The Brief

Their homes were reduced to ash, but survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires still have to pay their mortgages. Now, the state of California is offering grants that could help some homeowners defray costs as they begin efforts to rebuild.

The California Housing Finance Agency launched the CalAssist Mortgage Fund program Thursday. Applicants can qualify for up to three months of mortgage payments, with a maximum grant of $20,000.

Officials said the relief does not need to be repaid.

“Altadena residents want to remain and rebuild in this community, but the financial press is real and growing for many,” said L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents neighborhoods devastated by the Eaton Fire.

“We need to keep hope alive,” Barger said at a news conference in Altadena to unveil the program. “That’s exactly what we are doing here today.”

Who qualifies — and when to apply

Online applications will be accepted starting June 12 at CalAssistMortgageFund.org. Officials are urging homeowners to apply quickly, because once the program’s $105 million in funding runs out, future requests will be denied.

In order to qualify, an applicant’s primary residence must have been destroyed in a California disaster that occurred between Jan. 1, 2023, and Jan. 8, 2025. This year’s Palisades and Eaton fires are included, as well as previous disasters across the state, such as the 2024 Park Fire and Hurricane Hilary in 2023.

Applicants also need to meet the program’s income limits. In Los Angeles County, the maximum annual income will be $140,700, regardless of household size, officials said.

Relief will be first come, first served

Homeowners should start preparing now for next week’s opening of the application portal, officials said. Documents needed to apply include mortgage statements, bank statements, utility bills, insurance claims and proof of income.

Lori Gay, president of the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County, told residents not to put off the application process.

“That $100 million will go like hot cakes,” Gay said.

How to get help applying 

Rebecca Franklin, chief deputy director of the California Housing Finance Agency, acknowledged that the documentation and online application process could deter some households from seeking help. She said homeowners can call the program’s contact center at (800) 501-0019 to ask for in-person help from a federally certified housing counselor.

“We understand that sometimes, when we get into mortgage relief, these can be complex ideas and terms that — if you don't work in the industry — you don't know,” Franklin said. “So just connect with us and we can help you.”

CalAssist will send relief payments directly to mortgage servicers. That means this help is only available to homeowners with a mortgage servicer that has agreed to participate in the state program. A list of participating mortgage servicers can be found on the CalAssist website.

More than 400 mortgage companies signed on to a mortgage forbearance program announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom shortly after the L.A. fires. Those forbearance periods gave borrowers the ability to temporarily delay their monthly payments, but they’re now wrapping up.

Barger said she’s already hearing from constituents having trouble getting caught up.

“Forbearance didn't mean forgiveness,” she said. “If forbearance is coming to an end, this is going to give them breathing room for the next three months — or up to $20,000 — to figure out their next move.”

Only two Democratic lawmakers voted against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal last year curtailing healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Sen. Maria Elena Durazo was one them.

Now, Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, is proposing legislation that would reverse many of those immigrant healthcare cuts and reinstate Medi-Cal eligibility for all income-qualifying residents regardless of citizenship.

Senate Bill 1422 would ensure that all immigrant adults age 19 and older could enroll in Medi-Cal. It would not reverse limits placed on dental benefits that last year’s state budget included, nor would it eliminate the $30 monthly premium required of the same population starting in July 2027. The state budget last year did not cut benefits for children without legal status.

“We are no healthier as a community than the person least able to access care. When we accept a two-tier healthcare system, we borrow trouble,” Durazo said Monday.

Durazo argues that immigrants without legal status contribute billions in taxes each year and many of them now cannot benefit from programs those dollars support. The state spends about $12 billion annually on immigrant health care.

A shrinking budget, a growing fight

Whether Newsom will sign such a measure is unclear but seemingly unlikely. Grappling with a deficit for the fourth straight year — even as revenue grows — Newsom has already proposed cuts to other programs. Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor, said his office would not comment on Durazo’s legislation.

His January budget proposal made few changes to the state’s Medi-Cal program, which enrolls more than 14 million Californians, but it underscored the ongoing fiscal challenges. One major threat comes from President Donald Trump’s federal tax reform package, which imposed new limits on the provider taxes that nearly every state uses to support their low-income healthcare programs. California’s tax on health insurers is particularly large, generating about $7 billion annually for the general fund — a figure that the state finance department estimates will decrease to about $6 million next year.

Medi-Cal spending has nearly doubled to $200 billion during Newsom’s two terms, adding to the state’s structural deficit, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. That amount includes about $119 billion in federal dollars.

Both Democrats and Republicans criticize Newsom’s handling of healthcare for immigrants without legal status. Republicans blame Newsom’s gradual expansion of Medi-Cal eligibility to immigrants for the program’s growing costs. Democrats are angry he partially reversed course, and some also take issue with his most recent budget proposal, which they say would needlessly extend some federal Medicaid cuts.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, a Democrat from Oakland, has introduced a bill that would bar the state from imposing federal work requirements on enrollees whose healthcare is paid for solely with state funds, a group that includes immigrants without legal status. State officials estimate work requirements will cause roughly 2 million Californians to lose Medi-Cal largely due to administrative hurdles.

The fight over healthcare spending has become one of the defining issues heading into this fall’s elections.

The state’s largest healthcare labor union is pushing a billionaire’s tax to raise revenue for healthcare, a measure that has drawn opposition from Silicon Valley’s wealthy elite and divided state Democrats. Meanwhile, party leaders are also trying to unseat a number of vulnerable congressional Republicans, including Rep. David Valadao whose Central Valley district has the highest share of Medicaid recipients in the country.

For the first time since Los Angeles County began tracking the data, fewer unhoused residents died on the streets in 2024, according to a report released Tuesday.

About 2,208 people experiencing homelessness died in the county that year, 300 fewer than the previous year, according to the report from the county Department of Public Health.

The report also showed the mortality rate — which is the number of deaths per 100,000 unhoused residents — decreased by 10%.

Health officials credit drug overdose prevention efforts for some of that decline, including greater distribution of naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

There was a 21% decrease in the drug overdose death rate among unhoused residents, according to the report.

Still, an average of six people experiencing homelessness died each day in L.A. County throughout 2024. People without stable housing face mortality rates over four times higher than the general population.

Authorities note that number is still too high.

"These disparities reflect systemic barriers — lack of safe housing, limited access to culturally responsive healthcare, unsafe environments, and the ongoing effects of trauma, discrimination, and social inequities," Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health, wrote in the report.

She said she expects the work to get harder, with major state and regional funding reductions to some homeless services this year.

“Just as we are beginning to see positive momentum on homeless mortality reduction, we are at risk of losing precious ground,” Ferrer continued.

County health officials made several recommendations in the report, including providing more access to shelter and housing, mental health and substance use treatment services.

Drug overdose deaths 

The annual report relies on state death records, county medical examiner data and population estimates from the region’s annual point-in-time homeless count.

More than 75,000 people were estimated to be experiencing homelessness in L.A. County in 2024, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s official count that year.

Despite some decreases, drug overdose remained the leading cause of death among people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County and accounted for 40% of all deaths among that population.

In 2024, 884 unhoused people died of drug overdoses in L.A. County. That was down from 1,140 deaths in 2023, according to the report.

Unhoused residents were 46 times more likely to die of drug overdose than the general population. The report notes the overdose death rate is still about twice as high as it was in 2019.

Many of the deaths involved fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, but for the first time they accounted for a lower percentage than in the previous year — 59% in 2024 and 70% in 2023, according to the data.

Most overdose deaths involve multiple drugs, according to the county. The percentage of deaths in which methamphetamine was a factor remained relatively steady — 80% in 2024 and 79% in 2023.

Overdose deaths involving only methamphetamine rose from 19% in 2023 to 27% in 2024.

Other causes of death

The Public Health Department is tracking other leading causes of death for unhoused residents. In 2024, the rates for coronary heart disease and homicide among unhoused Angelenos went down, while transportation-related deaths and suicides went up.

• Coronary heart disease: The second leading cause of death among L.A. County’s unhoused population continued to be coronary heart disease, which accounted for 14% of unhoused deaths in 2024. The previous year, it was 15%.
  
• Transportation-related deaths: Traffic-related injury remained the third leading cause of death among all unhoused L.A. County residents, accounting for 11% of those fatalities. That’s up from 8% the previous year. After a two-year plateau, the traffic injury mortality rate increased by 25% to 315 deaths per 100,000 unhoused people. About 230 unhoused pedestrians or cyclists were killed in traffic collisions in 2024. They were 24 times more likely to die from traffic-related injuries than the overall L.A. County population.
  
• Homicide: Homicide was the fourth leading cause of death among unhoused people in L.A. County in 2024. That year, 105 unhoused people were victims of homicide, according to county data. That’s compared to 124 the previous year. Unhoused Angelenos were 14 times more likely to die by homicide than the general population.
  
• Suicide: The suicide rate among L.A.’s homeless population increased by 21% in 2024. County data show 80 unhoused L.A. County residents died by suicide in 2024. That was 4% of all recorded deaths among unhoused residents, up from 3% the previous year. Unhoused residents were 13 times more likely to die by suicide than Angelenos in general.

Public Health recommendations

The Department of Public Health made several recommendations to prevent premature deaths and continue slowing the mortality rate among unhoused people in the region.

They included:

• Ensuring access to affordable housing and health insurance.
• Ensuring that housing options support harm reduction, overdose prevention and substance use treatment.
• Expanding comprehensive primary and preventive care services for unhoused people.
• Conducting a detailed analysis of 2024 traffic injury deaths among unhoused residents to inform policy interventions. 

Read the full report here. 

More Californians filed claims for paid family leave last year than ever before since the state started offering the benefits two decades ago.

In 2025, more than 355,600 workers in the state took time to care for a sick family member or bond with a new child, up 16% from the year before, according to data LAist requested from the California Employment Development Department.

That change coincided with increased payments for workers who use paid leave. Workers in California can get up to eight weeks of paid leave — and now recoup 70–90% of their regular wages, up from 60–70% the year prior.

“The program continues to grow,” said Anne Chapuis, a spokesperson for EDD. While she said 2025 represents their largest year to date, the rise or fall of claims “can sometimes be attributed to a combination of factors including awareness, demand, and eligibility.”

California became the first state to enact a paid family leave program in 2004. At the time, workers only got 55% of their wages and six weeks of paid leave.

Jenya Cassidy, executive director of the advocacy group California Work & Family Coalition, said her organization is still working to understand why there’s a rise in claims, but have anecdotally heard of people taking it because of the increase. The group co-sponsored the 2022 legislation that increase payments, after hearing that many low-income earners couldn’t afford to take leave. Research has shown that paid family leave benefits help a mother and baby’s health.

“Sixty percent of their income wasn't enough to pay their bills, and so many people are living on the edge in this state especially,” Cassidy said.

She said there was also more publicity about the paid family leave program last year because of the payment increase.

“There was a little bit of hubbub about this wage replacement [increase], so I do think raising awareness about the affordability of taking it is a key thing,” she said. “People hearing it anecdotally, seeing it in the news, I think that kind of has an impact.”

The state Employment Development Department says the paid family leave program, which started in 2004, continues to grow.

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There are also cultural and general shifts around family leave, said Jessica Mason, senior policy analyst for economic justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“For millennials and Gen Z, there's a little bit more of an assumption that everybody's going to be doing caregiving, everybody's going to be involved in parenting, and those norms do kind of shift over time,” she said.

For example, more dads in California are taking paid leave time, recent state data show.

Mason recently worked on a report that found 1 in 3 private sector workers nationwide now have access to a paid family leave program, with 14 states having paid family leave laws. But because California is such a big state, it plays a huge role in that statistic, she said. The program covers more than 18 million residents.

“In California, about 97% of the private sector workforce is potentially eligible for paid leave … that's really at the top end of all of the states,” she said.

How the state's paid family leave program works

The family leave program in California is paid through the State Disability Insurance program. Workers pay into the program through a deduction on their paycheck usually labeled as “CADSI.”

To be eligible for paid family leave in California, a worker needs to have earned at least $300 in wages in a “base period” (5-18 months before a claim).

Eligible workers who make less than about $66,000 a year can get 90% of their wages, and workers who make above that recieve 70% while on leave.