The Brief

The Los Angeles region usually knows by the end of June whether homelessness went up or down.

Not this year, as L.A.’s lead homelessness agency is first waiting for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to validate the region’s annual homeless count data before releasing it publicly.

It’s unclear when the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority plans to publish the 2026 results.

Last week, LAHSA officials said it was possible the release wouldn’t happen at all this year because HUD suspended it from federal grant activity.

This week, after a federal judge intervened, a LAHSA spokesperson told LAist the agency expects to announce the release date for the 2026 homeless count numbers in the “near future.”

“Several factors can influence the announcement date, including the validation process with HUD,” LAHSA spokesperson Ahmad Chapman said.

LAHSA officials said they first submitted its homeless count data to HUD for quality analysis on April 30. HUD does not require these reviews to be completed before regions publish their data. But after last year’s HUD review found errors, LAHSA opted to wait “to ensure total data integrity,” said interim CEO Gita O’Neill

Suspended, then unsuspended

On June 11, while that review was taking place, HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity, pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement.

LAHSA then filed a lawsuit challenging the suspension and a separate petition for relief. The agency mentioned in its June 29 lawsuit that it was still in the process of reviewing 2026 homeless count data with a technical assistance provider contracted by HUD.

“If the proposed HUD suspension takes effect, LAHSA likely will not be able to complete its 2026 PIT Count process,” LAHSA’s legal complaint states. “Should that occur, HUD would not have an accurate count for the Los Angeles area.”

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a legal order pausing HUD’s effort to suspend LAHSA pending an Aug. 6 court date.

LAHSA officials said that ruling means the agency can continue drawing down funding from HUD, signing funding agreements with the housing agency, and participating in other federal activities.

HUD said no action it has taken in any way prevents LAHSA from publishing its own homeless count data, according to a spokesperson.

But HUD’s suspension put the troubled agency’s responsibilities and funding in limbo, and experts said it’s possible the suspension could delay the release of L.A.’s homeless count.

“Given the unprecedented nature of the HUD suspension and LAHSA's subsequent lawsuit, I imagine the staff capacity over there is somewhat limited to make it all happen,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow with the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Why the count matters

HUD mandates the homeless counts across the country to help determine priorities for hundreds of millions in federal funds to address homelessness.

L.A.’s annual count has become increasingly consequential and controversial in L.A. County, which is home to the largest unhoused population in the U.S., estimated at more than 72,000 in 2025.

Last year’s count found homelessness had dropped for two years in a row, and was down 4% in L.A. County and 3.4% in the city of L.A. from the year before.

Those declines are a major talking point in L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection campaign. The region’s homelessness system has since experienced major shifts in funding, making this year’s results even more anticipated.

Past counts

From 2016 to 2020, LAHSA published its annual unhoused point-in-time count results in May or early June. The count was canceled in 2021. In 2022, they were released Sept. 8. Then back to June release dates in 2023 and 2024.

Last year, in an unprecedented move, LAHSA released early preliminary results in March 2025. It was a month after the count wrapped and just before L.A. County leaders voted to divert more than $300 million from the agency into its own new homelessness department.

LAHSA released official results in July. Then, in October, LAHSA put out “finalized” 2025 homeless count results with revisions based on a data review by HUD.

Waiting on the numbers

This year’s L.A.-area homeless count happened in January. And unlike last year, no preliminary raw data or official results have been released.

Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco each publicly released 2026 results in May. Pasadena released its homeless count findings in June. Long Beach and Glendale still haven’t.

“These types of delays are incredibly common in reporting out homeless count data,” Visotzky said. “In fact, many communities across California have not yet reported out their 2026 Point-in-Time Count data.”

In April, a LAHSA spokesperson told LAist this year’s final release would arrive in “late spring or early summer,” but cautioned “there are some aspects of the post-counting process that affect when the results are released that are beyond LAHSA's control.”

At an April 24 LAHSA Commission meeting, O’Neill said the agency planned to submit its homeless count data to HUD on April 30 for review and validation. She clarified that, unlike last year, LAHSA would wait until the HUD review and validation processes are complete before releasing any data.

“ After HUD's validation process is complete, we look forward to releasing the results, hopefully this summer,” O’Neill said.

At the meeting, O’Neill told LAHSA commissioners that HUD’s review process usually takes about a month, with data coming back by May 30, but explained that the exact timing was unknown and outside of LAHSA’s control.

Two months later, both LAHSA and HUD decline to say whether the federal review had been completed.

After HUD completes its review, LAHSA officials said they will require additional time to prepare the data for release.

“Since 2022, the count has been released in June, July, and September,” LAHSA’s Chapman told LAist. “There is no deadline for announcing the results of the homeless count, so it cannot be late.”

The future of air conditioning could be in a train station in Anaheim.

The 3 million people who pass through Orange County’s ARTIC station annually are experiencing climate control by radiant cooling — a technology experts say could eventually replace the forced-air AC we’re used to.

AC has become one of the world’s most used defenses against extreme heat, but it’s simultaneously making that heat worse.

Traditional AC systems consume vast amounts of electricity and often rely on greenhouse gases, helping fuel a vicious cycle: More warming drives more AC, which drives more warming.

Radiant cooling offers a greener, more efficient approach that experts say is gaining popularity in homes across California.

How radiant cooling works

A traditional air conditioning system works by circulating a refrigerant that rapidly changes between liquid and gas states, absorbing heat from indoor air and releasing it outside. These forced-air systems push cooled air through ducts in a building — resulting in that familiar blast of cool, dry wind from a vent in the ceiling. The process runs on electricity, and common refrigerants can be powerful greenhouse gases if they leak.

Heat pumps use a similar refrigerant cycle but can reverse direction, moving heat out of a building in summer and into it in winter.

In a radiant cooling system, however, air-to-water heat pumps transfer energy into a centralized water loop, often using less refrigerant. Radiant cooling systems circulate their chilled water through coils embedded behind panels that can be in floors, walls or ceilings. The water in these radiant systems is typically cooled to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, while the chilled panels remain between 68 and 75 degrees.

A person standing nearby then radiates body heat toward the cooler panels, which act as a sponge for thermal energy. This creates a sensation of coolness even if the surrounding air remains warm.

“The idea is that basically you take advantage of thermal radiation to exchange heat between people and surfaces,” said Aaswath Raman, an engineering professor at UCLA.

Saul De Los Santos, a sales associate at Messana Hydronic Technologies, compared radiant cooling to the feeling of walking into a parking structure.

“As soon as you walk into that parking garage, even on a hot day, you start feeling much cooler,” De Los Santos said. “And that’s because those cold walls are extracting heat from your body, leaving you cooler.”

Water can carry 3,400 times more heat energy than air, making radiant cooling significantly more energy-efficient compared to traditional AC systems.

“You need a much smaller volume of water to distribute the same amount of energy through a space,” said Carlos Duarte, an assistant researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment.

The ARTIC train station in Anaheim is one of just a few places in Southern California using radiant cooling today.

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Sena Chang

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LAist

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How it feels

Only a handful of radiant cooling systems exist across Southern California, mostly in commercial and office spaces.

One is the United States Courthouse in downtown L.A.

Another is Anaheim’s relatively new train station. I went there to feel what it was like on Tuesday.

It was sunny and a hot 84 degrees outside. But inside the ARTIC station, the heat seemed to loosen its grip over my body at once, leaving me feeling deeply comfortable. It was subtle and all-consuming at the same time. Because unlike traditional AC, there was no sudden chill on my skin.

I walked to a nearby hotel to compare radiant cooling to traditional AC. I immediately felt cool air blowing over me, and there was an artificiality about the chill of the lobby that left me a little too cold.

The future of radiant cooling

Preliminary research suggests people experience higher levels of comfort with radiant cooling compared to conventional AC.

But Duarte said the U.S. lacks the infrastructure to implement radiant systems on a residential level.

“I think one of the biggest challenges is that many installers or contractors are not familiar with radiant systems, and there needs to be a lot of coordination among the trades,” he said.

A huge barrier for homeowners is cost. Purchasing and installing a radiant system on a home can cost around $20 per square foot. By comparison, a ducted HVAC installation costs $5 to $10 per square foot, while a mini-split system averages $3 to $10 per square foot.

For now, residential radiant systems remain a “relatively niche concept,” according to Raman.

But experts say radiant cooling is becoming more widespread across the state, and researchers are eyeing the 2028 Olympics as an opportunity to deploy these systems on a larger scale.

“We’ve certainly seen an increase in sales specifically for California, but also across the U.S.,” said De Los Santos, who works on residential applications of radiant cooling.

Beyond the home, radiant cooling is highly applicable in open-air spaces like the ARTIC station, where cooling vast quantities of air can be impractical.

In 2025, Raman and a team of researchers designed an outdoor radiant cooling system on the UCLA campus and at the San Fernando Swap Meet that made an area feel up to 10 degrees cooler.

“One thing we’re hoping is that as part of the Olympics, we can also have this as something that’s available for visitors,” Raman said.

“That will also showcase to the world the potential of this technology.”

Inglewood Unified is one step closer to independence more than a decade after the state took over the school district amid a financial crisis.

A July report found the district has improved its financial and facilities management enough to operate independently. If Inglewood maintains this progress, the district could regain local control in 2027 with some guardrails.

“They've met the standards that really demonstrate we have strong systems in place, sound financial management, that the district is operating effectively so that students can learn and thrive and do well,” Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools, told LAist.

The county, which has authority over the 6,000-student school district, announced the news that the district had met 153 standards at a press conference Thursday at City Honors International Preparatory High.

James Morris, who has served as the county-appointed administrator for the district since 2023, said one example of a change the district has made is setting up a system to monitor utility bills.

“This is an achievement that was built by people, not just spreadsheets,” Morris said. “Our teachers, our classified staff, our labor partners, community partners, have all been working hard for 14 years.”

The backstory

In 2012, the Inglewood Unified Board of Trustees requested a multimillion-dollar loan from the state to balance its budget.

A state report said the district’s financial insolvency had been created by overstatement of attendance (which is the basis for state funding), understatement of salary costs, deficit spending and declining enrollment among other factors.

The district ultimately borrowed $29 million and became one of only 10 school districts in the state to enter receivership since 1990 as a condition of an emergency loan. Inglewood’s board lost the power to make decisions and an administrator was appointed, first by the state, and later by the L.A. County Office of Education.

Ernesto Castillo was a senior at City Honors when the district was placed under receivership.

“It was a really scary time, and it felt that I was leaving a sinking ship when I graduated,” Castillo, who’s now a member of the district’s board, said. “To see it still kind of flounder for years under state control was really disappointing and disheartening, especially as it affected my cousins, it affected the residents of my community.”

John Hughes has been an educator in the district for nearly three decades and is the president of the Inglewood Teachers Association.

“ When you have an outside entity's scrutiny, I think it creates a feeling among educators of a lack of autonomy,” Hughes said. “But also a lack of a voice to be heard with the real needs that they're experiencing day to day.”

Marcie Brown, vice president of the Inglewood Council of PTAs, said the most recent county-appointed administrator, has been more transparent with the community.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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Marcie Brown, vice president of the Inglewood Council of PTAs, said the receivership created a negative perception of the district that obscured the rich experience that her grandchildren had in the district.

“ We heard all the buzzwords, underdeveloped, underprivileged. I'm like, ‘We never accepted any of those words at all,’” Brown said. “Our children got to … live large regardless.”

Castillo, the board member, said it was challenging for the board not to have the final say on the decisions such as closing five schools in 2025.

“It created anxiety about who and what is being served with these decisions,” Castillo said. “ Now moving forward, the district and the community knows that the board is gonna make decisions on behalf of their voters, on behalf of their students or their families, and I think that's gonna help regain trust.”

Inglewood Unified’s road to recovery

Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), the California agency that supports public schools' financial and business practices, has evaluated Inglewood Unified across five areas since 2013:

• Community relations and governance 
• Personnel management
• Pupil achievement
• Financial management 
• Facilities management

The first step for the district to exit receivership is to meet 153 standards that touch on everything from budget development to data collection.

Michael Fine, FCMAT’s CEO, said most districts exit this phase within six years.

“ Inglewood's a bit unique in that it has been in phase one since inception,” Fine said.

The district cycled through several external administrators appointed by the state before a change in the law transferred oversight to the county in 2018.

“ Leadership turnover is really detrimental to a district,” Duardo, the County Superintendent, said. “You have to have leaders that are gonna stick around and know the community and know the staff and be able to do the work.”

The district met the FCMAT standards for community relations and governance in 2023 and personnel and student achievement in 2025.

The district met the standards in the last two areas— financial and facilities management— in the most recent report released this month.

What’s next

FCMAT will return to conduct another evaluation of the district next year. If Inglewood maintains or improves its scores, the county can return power to the board.

However, an assigned trustee will have the power to reverse board decisions until the district pays off the initial state loan and passes an external audit.

FCMAT’s most recent evaluation also outlines remaining challenges, including continued deficit spending and declining enrollment.

“ If in receivership, with all this extra assistance and focus, they're not balancing their budget, then what happens when those extra protections disappear?” Fine asked.

Los Angeles housing officials say they’ve averted a crisis that could have put thousands of families at risk of homelessness by the start of 2027.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of low-income Angelenos moved into apartments with the help of federally funded emergency housing vouchers. More than 4,300 households in the city and county still rely on those vouchers to subsidize their rents.

But L.A. officials have warned that federal funding to support this program will dry up at the end of December 2026, potentially leading to evictions and homelessness for tenants unable to pay the full rent on their units.

On Thursday, city and county housing authorities announced that increased federal funding and improved local budgets will now allow all emergency housing voucher holders to transition out of the temporary pandemic program and into the traditional Housing Choice Voucher program, widely known as Section 8.

“This is housing for the long term for these families,” said Marcie Vega, director of assisted housing programs for the Housing Authority of the City of L.A.

How many families are affected?

The city’s housing authority oversees leases for more than 2,700 emergency housing vouchers. The county’s housing authority oversees another 1,600.

Officials say as long as participants still qualify for federal housing aid, they will be able to stay in their current homes without having to complete an onerous amount of paperwork.

“The housing authority is doing the administrative work to transition these families over,” Vega said, noting that the plan is to complete the transition by September.

Tenant advocates who work with renters on the temporary program say the news will ease a lot of anxiety.

“Folks we've been hearing from are in desperate panic,” said Manuel Villagomez, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “It's a huge relief.”

How voucher programs work

Participants use these vouchers to find apartments on the private rental market, which can be a challenge given how many L.A. landlords are reluctant to accept them.

Tenants typically pay about 30% of their income toward their rent, with vouchers covering the rest.

The number of renters with incomes low enough to qualify for a voucher is far larger than the amount of vouchers L.A. housing authorities can offer.

Cities rarely open their waitlists, and they often pick applicants by lottery for a spot on the list. Once tenants are on the list, they can wait for years before getting a voucher.

It’s hot out there, and it’s only going to get hotter.

National Weather Service forecasters issued a slew of alerts this week as a heat wave settles into Southern California with even hotter weather right around the corner.

A heat advisory is in effect until Tuesday for much of the region, with triple-digit temperatures expected in some places. Then, from Tuesday through Thursday, July 16, L.A. County and its neighbors to the north are under a more severe extreme heat watch.

An extreme weather warning is already in place for the Coachella Valley, where highs are expected to approach 115 degrees on Friday.

Southern Californians are no strangers to hot weather in the summer, but heat waves are getting hotter, longer and more frequent as the climate changes.

And the words forecasters use to describe these weather events has changed too. The NWS rolled out new heat alert language last year after the previous summer broke records for the hottest in U.S. history.

So, what exactly triggers these heat alerts? And what should you do about them? Here’s a guide:

Heat Advisory: Advisories are issued when temperatures are expected to be hot enough to cause discomfort and potentially lead to heat-related illnesses, especially for more vulnerable populations like young children and the elderly. During a heat advisory, consider staying in a cool place and limiting outside activity, especially during the day. For those who spend time outside, be sure to drink plenty of water and take breaks in the shade.

Extreme Heat Watch: Watches are essentially forecasts for upcoming periods of extreme heat. Forecasters say heat watches often cover wide areas and will be revised into more focused warnings and advisories as conditions become clearer over time. Watches are a good time to prepare for extreme heat by, for example, locating a nearby cooling centers if you don’t have access to air conditioning.

Extreme Heat Warning: Warnings are issued when heat levels are or will likely become extremely dangerous. Under extreme heat warnings, it's a good idea to avoid strenuous outdoor activity, stay hydrated and help loved ones and pets stay cool.

Not one-size-fits-all

Forecasters say it is important to keep Southern California’s diverse geography in mind when thinking about what these alerts mean.

L.A. County, for example, covers beaches, valleys, mountains and deserts. Some areas have tree cover, while others are mostly concrete and asphalt. Temperatures can vary a lot between those landscapes. It might be 80 degrees near the coast when it’s 100 degrees in the desert.

Not everywhere under a heat advisory, watch or warning will necessarily see the highest temperatures in the forecast either. But it is likely that some places within the alert area will.

Heat is also experienced differently from community to community. For someone accustomed to living in the desert, 100-degree heat may feel different than it would for someone who lives near the beach.

National Weather Service forecasters often consult with local emergency management, fire and public health authorities about the needs of their particular residents when deciding where and when to issue alerts.