tommy Koulax opened the original stand at Beverly and Rampart in 1946. This week, the iconic SoCal chain, which spawned many competitors, celebrates 80 years across all 32 of its locations — and you're invited. Daughter Cynthia Koulax will be greeting the community Friday, alongside CEO Dawna Bernal and CFO Richard Hicks.

A group of volunteers in Hollywood say they are conducting their own homeless count in the area next week because they don't trust the results of the official regional one.

The effort is organized by Hollywood 4WRD, a coalition of nonprofit service providers, businesses and residents. About 60 volunteers, mostly staff from Hollywood service provider organizations, are expected to fan out across 30 census tracts Tuesday.

Results will be made public a week later May 27, according to organizers.

The neighborhood count comes amid growing questions about the accuracy of the official regional homeless tally.

The city of L.A.'s unhoused population decreased by 5.5% between 2023 and 2025, according to official estimates from the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. But a 2025 analysis by the RAND Corporation found that LAHSA undercounted people living outside in certain areas, including Hollywood.

Hollywood 4WRD executive director Brittney Weissman said the organization’s own experience volunteering for the LAHSA count this year raised even more questions about accuracy.

“Our experience was so confounding, perplexing and inefficient that we've been really deeply questioning the value, utility and accuracy of the count for a couple of years now,” Weissman said.

Organizers said the Hollywood count will use methodology developed by RAND researchers, who ran their own professional counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until earlier this year.

That research effort, known as LA LEADS, has since lost funding.

“If LA LEADS was continuously funded into the future, we would not be doing this effort,” Weissman said. "Because it's no longer funded, we felt we needed to take our own initiative to understand the lay of the land here.”

What's at stake?

More than $300 million in federal and county dollars are allocated annually based on homeless count results. That includes $220 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and nearly $100 million from L.A. County's Measure A sales tax.

LAHSA conducted its most recent official homeless count in January. The agency said it hopes to release the results this summer but has not confirmed a release date.

In her reelection campaign, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass takes credit for reducing homelessness in the city. The official count underpinning her claim is the same one RAND found was missing nearly a third of unsheltered people in key neighborhoods.

Weissman said Hollywood service providers need to know now whether more people are living in vehicles or sleeping outside, so they can adjust how they're doing outreach.

Organizers timed the May 27 release to influence budget negotiations still underway at City Hall, according to Weissman.

She noted that Bass' proposed budget does not include funding for Safe Parking LA, a program that allows unhoused Angelenos to live legally in their vehicles within sanctioned parking lots.

"If we find that vehicular homelessness is on the rise here and we need it badly, this gives us evidence with which to petition decisionmakers for that resource in our community," she said.

What RAND found

RAND's LA LEADS project ran bimonthly counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until this January.

Comparing LAHSA’s official counts to its own, a RAND report found the 2025 homeless count captured 68% of the unsheltered population across those three neighborhoods.

RAND found the population of unsheltered people in Hollywood dropped 49% in 2024, a decline it linked to the city’s Inside Safe program. But the official LAHSA count still captured only 81% of what RAND found in the neighborhood.

The people being missed were mostly vehicle dwellers and “rough sleepers” — people living with no shelter, RAND said.

Skid Row's official tally fared worse, capturing 61% of what RAND found there.

Hollywood 4WRD said its methodology follows RAND’s LA LEADS methodology, which the group said is more precise than LAHSA’s approach.

Each census tract will be covered by at least two independent volunteers, a quality-control measure that helps organizers flag areas that might need to be recounted.

Volunteers will also use pens and paper to record their observations, instead of a mobile app. LAHSA has used an app for its count since 2022 and has acknowledged repeated technical problems with it.

The unofficial homeless count this month is limited to Hollywood, unlike LAHSA's countywide effort. Weissman said she hopes the effort will encourage other neighborhoods to check their own local data.

So many of us have stories about secret shows, celeb sightings and special guests showing up at the intimate Hotel Cafe over the past 26 years. The venue’s Instagram has a bevy of famous well-wishers popping into the chat. So it’s truly the end of an era as the iconic night spot hosts its final shows at the Cahuenga location, wrapping things up with a party called Last Dance at the Hotel Cafe featuring Sara Bareilles and many more on Friday.

But if you can’t score a ticket, fear not, because there’s plenty more music on the agenda for this weekend. Licorice Pizza’s Lyndsey Parker recommends Friday shows St. Lucia at the Fonda; Santigold at the Bellwether; Alejandro Sanz at the Greek; and Desert Daze’s Microdazing at the Bellwether, featuring various DJs, including KCRW’s Travis Holcombe and Beastie Boys producer Mario C. Saturday, Demi Lovato is at the Forum, friend-of-LAist Flea plays the Fonda and the big Japanese music festival Zipangu is at Brookside at the Rose Bowl, featuring Atarashii Gakko!, Ado and many more. And on Sunday, Echo & the Bunnymen are at the Greek, and Father John Misty plays the Fox Theater in Pomona.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can get a behind-the-scenes look at historic Santa Monica music store and venue McCabe’s Guitar Shop, find out what gets left behind at Metro’s Lost & Found and get tickets for next week’s LAist x Moth StorySlam at Los Globos.

Events

Los Angeles Old Time Social

Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16 
Velaslavasay Panorama 
1122 W. 24th Street, University Park
COST: SUGGESTED $20; MORE INFO

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Los Angeles Old Time Social

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The 16th annual Los Angeles Old Time Social celebrates the vibrant old-time music scene in Southern California. A kickoff concert on Friday is followed by a full day of activities on Saturday, May 16 at The Velaslavasay Panorama in West Adams. Attend workshops and jams for banjo, fiddle, guitar, singing and dancing. The event is capped off on Saturday night with a big square dance and musical cakes from 7:30 to 10 p.m. No experience or partner is needed. The square dance caller walks everyone through the moves before every song, so it’s easy to follow along in a fun and no-pressure environment.

As LAist's Roy Lenn notes, the Old Time Social serves as a lead-up to the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival on Sunday, May 17 at King Gillette Ranch.

David Lebovitz book signing x Now Serving

Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m.
Friends & Family Bakery
5150 Hollywood Blvd., East Hollywood
COST: FROM $30; MORE INFO

Chocoholics and ice cream fiends will know pastry chef David Lebovitz’s work well. The Paris-based dessert king is in town promoting his cookbooks, The Great Book of Chocolate and Ready for Dessert with a special event at Friends & Family. His ice cream book is the bible for anyone who's tried their hand at making ice cream at home, and his other desserts also stand up to the test. Yum.

The Giving Trees

Saturday, May 16, 3:30 p.m. 
John Rowland Mansion 
15959 E. Gale Ave., City of Industry
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

The John Rowland Mansion is the oldest extant brick building in Southern California, and has a unique history that the House Museum has recently been instrumental in preserving. Spend some time at the Greek revival building with the whole family for The Giving Trees, a reading of children’s books to trees (with gratitude to Shel Silverstein!) in the garden at the permanent installation Let’s Make a Garden From Old Wounds.

Celebrity-Owned Private Collection Arcade and Pinball Auction

Sunday, May 17, 9 a.m. preview
Captain’s Auction Warehouse
4421 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim
COST: FREE TO PERUSE; MORE INFO

File this one under weird and wonderful. Head down to Anaheim to check out (and maybe bid on) your next game room addition. Ryan Adams — yep, that’s the one, former Mr. Mandy Moore and indie rocker royalty of the early 2000s — is apparently a big arcade collector, and he’s auctioning off much of his collection. There’s a wide range of arcade games and pinball machines on view to the public, plus opportunities to play, meet collectors and see the warehouse.

Red Bull Soapbox Race

Saturday, May 16, 11 a.m.
Gloria Molina Grand Park
200 N. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Daredevils will have a field day at Red Bull’s Soapbox Race, which will transform Grand Park into a cinematic racecourse, where 30 teams, selected from more than 400 applicants, will compete with gravity-powered, homemade crafts for ultimate bragging rights.

Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers: Day of Black Docs

Saturday, May 16, 12 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. 
American Film Institute
2021 North Western Ave., Los Feliz
COST: FROM $23; MORE INFO

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Check out documentaries from Black filmmakers that “explore themes of social justice, self-determination, and community, highlighting the revolutionary leaders and movements that can help inform our present moment.” The day includes three feature-length films and one short film, with two that focus on L.A. history. Q&As will be moderated by journalist and AirTalk film critic Tim Cogshell.

Balboa Island Art Walk

Sunday, May 17, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
South Bayfront Promenade
Newport Beach
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Is there a more idyllic corner of SoCal than Balboa Island? Stroll the promenade and enjoy the art and the views at the 31st annual Balboa Island Art Walk. There’s live music and more than 90 artists showing their work with an ocean backdrop.

AAPI Market at Yama Sushi Marketplace

Through Saturday, May 30 
Various locations (West L.A., San Gabriel and Koreatown)
COST: VARIES, MORE INFO 

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A rotating lineup of makers featuring Asian-owned brands is popping up at Yama Sushi Marketplace throughout May. This weekend, Omiso founder Ai Fujimoto will be sampling her yuzu miso paired with Yama’s black cod; also available for purchase as a frozen item. On May 30, DoShop Cookies will be available with baker Thy Do sampling her fan-favorite cookies, debuting new flavors and hosting a raffle.

Every December, the federal government releases a report that reveals the number of homeless residents in each state and across the country.

It’s now May and the report, which compiles data from a homeless census known as the “point-in-time count,” is nowhere to be found.

That’s a problem because the report dictates how funding is allocated in California and beyond. It also shapes policy decisions and provides the country’s main barometer for how the homelessness crisis is being managed.

The five-month delay is leaving public officials, policymakers and advocates scratching their heads. California has filled the gap by tallying its own data, showing a 9% drop in the number of people sleeping outside. But unlike the official federal report, California’s analysis leaves out information such as the race, age and mental health status of the people who are counted. And without the full federal report, there’s no way to tell where California stands compared to other states.

“It’s a big deal,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center. “This is, by what I can tell, the latest any point-in-time count has ever come out, including the years where it was delayed during COVID.”

'Point-in-time' count

For the past two decades, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has required local regions to take a census of their homeless populations every other year in a massive undertaking called the point-in-time count. Volunteers go out on foot over a day or two in January and count every person they see living outside. People sleeping in shelters are tallied as well. Counters also conduct surveys of a sample of unhoused people, collecting extra data on people’s race, age, gender, time spent homeless, medical and mental health conditions and more.

The count isn’t perfect (volunteers can easily miss people, and different counties use different methods), but it’s a key tool policy makers use to measure changes in the population.

Each jurisdiction (which is known in HUD parlance as a “continuum of care” and typically is made up of a county and the cities within it) must submit their count to HUD by the spring. They also release their local data to the public. Meanwhile, HUD verifies the data, tallies the total count for each state and for the country as a whole, submits a public report to Congress and uploads more detailed data on its website.

While there’s no legal deadline, that report usually comes out in December of the year of the count. In 2021 and 2020, when COVID disrupted counts, the reports came out the following February and March, respectively.

It’s unclear why the 2025 report still isn’t out. The report is so much later than usual that some counties, including San Francisco, already released their 2026 count data.

HUD refused to comment.

“It is perplexing that HUD has not released this information,” Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in a statement to CalMatters. “Perhaps the Trump administration is afraid to release clear data that demonstrates California’s strategies for addressing this issue are actually extremely effective.”

What California's data show

California’s data does point to a reduction in homelessness, suggesting the state’s methods are starting to work. Data provided by the Newsom administration, and echoed by an independent analysis, show a 4% overall decrease between 2024 and 2025, and a 9% drop in people sleeping in tents, on the sidewalk, in cars or in other places not meant for habitation.

That data comes from the 30 California continuums of care that counted their street homeless populations last year. The remaining 14 that counted this year instead (they’re only required to count at least every other year) are not included.

“I think it shows that the headwinds in California continue to be very strong and continue to push more people into homelessness,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “but the investments to build up the response to homelessness have made a really big difference and are moving people out of homelessness faster than ever before.”

That runs counter to President Donald Trump’s platform, which holds California up as an example of failed homelessness policy. California follows a principle called “housing first,” which prioritizes getting people into housing immediately and then addressing their other needs (such as mental health and substance use help). The Trump administration wants to end housing first, which it says isn’t working, and instead withhold housing until people enroll in addiction treatment or other programs.

California also uses most of its federal funds to pay for permanent housing, which experts say is the most effective way to end someone’s homelessness. The Trump administration recently tried to divert that money to temporary shelters where people stay for a limited time.

California's homelessness strategy

California is one of 19 states suing the Trump administration over that change. That case is ongoing, but, in a win for the states, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s changes.

A drop in homelessness in California would have a significant impact on the country’s overall homeless population. Nearly a quarter of all unhoused Americans lived in California as of 2024 — a total of more than 187,000 people, according to the most recent HUD report.

The New York Times found homelessness also dropped in other places around the country last year, including Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, Florida and Maine, which it found points to a nationwide reduction.

If homelessness dropped nationwide in 2025, it would be the first time in eight years. In 2024, the national count hit 771,480 — an 18% increase from the year before.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.