The Brief

The Los Angeles Community College District hosted a series of town halls this month to discuss building student housing on three campuses in the district — L.A. City College in East Hollywood, Pierce in Woodland Hills, and West L.A. in Culver City.

Community college students today won’t likely benefit from the proposed housing. According to Rod Hamilton, a regional director for the district’s construction program Build LACCD, at an expedited timeline the projects could be complete by the end of 2028. The town halls will inform the district’s request for proposals, which representatives expect to issue at the beginning of 2024. They also cautioned that much is still tentative — even the identified sites.

There is no question that the student demand for housing is high. Based in a spring 2022 survey of LACCD students, 14% of the respondents indicated they don’t have housing or their housing is insecure. As a percentage of LACCD’s fall 2023 headcount, that’d be about 17,000 students.

“This is the beginning,” said Sara Hernandez, a member of the board of trustees, speaking at L.A. City College. “I know housing, housing insecurity, homelessness is not the beginning here in Los Angeles. This has been going on for a long time, but this is the beginning of the district's efforts around housing because we now have the money.”

That money comes from last year’s voter-approved $5.3-billion bond, known as Measure L.A., which allocated $500 million to house the district’s students and workers. Up to three projects will be chosen, each to provide between 300 to 400 beds.

Housing as an expectation of community colleges

Hernandez said these events are important to hear community needs and build a coalition of support for these housing efforts.

LACCD joins a growing number of California community colleges developing housing on their campuses. Colleges in the Central Valley have a longer history of on-campus housing, but LACCD and other districts are catching up.

One of the latest in the region has been Orange Coast College, offering slightly more than 800 beds in 2020. LACCD presenters point out that what makes this district distinct from its Southern California counterpart is that the units will be affordable at $500 per month per bed.

A student walks at Pierce College.

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Brian Feinzimer

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In its May 2023 housing resolution, LACCD affirmed its commitment to address student, faculty, and staff housing needs.

Despite this formal announcement, the realm of developing housing is still an area of growth for the district.

“It's challenging because, you know, we are in the industry of educating students. We are not a housing provider. You know, this is our first foray into the world of housing development,“ Hernandez said.

“It is really, really clear that, you know, this is a societal issue that has, you know, really made living in Los Angeles really, really difficult for young people, and we need to do more," she added. "And that's why we are really excited and motivated to link arms with the mayor, to link arms with the county, and be a part of the solution to this ongoing, regional wide housing crisis and homelessness crisis.”

Offering solutions

Participants at the town halls were not short of ideas for improving housing security.

At L.A. City College, the room was so packed that a few attendees gathered outside the open door. The energy in the room was tense, with a number of participants frustrated by the wait and wary of potential waste.

One suggested partnering with the University of California and California State University systems to provide housing stability to students transferring to the four-year degree programs. At the West L.A. town hall, Rueben Smith, the vice chancellor and chief facilities executive, said that LACCD is looking to partner with universities with existing housing inventory and work with the city of L.A. and the county to increase housing inventory.

One student worker at the LACC town hall, who said that she is $20,000 in debt from rental costs, suggested raising student worker wages so that they can afford rent and stay committed to their academics.

LACC student Reginald Johnson II told LAist he was a theater major and has been unhoused since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Before the pandemic he had been staying at the Union Rescue Mission, but being in close proximity with so many other people, without partitions, he was worried about getting sick. He said it was a “very hard choice” to return to street living, where he had previously been robbed.

Reginald Johnson II who is studying to become a stage manager prepares for a theatre program rehearsal at Los Angeles City College.

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Among various ideas, he offered that those in the creative industry may be willing to donate toward housing students if their needs were more publicized, particularly at a campus like LACC, where students are pursuing careers in music, cinema, and theater. Another idea he offered is acquiring neighboring vacant motels and providing jobs for students who are studying property management in their degree program.

“We need to come up with solutions now so the students don't have housing insecurities to deal with and worry about right now,” Johnson II said. As a gay man and a person of color, Johnson II told LAist, he wants to be a voice for students or those afraid to speak up.

He appreciated LACCD’s plan to build new housing, but considered it a piecemeal approach to the larger problem. “So let's just try to figure out what other solutions and avenues that we can look at to provide solutions,” he said.

Students call for immediate housing and support  

One participant, who has worked in residential real estate, said that these projects can take a decade, and recommended alternatives to building housing, such as purchasing from neighboring landowners. Hernandez noted later the risk of displacing residents.

The bureaucratic logistics caused frustration.

“Students are being robbed of their capacity to learn because they're too worried about just keeping a roof over their head,” said Jordan David, who is studying political science and is president of the organization Student Power. The organization also called for immediate housing solutions, post-graduation housing support, and student oversight in the planning process.

Reginald Johnson II sleeps on the Metro B line on his was into school at Los Angeles City College.

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Brian Feinzimer

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for LAist

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One student, who has been homeless while at LACC, asked if the student housing could be accompanied with supportive services. “Because a lot of the students you're going to bring in are probably experiencing homelessness, housing insecurity, trauma from their communities. Because we also have to acknowledge that a lot of homelessness is birthed in racism and prejudiced practices. And so there are specific communities that you're really going to have to support because of that,” the student said to echoes of agreement from others.

Smith, the chief facilities executive, said housing policies are still being developed and LACCD will seek further input as part of its shared governance process.

One law faculty member, Camille Goulet, whose e-mail comments were read by another, also asked for funding to be budgeted for support services, like health and wellness and security, and raised concerns about the risk of people enrolling as students for housing without sincere academic intentions.

Speaking later to LAist, trustee Hernandez said, “You can hear the frustration in the voices of students that, you know, their needs are not being served. As an educator, like, I know very well that we can't serve students, we can't help them attain their educational goals if they don't have their basic needs. And so we are doing everything that we can at the district to provide for that.”

Many students need housing, but who will get it? 

Participants at Pierce were concerned about who would be eligible for the future housing.

The presenters said that the selection criteria were still to be determined, but were planning for an initial phase:

• Single students (with plans later to account for families and workers)
• Full-time students
• Those with a minimum 2.0 GPA

Pierce participants expressed concern about the confines of this criteria — what about students with families that need housing, can this topic be revisited? Do you really need to be a full-time student? What if $500 a month is still too expensive? And what is the consequence if a student’s GPA falls below 2.0 because of a job’s demanding hours or a mental health crisis — will they just get kicked out?

When asked by LAist how to prioritize the students, one of the participants, sociology professor James McKeever, said: “We need to look at our foster youth, we need to look at our homeless students, our housing insecure students, those who come from low income backgrounds first, because we're not going to have enough housing for everybody at this cost.”

The stress of housing insecurity

Jessica McCready, a cinema and television student who has previously been unhoused, attended the LACC town hall to learn about what was going on. While she appreciated the efforts to build housing — at this town hall, an eight-year timeframe was mentioned — she said she wants to see another convening to address more immediate needs.

“We had this meeting and we're talking about what's going to happen in eight years, but now, OK, let's have another and talk about maybe what's going to happen in six months to a year," she said. "I feel like that's a really, really useful, use of time. I think that's where we need to start.”

Rachel Alberto-Gomez is a deaf studies student at the Pierce town hall, whose health professor encouraged students to attend. In that class, the students discussed the relationship between mental health and housing.

Alberto-Gomez said they talked about “the stress of housing, how it causes us to be overwhelmed, not be able to perform, and to get the necessary education that we want.”

Alberto-Gomez hopes that future housing will offer sufficient security for students. She told LAist security is important to her from her experience as a woman walking alone to her car at night or waiting for the bus in the morning, which can feel scary and unsafe.

She knows quite a few students sleeping in their cars and appreciates that Pierce College has opened up its parking lot to unhoused students. She says housing is important for these students, but also for everybody, including herself.

“Luckily, right now, I'm OK, but in the future ... I don't know what the future holds,” Alberto-Gomez said. Currently, she depends on her partner for housing and her family lives far away. “And especially with, right now, as prices are increasing, housing is also increasing. So this program would really help us.”

Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.

The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.

The changes remove eligibility for certain noncitizens, including people with refugee status and victims of trafficking. It also applies to immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special immigrant visas for helping the U.S. government overseas.

 ”These are folks … many of whom have large families that we have a commitment to as a country because we welcomed them and invited them here to find a place of refuge,” said Cambria Tortorelli, president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, a refugee resettlement agency. “They’re authorized to work and they’ve been brought here by the U.S. government.”

The federal spending bill, H.R. 1, made sweeping cuts to social safety net programs, including food assistance and Medicaid. In signing the bill, President Donald Trump said the changes were delivering on his campaign promises of “America first.”

Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. The state estimates about 72,000 immigrants with lawful presence will be affected across California.

CalFresh is the state’s version of the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Undocumented immigrants have not been eligible to receive CalFresh benefits.

State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.

Who the changes apply to:

• Asylees
• Refugees
• Parolees (unless they are Cuban and Haitian entrants)
• Individuals with deportation or removal withheld
• Conditional entrants
• Victims of trafficking
• Battered noncitizens
• Iraqi or Afghan with special immigrant visas (SIV) who are not lawful permanent residents (LPR)
• Certain Afghan Nationals granted parole between July 31, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2023
• Certain Ukrainian Nationals granted parole between Feb. 24, 2022, and Sep. 30, 2024

Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.

That’s according to results of a 2025 survey of more than 80,000 students enrolled at CSU’s 22 campuses, plus faculty and staff — the largest and most comprehensive study of how higher education students and instructors perceive artificial intelligence.

Nationwide, university faculty struggle to reconcile the learning benefits of AI — hailed as a “transformative tool” for providing tutoring and personalized support to students — and the risks that students will depend on AI agents to do their thinking for them and, very possibly, get the wrong information. Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions.

Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom, said Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, representing more than 470,000 students.

“Both of these things are allowed to coexist right now without a policy,” she said.

Karroum said that faculty practices are too varied and that what students need are consistent and transparent rules developed in collaboration with students. “There are going to be students who are graduating with AI literacy and some that graduate without AI literacy.”

In February 2025, the CSU system announced an initiative to adopt AI technologies and an agreement with OpenAI to make ChatGPT available throughout the system. The system-wide survey released Wednesday confirms that ChatGPT is the most used AI tool across CSUs. The system will also work with Adobe, Google, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft and NVIDIA.

Campus leaders say the survey and accompanying dashboard provide much needed data on how the system continues to integrate AI into instruction and assessment.

“We need to have data to make data-informed decisions instead of just going by anecdote,” said Elisa Sobo, a professor of anthropology at San Diego State who was involved in interpreting the survey’s findings. “We have data that show high use, but we also have high levels of concern, very valid concern, to help people be responsible when they use it.”

Faculty at San Diego State designed the survey, which received more than 94,000 responses from students, faculty and staff. Among all responding CSU students, 95% reported using an AI tool; 84% said they used ChatGPT and 82% worry that AI will negatively impact their future job security. Others worry that they won’t be competitive if they don’t understand AI well enough.

“Even though I don’t want to use it, I HAVE TO!” wrote a computer science major. “Because if I don’t, then I’ll be left behind, and that is the last thing someone would want in this stupid job market.”

Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research. Just over 55% reported a positive benefit, while 52% said AI has had a negative impact so far.

San Diego State conducted its first campuswide survey in 2023 in response to complaints from students about inconsistent rules about AI use in courses, said James Frazee, vice president for information technology at the campus.

“Students are facing this patchwork of expectations even within the same course taught by different instructors,” Frazee said. In one introductory course, the professor might encourage students to use AI, but another professor teaching the same course might forbid it, he said. “It was a hot mess.”

In that 2023 survey, one student made this request: “Please just tell us what to do and be clear about it.”

Following that survey, the San Diego State Academic Senate approved guidelines for the use of generative AI in instruction and assessments. In 2025, the Senate made it mandatory that faculty include language about AI use in course syllabi.

“It doesn’t say what your disposition has to be, whether it’s pro or con,” Frazee said. “It just says you have to be clear about your expectations. Without the 2023 survey data, that never would have happened.”

According to the 2025 systemwide survey, only 68% of teaching faculty include language about AI use in their syllabi.

Sobo and other faculty who helped develop the 2025 survey hope other CSU campuses will find the data helpful in informing policies about AI use. The dashboard allows users to search for specific campus and discipline data and view student responses by demographic group.

The 2025 survey shows that first-generation students are more interested in formal AI training and that Black, Hispanic and Latino students are more interested than white students. At San Diego State, students are required to earn a micro-credential in AI use during their first year — another change that was made after the 2023 survey.

Students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”

The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 educators in the CSU system, said in a February statement that faculty should be included in future systemwide decisions about AI, including whether the contract with OpenAI should be renewed in July.

“CFA members continue to advocate for ethical and enforceable safeguards governing the use of artificial intelligence,” the CFA said in the statement, asking for “protections for using or refusing to use the technology, professional development resources to adapt pedagogy to incorporate the technology, and further protections for faculty intellectual property.”

Many Southern California cities and institutions are dropping big, grabby news today. Before you go "what the what" — remember, it's the first day of April.

Here's a roundup of some of the April Fools' news dump items.

Irvine, the 'pickleball-only' city

Irvine announced that it'll be converting all tennis courts into pickleball courts by 2027. That's one notch for Team Pickleball in the ongoing turf war between tennis lovers and pickleball players over the fight for court space to engage in their beloved sport.

"Starting today, April 1, all tennis courts are being converted to pickleball courts as part of a citywide effort to make Irvine a pickleball-only City by 2027," the post stated. "We don’t just think this is a good idea … we dink it’s a great one."

Catch that? They "dink" it's a great idea.

All hail Queen Latifah in Long Beach

Over in Long Beach, Mayor Rex Richardson announced the city's reigning royalty, the Queen Mary, will be renamed after another queen.

"After careful consideration, I am proud to announce that the Queen Mary will officially be renamed the RMS Queen Latifah," he said. "Long Beach is stepping into a new era as a major music destination — with a new amphitheater, a deep cultural legacy, and a future built on sound. It’s only right that our most iconic Queen reflects that energy."

In real-real news, LBC native and everyone's favorite Olympics commenter Snoop Dogg is headlining the grand opening show of the Long Beach Amphitheater in June. That's the new waterfront venue near the RMS Queen Latifah.

Prolific author gets his own library branch

Suspense writer James Patterson has more than 200 novels to his name, selling more than 450 million copies. If anyone deserves his own namesake branch, it would be Patterson, no?

The Los Angeles Public Library certainly dinks so, announcing today the James Patterson Canoga Park branch, "with wall to wall Patterson books and programming centered around this prolific author."

Eau de corpse flower

The opening of the corpse flower has become an annual event at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. The event brings legions hoping to get a whiff of the famed flower's "pungent aroma."

The San Marino institution announced that it's bottling the scent, as part of its new "The Huntington's Stank Collection."

"A musky gym sock note opens this unique fragrance, with a sweet, rotten-egg base to ground it. Smells like you – but smellier," the post explained.

Adopt something you can just leave at home, always

Pasadena Humane got in on the fun with a special event — today only — where you can adopt a rock.

"Adoption ROCKS! And today only, you can adopt a friend you won't take for granite," the message said.