The Brief

Los Angeles officials are considering a pair of Airbnb-backed proposals that would temporarily loosen city regulations on short-term rentals and allow the company to pre-pay a portion of the lodging taxes it collects from tourists.

If approved by the City Council, the first proposal would allow Airbnb hosts to rent second homes and investment properties on the platform through 2028 — something the home-sharing giant has long sought, but the city of L.A. has prohibited since 2018.

The second proposal would involve Airbnb paying some portion of the transient occupancy tax it collects from tourists to the city of Los Angeles ahead of time to assist with the city’s budget troubles. That could generate tens of millions of dollars more for the city per year, according to the company.

"Airbnb is a committed partner to Los Angeles and its long-term prosperity with not just words, but with action,” said Justin Wesson, Airbnb’s senior public policy manager in California. “That’s why we have offered to provide tax revenue we already collect on behalf of hosts up front to help fund essential city programs millions of Angelenos rely on."

Both plans appeared in Mayor Karen Bass’ budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which starts in July, and were first reported by L.A. Material. Both were initially suggested by Airbnb, according to the company.

Bass’ budget proposal instructs the city’s Planning Department to develop a limited vacation rental program that would sunset by Dec. 31, 2028.

It also instructs city staff to report back with recommendations “to allow the pre-payment of transient occupancy tax in advance of the 2028 Olympics from any payer that wishes to assist the City in accelerating critical infrastructure projects.”

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who opposes expanding short-term rentals, told LAist she has concerns about the prepayment plan.

"I don’t know anyone in the country running to prepay their taxes, especially any corporations, and it begs the question as to why,” Rodriguez said.

Pre-paying TOT

Airbnb has discussed this pre-payment concept with city officials, but has not settled on specific terms, a company spokesperson confirmed to LAist.

The company told LAist it would work with city officials to come up with the amounts and timelines for any potential prepayment after the City Council approves the mayor’s budget.

Bass’ office did not respond Thursday to questions about the proposal.

In the current budget year, the city will collect about $297 million in transient occupancy taxes, including $34.5 million from short-term rentals and $262.9 million from hotels, according to the L.A. city controller’s revenue forecast.

The Hotel Association of Los Angeles told LAist that hotels, the main driver of bed-tax revenues, have not been part of any conversations about possible pre-payment.

“City leaders have not engaged hotels on the concept of pre-paying transient occupancy taxes in advance of the 2028 Olympics,” Jackie Filla, the association’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We learned of this issue for the first time while reviewing the proposed budget.”

The Mayor’s Office first briefed members of the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee shortly before the Monday release of Bass’ proposed budget, according to one member’s office.

According to the mayor’s budget proposal, the prepaid tax revenue would be used for curb and sidewalk repairs, park maintenance, street cleanliness and tree trimming.

Airbnb entered into an agreement with the city of L.A. in August 2016 allowing the company to collect and pay the transient occupancy tax on behalf of Airbnb hosts. The company said it has collected and paid more than $370 million in lodging tax to the city of Los Angeles between 2016 and the end of last year, for an average of about $39 million annually.

Before L.A.’s 2018 law restricting Airbnbs, there were nearly 29,000 estimated active short-term rental listings in the city of L.A., according to the city’s Planning Department. L.A.’s transient occupancy tax revenue totaled nearly $319 million in the 2018 budget year, according to the city administrative officer. That total includes tax remitted by hotels and it’s unclear how much was generated from short-term rentals specifically.

Last budget year, there were fewer than 5,000 homes officially listed on short-term rental platforms, according to the city. L.A. collected $305.8 million in transient occupancy tax. About $272 million of that came from hotels. The other roughly $33 million came from short-term rentals, according to the city controller.

Bass’ budget proposal projects $313.5 million in transient occupancy tax in 2026-2027.

More Airbnbs? 

Airbnb has long sought to change L.A.’s short-term rental rules to allow more homes on the platform.

Last year, Airbnb launched a public campaign for its "Vacation Rental Revenue Plan.” The company argues that increasing L.A.’s short-term rentals will generate more tax revenue from tourists and expand housing options during the Olympics.

L.A.’s current short-term rental regulations allow homeowners to list only their primary residences on platforms like Airbnb. It also prohibits housing units protected by the city’s rent stabilization ordinance from being listed.

But existing Airbnb laws are rarely enforced. There were 7,500 properties illegally operating as short-term rentals in Los Angeles, according to the city’s Housing Department’s 2024 estimates. Since 2021, L.A. has issued an average of 125 home-sharing citations per year across all enforcement departments, according to city planning records.

Airbnb estimates that lifting restrictions on second homes could generate more than $100 million annually for the city in additional revenue from transient occupancy tax and other tourist spending. The company did not provide a further breakdown of those projections or indicate the exact number of new listings it expects would follow.

There are currently about 5,500 units already operating on home-sharing platforms under the existing rules and thousands more operating illegally, according to city officials.

On April 2, the city of L.A.’s Planning Department recommended in a report that the city reject the Airbnb proposal to allow second homes, finding it was unlikely to generate much revenue and likely to remove long-term housing from the market.

On April 15, the department released another report, reversing its earlier position. It clarified that the previous report had only only analyzed a permanent program but that a temporary program tied to the Olympics was worth considering.

Officials react

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, part of the Budget and Finance Committee, said Airbnb has been talking to members about vacation rentals for years. He said he opposes the company’s desired changes and wants to see more enforcement of illegal Airbnbs.

“I didn't support vacation rentals when it was before us years ago because I feared it would take long-term housing units off the market,” Blumenfield said. “I'm still concerned about it. I still haven't seen a proposal that I would support.”

Councilmember Tim McOsker, also on the budget committee, did not say whether he would support the Airbnb-backed proposals.

A spokesperson from his office said in a statement that Osker “will evaluate the entirety of the proposal, including the pre-payment mechanism, within the budget hearings process before taking a position.”

Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running for L.A. mayor against Bass, said the city needs to properly consider the impact of the proposals from Airbnb.

“The idea that the City would entertain speculative tax prepayments tied to expanding short-term rentals, while we are in an acute housing affordability and availability crisis, needs to be properly vetted to consider its full ramifications,” Raman said in a statement.

Airbnb’s political opponents tied to the hotel industry, including hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE Local 11, have consistently fought against efforts to expand Airbnbs. Now they’re also crying foul on the company’s pre-payment plan.

“ This is just a ruse to to build a larger short-term market, which means less housing for Angelenos in our city,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.

Noah Suarez-Sikes, an organizer with Better Neighbors L.A. — which advocates for stronger limits on short-term rentals — said even if the change is temporary, renters will be permanently displaced.

“ I would hope that council would see that this is a Trojan horse and take it out before it starts harming working class people,” he said.

Campaign contributions

Airbnb is the third biggest spender in L.A. city elections so far this year, after the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents officers, and UNITE HERE Local 11.

A committee funded entirely by Airbnb spent nearly $300,000 in support of Jose Ugarte, a former aide to Councilmember Curren Price who is now one of six candidates running to replace him in District 9.

The committee paid $298,832.00 to a company called Street Level Strategy LLC for “canvassing, consulting, doorhangers, data, and office supplies,” according to records filed with the city.

"Across the country and at all levels of government, we back causes and candidates that champion home sharing and tourism and Los Angeles is a top focus for us," Justin Wesson of Airbnb told LAist.

Meanwhile, a committee sponsored by UNITE HERE Local 11 has raised $515,000 and spent more than $440,000 in independent expenditures opposing District 11 Councilmember Traci Park and supporting her challenger, civil rights attorney Faizah Malik.

“ We want to support candidates who want to raise wages so that people can live in Los Angeles and lower rents so that people can afford to live in Los Angeles,” said UNITE HERE 11 co-president Kurt Peterson.

What's next?

The City Council will begin budget hearings Friday. The panel is expected to hold its first vote on the budget May 21.

As this year’s legislative session speeds to a close, a handful of bills focused on the state’s homelessness crisis have made the cut so far.

Though homelessness improved slightly last year, there are still an estimated 182,000 Californians with nowhere to call home. The issue is top of mind for many lawmakers in Sacramento, who are pushing a range of laws that would do everything from free up state funds for sober housing, dispose of RVs on city streets and create a plan for homelessness prevention.

Here are a few of the bills to watch as they approach their final votes and await a potential signature from the governor:

State-funded sober homeless housing

Gov. Gavin Newsom hit Assemblymember Matt Haney with a surprise veto last year, blocking his bill that would have allowed state funding to pay for sober homeless housing.

Haney is back with a similar bill, which he says will give people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction the choice to live in an environment free from dangerous temptations.

“A lot of people who are on the street right now or exiting shelter programs would prefer drug-free housing options,” the San Francisco Democrat said. “And right now there are few options, if any, for them.”

Last year, Assembly Bill 255 would have allowed cities and counties to spend up to 10% of their state funding on “recovery housing” where people are required to stay sober. That was a tweak to California’s “housing first” strategy, which emphasizes a no-strings-attached approach to housing and generally frowns on barriers that require people to stay clean or participate in treatment.

In his veto message, Newsom said the state already allows the state to fund sober housing. His office pointed to a new set of guidelines on the subject, published online the day after Newsom’s veto.

But Haney says that guidance is unclear, and housing providers still believe state funds are off-limits for sober housing. The proof: Haney said that as far as he knows, no one has used state funds to pay for sober housing since the governor’s veto last year.

His new bill, Assembly bill 1556, lays out the rules a sober housing provider must follow to be eligible for state funding. Each provider must have a policy to handle relapses, which is supposed to help the resident get sober again, but also can include evicting them if they continue to use alcohol or drugs and do not follow the policy. That worries critics, including Sharon Rapport, director of California state policy for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, who fears it could put people back on the streets.

Unlike last year’s bill, AB 1556 doesn’t limit the amount of state money that could go to sober housing. The bill comes with no additional funding, meaning the more money that goes to sober housing, the less will be left for the low-barrier housing needed for people who aren’t ready to overcome their addiction, Rapport said. That’s even more worrying because the Trump administration also is prioritizing sober housing for federal funds – creating an even bigger gap in low-barrier housing, she said.

“We don’t really want to see Trump policy implemented in California at the state level,” she said.

This year, Haney is expecting a more positive reaction from Newsom.

“The governor’s office has been very collaborative and responsive from the beginning this time around,” he said.

Solutions to homelessness

Most people in California agree that homelessness is a problem. But exactly how much would it cost to solve it? And how could California get there?

It turns out, the state has never actually done that math publicly. Assembly Bill 1165 would force the state to do just that. The bill by Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Gardena Democrat, would require the California Department of Housing and Community Development to create a financial plan to solve homelessness, as well as performance metrics for success, by January 2028. That would include determining how much money the state would need to meet the housing needs of everyone who is homeless now or expected to become homeless in the future, and how the state could achieve that goal.

The state has estimated California must plan for 2.5 million homes over the next eight years to meet demand and ease the state’s affordable housing shortage. AB 1165 would require the state to go into more detail about what resources are needed, and lay out a plan to meet that goal.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing estimates it would take $8.1 billion a year for 12 years to solve homelessness. The budget the legislature proposed this month includes $900 million for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention funds – the state’s main source of homeless funding.

If it passes, AB 1165 could help hold legislators and the next governor accountable and push the state to spend its homelessness funds more wisely, Rapport said. A 2024 audit found the state failed to track its homelessness spending or measure results.

The bill doesn’t come with new resources to fight homelessness, meaning implementing a plan to end homelessness could be tough in the current tight budget environment.

Another measure, Assembly Bill 1924, would require the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to establish a statewide strategy to prevent homelessness before it happens. If passed, the plan would need to be in place by July 2027.

Prevention has become an increasingly popular way to tackle homelessness, as it’s much easier and cheaper to help someone hold onto their housing than it is to re-house them once they wind up on the streets. Organizations already using this strategy have found that giving someone several thousand dollars can allow them to avoid homelessness.

Like AB 1165, the prevention bill also comes with no new funding.

Forcing cities to report homelessness and housing data

How much data on homelessness should California cities that aren’t getting state funds be required to report to the state? That’s the question behind a bill by Senator Catherine Blakespear, which has received pushback from some of her colleagues.

Counties, continuums of care (regional groups that coordinate homelessness services) and the 14 largest cities are eligible for money from the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program. In exchange for the funds, those entities must report certain data about their homeless populations, the services they offer, and the progress they’ve made getting people off the streets.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, wants the rest of California’s cities, even if they get no funding, to report that data, too.

“Homelessness is a regional problem that does not stop at city or county boundaries,” she said during a recent Senate floor hearing.

Senate Bill 866 alarmed some city leaders, who complained they don’t have the staff or money to compile that extensive amount of data. Dozens of cities oppose the bill, as does the League of California Cities.

As a concession, Blakespear agreed to exempt all cities with 50,000 or fewer people – eliminating about half of California’s cities.

But that wasn’t enough to appease some of her colleagues, including Republican Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil from Modesto, who called the bill an un-funded mandate for cities.

“I have to ask,” she said, “if we have this level of opposition, not just from rural communities, not just from Republican-represented communities, but from cities across the state, why do we have a half-cooked bill on this Legislature's floor?”

No arrest warrants for people who miss court dates

Assembly Bill 2122 doesn’t specifically mention unhoused Californians, but advocates say it would have big implications for people who sleep outside.

Cities around California are cracking down on street homelessness, leading to increasing numbers of arrests and citations in some places. People are ticketed for unauthorized camping, but they can also be cited for other offenses such as loitering, trespassing, public urination, violating park rules, and more. Typically, the police hand them a paper citation that says when they are supposed to show up in court.

It’s common for unhoused people to miss those court dates – they may lack transportation, be unable to leave their belongings or pets unattended, or simply lose track of the date amid the unpredictability of life on the street. When that happens, the court issues a bench warrant for their arrest. The next time they encounter the police, they could go to jail.

Not only does that cost the city money, but it also could make it harder for the person to get housing, Rapport said.

Assembly Bill 2122, by Assemblymembers Ash Kalra and Josh Lowenthal, would change that. If someone is cited for an infraction (which could include loitering or other minor offenses) and then misses their court date, they could not be jailed as a result. It would also prohibit courts from issuing arrest warrants for people who fail to pay traffic tickets.

The bill applies only to infractions. Different cities classify crimes differently – in some places, an offense such as loitering might be an infraction, while in other places it could be a misdemeanor.

The California State Sheriffs’ Association is opposed to the bill, and says it sends the message that it’s acceptable to fail to appear in court.

RVs on city streets

As unhoused Californians increasingly turn to vehicles for shelter, multiple legislators have turned their attention to addressing the resulting rows of RVs, trailers and lived-in cars lining streets up and down the state.

Last year, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, a Los Angeles Democrat, pushed through a bill intended to make it easier for local governments to dispose of inoperable RVs parked on their streets. The goal was to address vehicles that create blight in neighborhoods and are breeding grounds for bad behavior, he said.

He ended up amending the bill to apply only in Los Angeles and Alameda counties. But by making that change, Gonzalez inadvertently made the law basically unusable. While the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles themselves could use the law to dispose of RVs, the cities within them could not. The Los Angeles City Council found that out the hard way, when it voted to establish an RV disposal program, only to have it shot down in court.

Assembly Bill 647 fixes that oversight by allowing cities within those two counties to destroy RVs valued at $4,000 or less. Opponents worry the bill will lead local governments to seize more lived-in RVs, forcing people out of the relative safety of a vehicle and onto the street.

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

President Donald Trump blew up what could have been a win for his party — and he did it to force lawmakers to pass an elections overhaul bill that has been all but doomed in the Senate.
On Wednesday, Trump abruptly canceled a scheduled signing of bipartisan legislation aimed at bringing down housing costs, saying he would only sign it after Congress approved the SAVE America Act.
This move wasn't entirely surprising because Trump has been saying for months that he won't sign any bill until the SAVE America Act is passed.
His obsession with the SAVE America Act has already scuttled the reauthorization of a surveillance tool and nearly ruined GOP efforts to increase immigration enforcement spending.
The SAVE America Act currently doesn't have the needed 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster – and Republican leaders are reluctant to get rid of the filibuster to pass the bill, as Trump has suggested.

A big reason Trump has been obsessed with getting the SAVE America Act sent to his desk for signature ahead of what could be a pretty bruising midterms for the GOP, is that he believes it would ensure that Republicans never lose another election for at least 50 years.
Much of this belief is based on false claims that Democrats only win elections because of noncitizen participation in elections, which according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and many experts, is extremely rare.
But the president's case for the SAVE America Act is rooted in this misinformation. Here's what's in it:

1. It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote

The SAVE America Act specifically prohibits states from accepting and processing voter registration applications in a federal election "unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship."

Citizenship is already required to register to vote in the U.S. and states have a system to make sure that noncitizens do not make it on to the voter rolls. And when the system fails, it fails in a very limited number of cases.
And the list of what is acceptable to prove citizenship under the SAVE America Act is fairly limited. It includes U.S. passports and birth certificates, as well as some state and tribal IDs. This documentation is prohibitive in some cases: 1 in 10 eligible voters, or 21.3 million people, said in a national survey conducted by a voting rights organization that they either "do not have or could not quickly find" proof of citizenship records.
Trump has tried to require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote via executive order, but that effort was permanently blocked by a federal court on Wednesday.

2. It requires photo ID to cast a ballot

The bill requires that voters show one of these valid forms of identification to cast a ballot in person. Notably, it also requires that people voting by mail provide "a copy of a valid photo identification" with their ballot.
If they can't do that, they have to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number and sign an affidavit from state officials that says they were unable to get an ID "after making reasonable efforts to obtain such a copy." Voter ID requirements are largely popular among voters. And most states require some form of ID to vote, already. However, voters aren't as supportive of a sweeping overhaul that would change various aspects of American elections.

3. It requires that state officials remove noncitizens from their voter rolls

States routinely check their voter registration list for people who shouldn't be there – whether it's people who passed away or who lost their voting rights due to legal trouble.
And that also includes those who were improperly registered. However, when states have tried to identify and purge alleged noncitizens from their rolls, their efforts have gone wrong in some cases.

4. It requires that states submit their complete voter rolls to the Trump administration

States would have to turn over complete, unredacted copies of their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.

These voter lists contain sensitive voter data like driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, which is why many states have refused to turn over this information when the Trump administration began asking for them last year.

The Department of Justice has since been suing states across the country to obtain these lists, but the courts have consistently blocked those efforts. A federal court also recently ruled that the Trump administration's expanded SAVE system is unlawful and cannot be used in its current form.

5. It creates new penalties against election officials

Lastly, the SAVE America Act creates a private right of action against an election official who registers someone who didn't provide proof of citizenship. It also establishes new criminal penalties against officials who register people without citizenship documents.

Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

A fire at the Lineage cold storage facility in Boyle Heights was knocked down​ Wednesday evening, a week after solar panels on its roof ignited and blanketed the region in harmful smoke.

The Los Angeles Fire Department announced the fire was extinguished at 5:58 p.m., and said there were no active flames and no threat of fire spread.

“While the fire has been knocked down, debris within the structure continues to smolder as crews transition into the overhaul phase of operations,” LAFD posted on Instagram.

“The chief’s goal was to have us put this out today,” Milo Cope, a public information officer with the Los Angeles Fire Department, told Boyle Heights Beat on Wednesday morning.

“They’ll manage tearing this building apart and we can stand by for any small smoldering fires that need to be addressed,” Cope said. 

Firefighters will now begin handing over operations to the owners of the building. 

The fire at the cold storage facility began burning last Wednesday on a solar panel farm on the warehouse’s roof that later burned through the rubber insulation around the building. It reignited on Friday, with the city of Los Angeles and the governor’s office declaring an emergency the following day. 

Since the fire broke out, residents living closest to the facility have endured smoky conditions that they say have disrupted daily life, affected their health and limited their ability to work as firefighters continued battling the blaze.

Mayor Karen Bass on Sunday said a mandatory evacuation “is not necessary;” state guidelines tie evacuation orders to immediate threats to life or property. For those who wish to voluntarily leave, “we have the facilities for you,” she said, pointing to the smoke relief shelter available. 

She and LAFD Fire Chief Jaime Moore have repeatedly advised residents sensitive to smoke or who have respiratory concerns to stay indoors, close their windows, wear masks when they do need to go outside and head to established shelters if they need more relief.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado on Monday called for the public release of air quality and environmental testing results in English and Spanish and for a full report detailing the materials that burned at the facility. Boyle Heights residents, Jurado said, “deserve the very basic right to know what is in the air.” 

On Tuesday, Supervisor Hilda Solis urged agencies to be diligent in the cleanup process. “Some of our communities have become particularly alarmed about being the dumping ground for hazardous or toxic material…,” Solis said.

Poor air quality on Sunday led several schools hosting summer programs to announce they would move classes elsewhere on Monday as a precaution. The school relocation will last until Friday, said officials from LAUSD’s Region East.

Students from Dena Elementary and Dacotah Early Education Center were relocated to Sunrise Elementary, Eastman Early Education Center students moved to Humphreys Elementary, and Stevenson Middle School students were moved to Belvedere Middle School, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District.