The Brief

Heading into his first semester this fall at Feather River College, Conor Robinson considered camping in a tent after struggling to find a 1-bedroom apartment he could afford.

Larissa Griffith found free housing her first semester, but it came with a catch: She was on call, 24 hours a day, including holidays, at her landlord’s farm.

In the town of Quincy, population 1,580, housing options are sparse for students in this rural community in Northern California. Demand has also grown, especially after the 2021 Dixie Fire, which tore through nearly a million acres of Sierra Nevada mountains and forest — about the size of Rhode Island — and destroyed hundreds of homes across the surrounding Plumas County.

Right after the fire, the state granted the college over $500,000 from the state to design solutions for the worsening student housing crisis, but it was a kind of “false hope,” said Carlie McCarthy, the college’s vice president of student services.

Twice, the school submitted its plans — a $74 million proposal to build over 120 beds for students — and each time, the state Legislature was unable to fund it. The state has promised to help community colleges build housing for their students, but after committing funds to 19 other community college housing projects, the state Legislature tried to delay spending the money in order to close a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. Most of those projects are still moving forward through a new financing mechanism, but the Legislature has effectively run out of money for any other projects.

Feather River College is one of 35 housing proposals that remain in limbo, with no additional state funding available. Those projects include a proposal from Mendocino College, where massive wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes in a community similar to Quincy and Santa Monica College, which submitted its proposal before the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica College is still gathering data about the scope of the fires’ impact on students, but early estimates based on students’ addresses show that around 600 Santa Monica College students were living in an evacuation zone or within areas directly impacted by those fires, said Susan Fila, who oversees students’ health and wellbeing at the college.

The aftermath of the Palisades Fire on Jan. 15, 2024.

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Ted Soqui

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CalMatters

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College presidents across the state say the new housing projects are a long-term solution to wildfire recovery and to the state’s enduring affordability crisis, which has hit community college students hard. In study after study, researchers have found that around 20% of California community college students experience homelessness at some point over the course of a year, and many more struggle to pay rent.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the state’s 116 community colleges, is asking for $1.1 billion in bond money from the state Legislature this year for affordable housing projects, though those dollars would fund just half of the outstanding proposals. The governor has until July 1 to finalize the 2025-26 budget.

Other competing budget priorities, such as LA wildfires recovery, could take precedence over affordable housing, said Wrenna Finche, the vice president of administrative services at Ohlone College in Fremont, which has failed to secure state funding for two different affordable housing proposals for its Bay Area campuses. “I wouldn’t expect a lot of movement on it this year.”

Fighting for student housing

A few of California’s rural community colleges have offered housing for decades, mostly as a means to mitigate long commutes to school. In Plumas County, some students drive over an hour — on a good day — just to make it to Feather River College. Snowstorms and rock slides frequently close mountain roads, delaying travel even more.

Many community colleges were designed for students who live with their parents and commute to school, but those demographics are changing. Fewer students between the ages of 18 and 22 are enrolling in community college, and those who do enroll often live independently. As a result, demand for housing has grown all across the state, including in coastal areas and in other rural regions, such as the Imperial Valley.

Conor Robinson, a student at Feather River College, talks about the challenges he faced finding a place to live while attending the school in Quincy, on Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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Robinson is 36 and enrolled at Feather River College after making a career change. He’s studying ecosystem restoration and applied fire management, the only such program in the state, and wants to continue working on prescribed burns after graduation.

Griffith, 20, is a former foster youth. She moved from the Sacramento area to Quincy in order to follow her dream of running a dude ranch. Feather River College is the only school in the state to offer a bachelor’s degree program in equine and ranch management.

The campus includes horse stables, a fish hatchery and other nods to the Plumas County economy, which relies heavily on logging and outdoor recreation. To meet the needs of students like Robinson and Griffith, the college has multiple dormitories with a total capacity of about 260 students. Unlike the rest of campus, where buildings are carefully designed to blend with the surrounding forest, most of the dorms are purely utilitarian. The buildings are bare, white rectangles, except for a few hints of student life. Cowboy boots and spurs sit outside many doorways; a dirt trail connects the dormitories to class.

Rent is around $500 a month, including utilities. Signups for the upcoming fall semester opened on Feb. 3, but two days later, registration was already full, said Kevin Trutna, the college president. By putting three beds in a single room, the college can house over 300 people, but even then, there’s a waitlist. This semester, he said over 80 students failed to get a campus housing spot.

“As a former foster youth, it’s sink or swim,” said Griffith, who received one of the coveted housing spots in a bedroom she shares with an equine studies major. “Anything I get, I had to fight for.”

By combining four different state and federal grants, plus a private scholarship, she receives more than $20,000 this year in financial aid, which is more than enough to cover the monthly rent. The housing is a significant upgrade, she said, especially compared to her foster home and the previous “free” housing arrangement.

An aerial view from a drone of two dorm buildings tucked between trees on campus at Feather River College in Quincy on Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Robinson wasn’t interested in living in a shared dormitory, which is the only campus housing available, so he found a mobile home off-campus this semester.

“I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to accept the one place that I had found, even though it wasn’t ideal,” he said.

After moving in, he spent hours shampooing the carpets and cleaning up his unit to make it livable, but he said he’s still worried it may be unsafe because of lingering mold and lack of ventilation for the stove. He pays $850 a month, but the landlord wants to move in at the end of April, so he’ll need to find a new place soon.

Finding housing alternatives through RV parks and bond dollars

After Trutna realized the state was unlikely to fund the Feather River College’s next housing development, he called Dayne Lewis, the owner of a local RV park that abuts the campus, to see if the park had additional capacity. Out of the park’s 31 RVs, Lewis said roughly half are students.

“I would fill this place completely with students but the timing doesn’t always work out,” he said. Since the Dixie and North Complex fires tore through Plumas County, many state and federal contractors have moved to Quincy, the largest city in the county, to work on rebuilding the region. Those contractors now compete with students for temporary housing, he said.

River Ranch RV Park resident Emma Hernandez is a student at Feather River College. The school’s campus is a short walk from the RV park in Quincy. Feb. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Antelope Valley College in Lancaster purchased a $9 million plot of land for its proposed housing project, but it now sits empty since state funding fell through, said Jennifer Zellet, the college president. Like administrators at Ohlone College and Santa Monica College, Zellet said she’s exploring a “public-private partnership,” in which a local nonprofit builds and operates a housing development on that land using a portion of regional bond dollars.

These partnerships are a popular but imperfect solution. In Long Beach, where the community college proposed building over 240 units, President Mike Muñoz said he won’t resort to a public-private partnership. Because housing would be run by a private entity, not a college, he said it’s common for these kinds of projects to charge students higher rent. Instead, he said the college plans to rely entirely on local bond dollars, even if that means delays on other campus projects that need bond money, such as a new training center for police officers and firefighters.

Rural parts of the state, such as Plumas and Mendocino counties, have fewer alternatives. The projects are often smaller since there are fewer residents, and as a result, the profit margins are thin, said Mendocino College President Timothy Karas. Both Trutna, the president of Feather River College, and Karas say that they have no bond dollars available.

A coalition of housed and unhoused residents in West L.A. is asking a court to stop the city of Los Angeles from moving ahead with a pilot program that allows local officials to remove and dismantle more recreational vehicles the city deems a nuisance.

The move from the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights comes in response to a new state law that gives L.A. County the authority to dispose of abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000, a major increase from the previous $500 threshold.

Assembly Bill 630 went into effect Jan. 1.

In its petition for a writ of mandate from the Superior Court, the coalition argues the law gives that authority only to the county of Los Angeles — not the city. Members of the coalition claim the city is “recklessly charging ahead” with a program it’s not authorized to execute.

“The city’s actions are illegal and will harm vulnerable Angelenos who live in these RVs, while unlawfully wasting taxpayer resources on activities that exceed the city’s authority,” court documents state.

Some city officials who support the new law say L.A. must have the tools to get unsafe and unsanitary RVs off the streets for good.

There are more than 3,100 RVs parked across the city of L.A. being used as improved housing, according to last year’s homeless count estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“These vehicles create unacceptable health, environmental, and safety risks, putting entire neighborhoods, critical infrastructure, and sensitive environmental areas at risk,” Councilmember Traci Park said in a statement. “Residents want solutions, not ideological wars, delay tactics, and frivolous lawsuits.”

LAist reached out to other city officials for comment but, so far, they have not responded.

How we got here

Park, who represents communities including Venice and Culver City in District 11, introduced a motion in October instructing various city departments to “immediately implement” expanded RV enforcement, about a week after AB 630 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

According to the motion, the new law “is one more tool to stop the RV to streets pipeline” and complements the city’s efforts to crack down on “van-lords.”

The L.A. City Council voted to approve the move Dec. 9.

Attorneys for the Coalition for Human Rights, who include some from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, sent a demand letter to L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto on Dec. 18 explaining its arguments.

“The City’s planned implementation of AB 630 is illegal,” attorneys wrote in the letter, which also argued the city would be “liable for any damages for property if illegally removed, withheld, or destroyed.”

The letter gave L.A. officials until Dec. 29 to confirm that the city would not implement the new law.

City officials did not respond, according to Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

The coalition is now asking a judge to resolve the dispute.

“The city of Los Angeles and the City Council in its rush to criminalize homelessness, you know, rushed past the plain language of the statute and instructed city employees effectively to violate the law,” Myers told LAist. “That kind of rushing to criminalize homelessness is the type of action that leads to bad policy making, but it also leads to lawsuits.”

Myers said legal matters like this don’t help get people off the street, but they’re necessary when the city refuses to obey the law and to respect the rights of people experiencing homelessness.

What officials say

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not immediately respond to LAist’s requests for comment on the writ or demand letter.

Mayor Karen Bass proposed AB 630 in partnership with Assemblymember Mark González, who introduced the California assembly bill. According to González’s office, the new law aims to boost public safety, address environmental concerns and “complement programs like Mayor Bass' Inside Safe initiative.”

Inside Safe is Bass’ flagship homelessness program that aims to move people off the street and into housing.

Bass' office has called AB 630 “landmark legislation.”

“For too long, bad actors have preyed on unhoused Angelenos and families through a cycle of buying and auctioning off broken down, inoperable RVs that are dangerous for those inhabiting them and for surrounding areas — they catch on fire and can become death traps, not the type of RVs safe to be used for housing,” representatives from Bass' office previously said in a statement to LAist.

Representatives from González’s office didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment on the writ.

LAist has also reached out to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, whose office is involved with coordinating the removal of RVs from L.A. streets. Szabo did not immediately respond.

The Eaton Fire destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where over 400 families would gather to worship and which has served as a Jewish community space for over 100 years.

On the anniversary of the fire Wednesday, Josh Ratner, the senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that the congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

“ It has certainly been a unique challenge," he said, "in a sense of us going through a double crisis, a double tragedy of the loss of our building, which has meant so much to so many of our congregants, and the loss of so many congregants’ homes.”

Thirty families of the congregation lost their homes, while another 40 families have had to relocate.

As the fire raged, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris raced to save all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including Shabbat. The scrolls are now being stored at the Huntington Library in San Marino.

Everything else in the temple was lost in the fire.

In 2019, UCLA acquired temple records, including newsletters, yearbooks, board minutes, membership directories, financial reports, booklets, photographs and video and audio recordings. Community members can access that information, tracing Pasadena’s Jewish history from the 1930s to present day.

Ratner said that since the fire, he has leaned into what led him to becoming a rabbi — “the ability to provide pastoral care and love” as the congregation has grappled with losing their spiritual home.

“ The Jewish tradition and Jewish history is we're no strangers to crisis and to dislocation and to exile," Ratner said. "So there are a lot of themes from the Bible itself and the idea of the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the promised land and living in that sense of dislocation and impermanence.”

From ancient times to the recent past, he went on, temples are destroyed and Jewish people are persecuted and forced to relocate.

 ”We have overcome so much before as a people. I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our histories of people is one of rebuilding even stronger than before. Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve.”

Correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez contributed to this report. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced new dietary guidelines for Americans focused on promoting whole foods, healthy proteins and fats.

At a press conference today, the administration unveiled a new food pyramid with red meat, cheese, vegetables and fruits pictured at the top.

Secretary Kennedy described the new guidelines as the most significant re-set on nutrition policy in history, calling for an end to policies that promote highly-refined foods that are harmful to health.

The guidelines will set limits on added sugar, and encourage diets that include meat and dairy.

"Protein and healthy fats are essential and were wrongly discouraged in prior dietary guidelines," Kennedy said. "We are ending the war on saturated fats."

As an introduction to the new guidelines, Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called for a dramatic reduction" in the consumption of highly processed foods," ladened with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats and chemical additives.

"This approach can change the health trajectory for many Americans," they wrote, pointing out that more than 70% of American adults are overweight or obese due to "a diet that has become reliant on highly processed foods and coupled with a sedentary lifestyle."

For years, Americans have been advised to limit saturated fat and the new pyramid is facing criticism.

"I'm very disappointed in the new pyramid that features red meat and saturated fat sources at the very top, as if that's something to prioritize, it does go against decades and decades of evidence and research," says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert at Stanford University. He was a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which reviewed all the nutrition evidence.

The guidelines also elevate cheese and other dairy to the top of the pyramid, paving the way for the option of full-fat milk and dairy products in school meals. There's growing evidence, based on nutrition science, that dairy foods can be beneficial.

"It's pretty clear that overall milk and cheese and yogurt can be part of a healthy diet," says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist, public health scientist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University. "Both low fat and whole fat dairy versions of milk, cheese and yogurt have been linked to lower cardiovascular risk," he says.

"What's quite interesting is that the fat content doesn't seem to make a big difference. So both low fat and whole fat dairy versions of milk, cheese and yogurt have been linked to lower cardiovascular risk," Mozaffarian says.

Mozaffarian says he supports the recommendations to lower consumption of highly processed foods. "Highly processed foods are clearly harmful for a range of diseases, so to have the U.S. government recommend that a wide class of foods be eaten less because of their processing is a big deal and I think a very positive move for public health," he says.

Though most Americans don't actually read the dietary guidelines, they are highly influential in determining what's served in school meals and on military bases, as well as what's included in federal food aid for mothers and infants, as the guidelines set targets for calories and nutrients.

Copyright 2026 NPR

In the Pacific Palisades and Altadena today, families of fire victims, survivors, elected officials and others gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of the fires that killed 31 people and reduced L.A. neighborhoods to ash and rubble.

At American Legion Post 283 in the heart of the Palisades, more than 100 fire survivors gathered Wednesday morning for a private ceremony for the families who lost loved ones in the fire. After the memorial, Los Angeles police officers on horseback led a procession, followed by bagpipers, then families of those who lost their lives in the fire a year ago.

Then in a ceremony on the Palisades Village Green, a bell was rung 12 times for the 12 people who died in the fire.

“No community should have to endure this level of devastation and loss and trauma,” said Jessica Rogers, executive director of the Palisades Long Term Recovery Group, which organized the memorial. “This past year has tested us beyond measure — physically, emotionally and spiritually. And yet, here we stand together.”

Eaton Fire survivors call for support

Hundreds of people turned out for a news conference in Altadena on the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire.

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Meanwhile, in Altadena, survivors and elected officials held a news conference to raise concerns about their recovery experience so far and to call for action.

They said survivors have been wrongfully denied the support they need to stay housed in the wake of losing their homes — by the utility company whose equipment is believed to have started the fire, by key insurance companies and by the federal government.

Southern California Edison has acknowledged that its equipment likely started the fire, speakers Wednesday said. But they added that the compensation offered by the utility is inadequate.

State Sen. Sasha Renee Perez, who represents Altadena, said she had sent a letter to SoCal Edison leadership urging the company to provide urgent housing relief to the community.

“Part of them taking responsibility is providing the financial resources that this community needs to thrive,” Perez said to applause from the crowd. “We will not allow this community to fall into homelessness. Edison, you need to step it up.”

That was a worry for fire survivor Ada Hernandez, who said her family is at risk of having to live in their car when their housing support runs out next week.

Ada Hernandez, joined by her young daughter at Wednesday's news conference, says her family may have to live in their car.

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Community groups have warned about the risk of homelessness to survivors.

An Edison spokesperson responded by pointing to the utility’s existing compensation program, saying it’s the fastest way for survivors to get support.

Other speakers called out their home insurers, some of whom, they said, have illegally delayed and denied coverage. A particular focus was State Farm. A spokesperson for the insurer said they couldn't discuss individual customers' cases, but that the company is "committed to continuing being a partner with our customers throughout their recovery."

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the area, also called on President Donald Trump to approve California’s request for tens of billions in relief to help people rebuild.

The events were just two among many held or planned for this week and in coming weeks — marking the tragedy, honoring victims, creating art and building community.

L.A. mayor's role

A key figure missing from the Palisades event, which transitioned to a planned protest as the morning progressed, was L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Her office told LAist the mayor was attending private vigils and directed flags at City Hall to fly at half-staff.

Anger about her role in the early days of the fire response remains fresh for many Palisades Fire survivors, as evidenced by a sign at the memorial calling on her to resign, as well as people wearing shirts that said, “They let us burn.”

At a protest after the vigil, dozens of Palisadians gathered to share their frustration and demand accountability and action, including officials taking responsibility for the cause of the fire, waiving rebuild permit fees and improving responses in the case of the next disaster.

Anger was directed at L.A. city leaders at a protest in the Palisades on Wednesday.

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Bass said on LAist’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle on Wednesday that the anniversary is a difficult day of remembrance and mourning, but she also said that it’s “a day to recommit and be hopeful and to forge on.” She added that she was encouraged to see so much rebuilding underway on recent trips to fire areas.

Bass also responded to a news report that the Mayor’s Office asked for “refinements” to the L.A. Fire Department’s after-action report on its handling of the firefight.

Bass said she did not make changes to the report.

“I did not have a hand in writing the report, in editing the report, or, frankly, in reading the reports, the various versions,” Bass said on AirTalk. “I had no idea there were so many versions of the report.”

Bass said she requested that the City Administrative Officer review the report’s characterization of the Fire Department budget: “I just said, ‘Get accurate information,’ and that’s what I assume they did.”

Matt Szabo holds that role. LAist has reached out to him for comment.