The Brief

For California political observers, the housing plan that Kamala Harris recently unveiled may have caused a twinge of familiarity.

As a central plank of her agenda to “lower costs for American families,” the Democratic presidential nominee pledged in August to build 3 million additional affordable homes and rentals over the next four years to address “a serious housing shortage across America” — echoing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s platform during his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, when he called for California to add 3.5 million housing units by 2025.

Housing policy experts are enthusiastic about many of the ideas that Harris floated to promote production, which include creating a new tax incentive for developers who build starter homes for first-time homebuyers, expanding a tax incentive for affordable rental housing projects and establishing a $40 billion “innovation fund” to finance construction, as well as repurposing some federal land for housing and streamlining the permitting processes for projects.

Michael Lens, a professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, called it a wonk’s wish list: “This is all of the stuff we talk about at dorky academic conferences.”

But transforming the housing market from the top is difficult, as Newsom’s experience has demonstrated.

While California has increased production during his time in office — about 112,000 units were completed last year, according to the Department of Housing and Community Development, compared to about 70,000 in 2018 — it is still only building at a fifth of the rate necessary to meet his original target.

The governor has since acknowledged that 3.5 million units “was always a stretch goal” and scaled back. His office declined an interview request for this story.

Even with new policy priorities in place, high construction costs, onerous regulations, lack of public funding and community resistance remain major hurdles to supercharging homebuilding in California — offering lessons for a potential Harris administration.

“You’re going to be limited in your ability to change things on the ground,” said Ben Metcalf, a former state and federal housing official who is now managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. “Even when you are trying to move carrots and sticks, you find years later, what do you have to show?”

Set manageable goals

The high cost of housing has long been a top concern for Californians, but the problem is spreading across the nation. Industry data indicates that home prices exploded over the past five years, up more than 50% since 2019, while rent surged by about a third during that time, oustripping raises.

People moving from expensive cities to outlying areas for more affordable housing or moving into bigger homes during the coronavirus pandemic has driven up demand in new places, while even many recent pro-growth boom towns are becoming strained by the natural limits of expansion or a dimming taste for development.

“There is plenty of reason to think that it could get worse, in the sense that California is a bellwether,” Lens said.

Construction is constrained in California by pricey land, local zoning limits and fees, lengthy permitting processes and the threat of litigation, all of which drive up the cost of building and make it difficult for many projects to pencil out financially.

It’s unclear where the Harris campaign came up with its goal of 3 million housing units over the next four years — or how exactly it would measure success, given the emphasis on affordability. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to questions seeking a more detailed explanation, though he did clarify that this would be above current production.

That would require a President Harris to immediately boost construction nationwide by 50%, to levels not seen since before the housing market crashed during the 2008 financial crisis. The country built about 1.45 million new homes last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's first gubernatorial campaign in 2018 called for California to add 3.5 million housing units by 2025.

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The strategy carries some political risk. Newsom set an ambitious housing goal as a candidate for governor, which would have required California to build 500,000 new homes per year, and then faced criticism for falling short.

Metcalf noted that Harris’ plan for 3 million homes is more aggressive than the 2 million figure that President Joe Biden was campaigning on before he dropped out of the race this summer, but far below the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which targeted the construction or rehabilitation of 26 million units over the next decade, including six million for low- and moderate-income families.

“The last time we saw an incoming president really putting a big, bold number on the board was that,” Metcalf said. “She wants to be able to campaign for a second term saying, ‘Hey, we did it.’”

Clear regulatory hurdles

California officials are undertaking a serious push to make it easier to build housing.

Over the past several years, they have passed major legislation:

• SB 9 allows landowners to add additional units on single-family lots in residential neighborhoods.
  
• SB 6 streamlines the process for turning empty commercial properties into housing.
  
• AB 14449 shields certain affordable projects from lengthy environmental reviews and legal challenges.
  
• SB 423 opens up land owned by religious institutions and colleges for construction.
  
• AB 1893 gives developers more tools to speed up permitting in uncooperative cities and counties.

Advocates projected these policies could unlock millions of new homes across the state, but the impact so far has been significantly more modest.

“That’s a precursor to making a lot of these things work,” Lens said. “We have to make housing more allowable in more places.”

New housing construction in Elk Grove on July 8, 2022.

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A series of laws to encourage more “accessory dwelling units” has been a promising exception, according to Chris Elmendorf, a UC Davis law professor with an expertise in land use and housing law. Since California forced local governments to waive fees and affordability requirements and grant faster approval for backyard cottages and other secondary units, the state has seen a boom of ADU construction.

Elmendorf said Harris’ proposed tax incentive for starter homes — which is not an official category, but generally refers to more modest housing that provides a cheaper entry point into the market — could similarly provide a quick jolt to the housing supply.

“If the goal is to promote small, inexpensive, market-rate homes, that’s really different than what California has been doing,” Elmendorf said. “California has been able to pass a lot of laws, but it hasn’t been able to pass many laws that make housing economically feasible.”

Experts argue that California has not been able to maximize the effectiveness of its new pro-housing laws because it is prioritizing so many other goals — demands to use union labor, requirements for more deed-restricted affordable units to reduce gentrification, environmental considerations to discourage sprawl and climate risks — that it’s still too expensive to build here.

The high costs for workers, materials and local regulations have been compounded lately by elevated interest rates, which drive up the price tag to finance projects and may actually be reversing California’s progress on construction. Metcalf compared it to a straw breaking the camel’s back for the building industry.

“That’s something that we’ve made almost no progress on as a state,” he said. “Once you have the table set, if the costs are too high, then nothing gets built.”

It’s of particular concern for affordable housing developers, who rely heavily on public funding. Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal, executive director of the affordable housing advocacy group Housing California, said that despite state laws that have made it easier to plan projects, developers continue to struggle to pull together enough money to get them over the finish line.

She is hopeful about a surge in financial support — through the tax incentives and innovation fund in Harris’ plan — that has been unavailable from state or local governments, which she said have not generally prioritized money for affordable housing because constituents do not understand the benefits.

“There’s a narrative challenge that we’re grappling with that often translates into a political challenge,” Flegal said. “That’s a way the federal government could be impactful in a way the state could never be.”

Use sticks as well as carrots

Though Newsom made clear his desire to boost housing production in California, not everyone has been on board with his approach.

Some cities, particularly wealthy or coastal suburbs, have vigorously fought to restrict additional development in their own communities, resisting a state mandate to plan for far more housing and suing to exempt themselves or overturn new laws that make it easier to build more densely. They contend these policies would destroy the character of their communities.

Newsom, who argues that everyone must do their part to solve the crisis, has cracked down by creating a new enforcement unit within the state housing department and suing the most intransigent cities for failing to approve housing plans or even specific projects.

The construction project is funded by the No Place Like Home bond, which passed in 2018 to create affordable housing for homeless residents experiencing mental health issues.

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But the federal government does not have the same legal authority that California has given itself to demand local communities build more housing, and there’s no guarantee that Congress would be willing to step in to play more of a role in what has traditionally been a local matter in most states.

“Plans don’t translate into outcomes if people don’t want to build housing,” Elmendorf said.

So to reach her goal of 3 million new homes, Harris would have to rely more on the proposed incentives, such as the tax breaks for starter homes and affordable rentals and the innovation fund, for voluntary compliance.

Experts believe she has a good political opportunity to actually get her plan passed. Congress will be under pressure next year to extend a series of tax cuts made under former President Donald Trump that are set to expire at the end of 2025, which could be used as a bargaining chip for Harris’ housing proposals.

The federal government also has the power of the purse on a scale well beyond California, which it could amplify through regulations — such as tying transportation dollars to building more housing — that make supporting development the more desirable option.

California has tried this type of regulatory incentive, encouraging local governments to remove obstacles to construction with grant money and creating a “pro-housing designation” for cities that adopt streamlined development policies, which gives them privileged access to state funds.

“Unfortunately, that pro-housing designation is not based on outcomes. So that’s a fundamental problem,” Elmendorf said. “That’s something Harris will have to figure out.”

In his monthly briefing Thursday, the leader of the massive Port of L.A. complex said the port shutdowns in the Persian Gulf and slowdowns in European and Asian ports caused by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran are not rippling to Southern California.

“We right now don't see any of that congestion happening, but it just may,” said Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka. “No one has the answer at this point in time of how long this war is going to continue and for what duration the Strait [of Hormuz] will remain closed.”

Shipping across the Pacific Ocean to U.S. ports on the West Coast, Seroka said, is so lucrative that companies are making sure container ships are not delayed. Most of the trade through the port complex is with China, Japan and Vietnam.

“I don't think you're going to see a significant impact on the West Coast,” said Ron Widdows, a former ocean carrier CEO who joined Seroka during the briefing.

The war with Iran will mark its second week Saturday. The conflict’s economic upheaval has upended politics and economies in the Middle East. European and Asian countries are feeling the ripple effects as trade along the Strait of Hormuz has slowed.

Southern California consumers will feel the effect on the pocketbook

The war’s effects on rising prices at gasoline stations in the U.S. is also leading to price increases in cargo ship fuel, known as “bunker.”

“Those bunker prices effectively doubling right now are passed on almost immediately, and in some cases with a 30-day notice, to shippers, [and] they'll be passed on to the cost of those goods,” Seroka said.

For now, container volume at the Port of L.A. is good, with 812,000 container units moving in and out of the L.A. port last month.

“That's about 3% higher than last year and 11% above the five-year average for February, both positive signs,” Seroka said.

A disruption in trade through the massive SoCal port would affect hundreds of thousands of jobs in the five-county Southern California region. Port of L.A. trade accounts for 17% of all waterborne container international trade into the U.S.

As the federal investigation related to Los Angeles Unified’s superintendent continues, the district’s acting leader and the elected board face key decisions about the district’s finances and negotiations with unions poised to strike.

This on top of the day-to-day tasks of running a school district that employs 83,000 people and enrolls more than 400,000 students across more than 1,000 schools.

“This removal of [Superintendent Alberto] Carvalho, which is understandable under the circumstances, comes at the very worst time for the system,” said Pedro Noguera, dean of USC’s Rossier School of Education.

LAUSD’s board voted unanimously to place Carvalho on paid administrative leave two days after FBI agents searched his home and office in late February. The reason for the searches is unknown. A DOJ spokesperson said the agency has a court-authorized warrant but declined to provide additional details.

While Carvalho has declared his innocence and expressed a desire to return to his job, the district says an investigation is ongoing.

Which means, for now, longtime administrator Andres Chait will continue leading the country’s second largest school district through a series of pressing challenges.

What does an acting superintendent do?

This is not the first time in recent history an acting superintendent has led LAUSD.

Vivian Ekchian stepped in to lead the district in 2017 when then-Superintendent Michelle King was out on medical leave; King stepped down altogether the following year. Ekchian previously served as associate superintendent and, before that, an elementary school teacher, principal, administrator and chief labor negotiator.

“The role of the acting superintendent, from my perspective, is not different from the actual superintendency,” Ekchian said. “The work needs to get done, and it doesn't stop.”

When asked about the acting superintendent’s decision-making power compared to the permanent position, a district spokesperson wrote in a statement that “acting superintendent is a board-appointed position and carries all responsibilities and authority afforded the position of district superintendent.”

Ekchian said the superintendent’s decisions are guided by the district’s existing strategic plan, consultation with other senior leaders and community partners.

“If there's an urgent matter, like a fire or something that requires immediate decision-making, systems and structures are in place for organizations and departments to know what to do next with immediate guidance from the superintendent,” Ekchian said.  ”All decisions aren't the same, and the urgency is dictated by the matter at hand.”

Like Ekchian, Chait rose through the ranks from teacher to administrator at LAUSD over nearly three decades.

The responsibilities of his most recent role, chief of school operations, included overseeing school safety, athletics and the district’s office of emergency management. The salary for the chief of school operations position is $278,205 annually (the district did not indicate whether his salary has changed).

Since being named acting superintendent, Chait has appeared on the district’s social media, but the district has declined to make him available to LAist or other media outlets for interviews.

In his first verbal statement to the public on Monday, March 2 before a closed board meeting, Chait said his priority as acting superintendent is to keep the district focused.

“We remain committed to academic excellence and student wellbeing,” he said. “Our core values remain unchanged. I know transitions can create uncertainty, but our district is strong.”

Mounting pressure from labor

On Tuesday, the board approved labor agreements with the unions representing school police, support staff supervisors, office personnel and other classified staff.

But contract negotiations with the district's largest unions, those that represent teachers and school support staff, have stalled. Members of both United Teachers Los Angeles and SEIU Local 99 voted overwhelmingly in January to give their leaders the power to call a strike.

An IT worker and a gardener, both in positions targeted for reductions, were among the union members that addressed the LAUSD board.

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“ A strike is always the last resort,” said Maria Nichols, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the union representing principals, on Tuesday. “None of us — AALA/Teamsters, UTLA, SEIU — want to go on a strike and be disruptive for our students, our families, our school communities, especially at a time when LAUSD is already navigating uncertainty.”

More than a hundred school support staff and other union members filled the chambers Tuesday as Nichols and other representatives addressed the board.

Alex Orozco, UTLA’s secondary vice president, told the board that negotiations were “not anywhere close” to being settled. (The following day, the union announced the most recent step of negotiations, “fact-finding,” ended without an agreement.)

In past negotiations, the district’s superintendent has been a lightning rod for the union’s criticisms. In 2018, for example, UTLA weaponized then-Superintendent Austin Beutner’s calendar ahead of a strike.

The unions’ approach to Chait has been restrained so far.

“ The problem our members are facing, and students, is a systemic issue. It's not an individual,” said Max Arias, executive director of SEIU Local 99, in an interview with LAist. “We have to continue to attack the system, but I'm trying to hold out some hope that [the acting] superintendent will, you know, understand what we need to get done.”

The unions plan to hold a rally in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Chait described a first week on the job spent visiting with teachers, principals, students, support staff and labor partners.

“As someone who's been a teacher, principal, held a number of roles in the district, I understand that you are indeed the backbone of this district,” Chait said. “The work simply just does not happen at schools or at offices without you. My commitment to you is to always come from a place of transparency, honesty and dialogue.”

Cutting back on spending

Part of the labor negotiation challenges are related to the district’s financial constraints. In February, a divided board voted to send layoff notices to more than 650 employees as part of a plan to cut spending.

Even as California is poised to fund schools at record high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs.

For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone. For the last two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit.

Noguera, with USC, said the budget is the district’s most immediate priority.

“There's no easy solutions,” he said, “and I think that's part of the reason why they've held off for a while on making tough decisions.”

The financial report presented Tuesday indicates that the district will continue to spend more money than it brings in over the next three years. Still to be determined are how the outstanding labor negotiations and the state budget will affect LAUSD’s spending plan for next year.

Defending immigrant families

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, Los Angeles educators — and those around the country— have said the increase in immigration enforcement actions contributed to lower attendance and fewer students enrolled in school this year.

Thousands of Los Angeles Unified students have walked out in recent months to protest the Trump administration’s militarized crackdown on immigrants, detainment of children and violence against U.S. citizens protesting the raids.

Thousands of students from schools across Los Angeles walked out Wednesday, Feb 4, 2026 in peaceful protest of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.

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In response, the district has expanded summer school and transportation options, distributed “know your rights” information and asked the federal government not to conduct immigration enforcement actions near schools. Teachers and community organizations have also volunteered to patrol schools before and after school.

On Tuesday, the board instructed staff to review contracts with outside vendors and evaluate whether they support or enable immigration enforcement and detention.

Chait, whose own family immigrated from Chile in 1983, said the district’s work to support immigrant families will not change during his tenure.

“Please know we stand with you,” Chait said Tuesday. “We will support you. We will ensure that our campuses are safe, secure and welcoming environments for our students and staff.”

A theater project bringing the world of William Shakespeare to local veterans is gearing up for its first public performance on Sunday.

For the past year, a group of about a dozen veterans have met at the West Los Angeles VA campus to study the work of the Bard of Avon.

The project is a partnership between the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles and The Veterans Collective. The group is led by trained theater artist — and fellow veteran — Aaron Lyons.

Lyons is a longtime staple of L.A.’s theater community and is a member of the Antaeus Theatre Company. He said seeing this group express themselves through these timeless works has been inspiring.

“Helping them grasp Shakespeare, not only intellectually but emotionally, has been one of the most uplifting experiences of my life,” Lyons said.

Ranging in age from their 30s to their 70s, the group includes veterans of the Vietnam War and most of its members live at the West LA VA Campus, Lyons said.

The actor, who’s performed in more than half of Shakespeare’s plays, said part of his goal with the project was to demystify Shakespeare’s canon for veterans who might not have studied it since grade school.

“Watching this group of men and women understand it and be able to connect with it in ways that they didn’t think possible was really, really inspiring,” Lyons said.

The group will perform an original work called “Shakespeare Night Live” at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 15, at McCadden Place Theatre. The performance weaves through several Shakespearian monologues and scenes.

Tickets are $10 and available at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles website.

The war in Iran is rattling the aviation industry, from flight cancellations to rising costs for jet fuel. So if you're planning to travel this spring or summer, should you grab a ticket now, or wait?

"You should go ahead and book," says Sean Cudahy, an aviation reporter at The Points Guy travel and personal finance website.

It's generally recommended to buy international flights further in advance than domestic trips. But in the current circumstances, Cudahy says he would go ahead and book even domestic flights.

His advice is a sign of how the Middle East conflict is rippling outward, affecting prices and itineraries around the world, beyond the thousands of travelers who were stuck after the war forced a barrage of flight cancellations.

Airlines warn that ticket prices will rise with fuel costs

The war's effect on travel was sudden and striking, resulting in the cancellation of more than 46,000 flights in and out of the Middle East from Feb. 28 — when the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran — to March 11, according to Cirium, the aviation analytics company.

That includes Dubai International, the busiest airport in the world for international travel, according to Airports Council International, along with popular hubs in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

But even airlines far from the Mideast are facing a sudden surge in a core expense: jet fuel. At the beginning of the year, a gallon of jet fuel cost $2.11; by March 10, the price rose to $3.40, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index, a gain of more than 60%.

The spike came after tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz came to a virtual halt, as Iran announced it would close the waterway that normally handles about 20% of the world's oil and liquified natural gas.

Mideast refineries had been sending some 470,000 barrels of jet fuel each day through the strait to airports in Europe and elsewhere, says Rick Joswick, who heads the near-term oil analytics team at S&P Global.

The price for a gallon of jet fuel soared close to $4 in the first week of the war, prompting United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby to say on Friday that airfare price hikes from higher fuel costs would "probably start quick."

As they absorb higher fuel costs, airlines could adjust prices higher across the board, or they might tuck an increase into premium fares, where they'll be less noticeable, Cudahy of The Points Guy says.

Several airlines have publicly confirmed that they'll be raising prices to compensate, as Reuters reports. Other carriers, such as Japan Airlines, publish a schedule of fuel surcharges triggered by cost increases.

"I do think that this is ultimately going to lead to higher fares for everyone," Cudahy says. "The only question now is how significant and how long does it last?"

Air travelers stranded by the Iran conflict are greeted in Athens, Greece, after arriving on a charter flight from Dubai on Saturday.

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Crisis parallels earlier global disruptions

The higher fuel prices reflect a genuine struggle to ensure the aviation industry has ample supplies, says Joswick.

"It's not irrational. It's not some trader bidding up prices," he says. Comparing the situation to the COVID-19 pandemic, he adds, "The consumption of toilet paper didn't change. But you notice that all of the supermarkets ran out of toilet paper, right? Everyone wants to be sure that they have coverage of a critical need."

Both Cudahy and Joswick compare the Iran conflict's ripple effects to Russia launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which set off flight disruptions and higher fuel prices. As long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, Joswick says, prices will keep rising.

"If that were to persist, this would be like a 1979 kind of [oil] crisis," he says. "Anything over a month, and you're seeing a substantial long-term price increase until the flows are restored."

The U.S. and other large economies can mitigate those effects by tapping strategic oil reserves — which they opted to do on Wednesday. But Joswick predicts that while such a move can help ensure adequate oil supplies, it might not bring a sharp drop in jet fuel prices. For one thing, he says, the U.S. reserve focuses on holding crude oil, not jet fuel. And he cites logistical challenges, such as California's reliance on jet fuel that it either produces or imports.

Tips for buying a plane ticket right now

If you're ready to take your chances and book a flight, Cudahy has some guidance.

First, don't buy a restricted, basic economy ticket that you can't change later, he says.

Instead, he recommends buying a regular, full-fare economy ticket: "If the price does eventually drop, you can then go back and change it and capture the lower price."

Another tactic, Cudahy says, is to use airline miles.

"You can generally cancel it and get all your miles back later, if the price goes down," he says.

Use services such as Google Flights to comparison shop and set up alerts for price changes. And if you book flights through a third-party site such as Expedia, be sure you understand its cancellation and change policies, in case they differ from the airlines.

Because of the chance for renewed hostilities in and around Iran, Cudahy says he would try to avoid nearby airline hubs for the next couple of months.

But he wouldn't wait to book a ticket.

"In the same way that we're seeing relatively long lines at gas stations with folks trying to get their tanks filled up before the price goes up even more than it already has, I would be thinking the same way when it comes to airfare right now," he says.

While you might drive an extra mile or two to find cheaper gas, airlines and airports don't have that luxury when they buy jet fuel.

"Prices are always set on the margin," Joswick says. "That last airport that needs to buy jet fuel, they will pay whatever it takes to get that. And that price then becomes the standard for the whole industry."
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