The Brief

California lawmakers are preparing for a historic surge in federal funding for affordable housing construction, a tsunami of subsidy that advocates say could as much as double the number of low-rent units produced by the state over the next decade.

It comes from an unlikely source.

Buried deep among the cuts to social services in President Donald Trump’s signature spending package, the One Big Beautiful Bill, is an increase in support for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit that affordable housing advocates have sought for years. Those tax credits are the most important federal funding available for affordable housing, and they’re used in low-income projects throughout California.

Exactly how much difference this boost will make in the Golden State depends on many factors, including tariffs, labor costs, state funding, and more. But experts agree the change could help California build thousands more affordable homes each year.

“It’s a very big deal,” said Matt Schwartz, president and CEO of the affordable housing nonprofit California Housing Partnership. “These provisions are a huge shot in the arm for an affordable housing field that has been suffering under exhausted state resources.”

It's no wonder those provisions haven’t gotten much public attention. The federal law, which Trump signed on July 4, extends and expands tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the richest and adds trillions to the federal debt while imposing historic spending cuts to Medicaid, other patches of the social safety net and clean energy programs over the next decade. For California’s Democratic leadership and its liberal-leaning electorate, there isn’t much to love and plenty to hate.

“From a California perspective, there have certainly been a lot of concerns with that bill,” said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which advocates for affordable housing development.

But the spending package gives affordable housing boosters something to celebrate, even if many in blue California are reluctant to do so publicly.

Because the expansion to the tax credit program, part of a preexisting bill, was folded into the broader package, “the federal government has given us a green light to double production,” said Pearl.

Last week, the state committee that oversees these credits approved changes to its application process that incentivize developers to take advantage of the new federal policy.

What exactly do tax credits have to do with affordable housing?

Rather than fund public housing construction directly like it used to, the federal government rerouted most of its affordable housing funds through the tax code beginning in the 1980s. These tax credits are issued by states to affordable developers, who then sell them on to deep-pocketed banks, insurance companies and other financial behemoths, trading tax cuts for ownership shares in affordable housing projects.

It’s a financial Rube Goldberg machine, and it’s everywhere. If there’s an apartment project designated for unhoused people or low-income tenants in your neighborhood, chances are tax credits helped get it off the ground.

The credits come in two basic flavors. Both are getting a major boost under the new federal law.

One credit lets its owners write roughly 9% of the cost of construction on a project off their tax bill each year for 10 years. Those 9% credits are doled out by the federal government to the states, who then turn around and award them to developers. There are always more qualifying projects than there are credits to fund them, especially in California. The Trump-backed spending package boosts the total number of these credits by 12% each year indefinitely.

The other type of credit, the 4% credit, doesn’t come with a cap, which means it is technically available to any developer who qualifies. How a developer qualifies is the rub. Historically, an affordable project needs to cover half of its costs with particular tax-exempt bonds — which, like the 9% credits, are in short supply — to make full use of the 4% credits. The federal bill reduces that requirement, so that a project only needs to cover a quarter of its cost with the bonds.

“The bottom line is the federal government is making additional tax credits and bond capacity available,” Pearl said, “which is one of the biggest things you need to produce affordable housing nationwide, and especially in California.”

The state receives more requests for bond financing each year than it can grant, said Marina Wiant, executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee. Her committee last week voted to change its application to line up with the new federal requirements — reducing the percentage of a new project that must be financed via bonds, and allowing projects already approved to reduce their bond financing. That lower threshold means there will be more bond money to go around, and more projects will get funded, she said.

“There are a lot of projects still in the queue that are waiting for bond financing,” Wiant said. “So this immediate change will have a pretty immediate impact this fall.”

How did this affordable housing boost get into Trump’s spending plan in the first place?

Schwartz’s group and others have been fighting for this tax credit increase for years, garnering bipartisan support along the way, he said. Republican lawmakers tend to view tax credits as a “good kind of subsidy,” he said. Because they are used by corporations, they are more palatable than food stamps and other direct assistance that are viewed as handouts.

Just how much could these new tax credits help? That depends on who you ask.

The changes in policy could fund the construction of an extra 1.22 million affordable rental units nationwide over the next 10 years, according to an estimate by the accounting firm Novogradac. That works out to roughly 20,000 extra units per year in California.

But many things could get in the way. If the cost of building goes up because of tariffs, increased labor costs or interest rate hikes, developers might decide not to use the tax credits. Trump’s spending package also keeps corporate tax rates low, which could reduce the value of the housing tax credits.

And, because housing is so expensive to build in California, most projects can’t rely solely on tax credits — they need other local and state funding, too. But that funding is in short supply. Extra money given out during the COVID-19 pandemic has dried up. A statewide $20 billion affordable housing bond was set to go before voters last year, but it was pulled off the ballot amid fears it would fail.

As a result, Schwartz estimates California will see closer to 10,000 new low-income homes built per year as a result of these extra tax credits, not 20,000.

“I think it’s going to take us a couple of years to ramp up,” he said.

Another potential obstacle: The cuts Trump’s spending package imposes on other areas — including the cuts to Medicaid that are expected to result in 3.4 million Californians losing coverage over the next 10 years — could exacerbate poverty for many people and undermine the benefits of the tax credits.

“It’s a tremendous irony,” Schwartz said, “that (the tax credit increase) was in this incredibly harmful ‘big ugly bill,’ as we call it.”

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

Several local groups in SoCal have planned demonstrations today over the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minnesota on Saturday morning.

Here’s a list of some of those actions today:

• Echo Park
  
  • 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the corner of Park Avenue & Echo Park Lake Avenue
• Irvine
  
  • 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Corner of Culver Drive & Barranca Parkway
• Ontario
  
  • Starts at 11:30 a.m at Euclid Avenue & Holt Boulevard
• Cypress Park
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at The Home Depot on 2055 N. Figueroa St.
• Rancho Cucamonga
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at Haven Avenue & Foothill Boulevard
• Long Beach
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. at the intersection of Pine Avenue and 3rd Street
• Downtown Los Angeles
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. outside of the Federal Building, at 300 North Los Angeles Street

Some 31,000 nurses, pharmacists and healthcare workers employed by Kaiser Permanente will begin an open-ended strike tomorrow in California and Hawaii, with 28,000 of those workers in California alone.

The health system and the union representing Kaiser workers — United Nurses Associations of California & the Union of Health Care Professionals — have been negotiating for a new labor contract since the end of September. Core bargaining issues include wages for nurses, understaffing and retirement benefits.

Picketing is slated to begin at 12 local Kaiser medical facilities in the following communities: Anaheim, Baldwin Park, Downey, Fontana, Irvine, Los Angeles, Ontario, Riverside, Harbor City, Panorama City, West Los Angeles and Woodland Hills.

Kaiser said in a statement that their hospitals and medical offices will stay open during the strikes, but some pharmacies will close.

Billions of dollars are pouring into data centers to power streaming services, cloud storage and the biggest energy monster of all, artificial intelligence.

Dozens of data centers already dot the region, from El Segundo to downtown L.A. But in Monterey Park, residents concerned about the environmental and health impacts of data centers are drawing a line.

A developer has proposed building a nearly 250,000-square-foot data center in a local business park. Last Wednesday night, hundreds of people packed City Hall to say they didn’t want it — or for that matter, any such facility.

“No data centers in Monterey Park!” the crowd chanted.

Residents’ immediate goal was to ensure the City Council approved a 45-day moratorium on data center development, an item added to the agenda after weeks of mounting public pressure.

What they got, in a meeting that stretched past midnight, was the council’s commitment to draft an outright ban during the 45-day period for a later vote. “That is more than I ever could have hoped for from this meeting,” resident Steven J. Kung said. “I am shocked and a little bit overjoyed.”

Residents organize

Hours earlier at a rally he helped lead, Kung had been far more cautious.

He expressed little faith in city officials, especially after learning that the project had been moving through the city’s planning process for about two years without his knowledge.

Kung said he only found out about the proposal from the Australian-based developer when his husband showed him a social media post by SGV Progressive Action last month — despite their living about 1,300 feet from the proposed site.

“I was incensed that no one had told me, especially since I lived so close,” he said.

Steven J. Kung is part of the activist and resident-led No Data Center Monterey Park.

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Kung joined a grassroots group of residents and activists called No Data Center Monterey Park, which has organized teach-ins, canvassing drives and yard sign campaigns in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Developer's promises

The developer, HMC StratCap, has said its proposed data center on 1977 Saturn Street would generate more than $5 million a year in tax revenue and more than 200 jobs during construction. It’s also promised to build a public park.

But residents said that’s not worth the tradeoff of the massive energy demand of data centers, pollution from diesel backup generators and noise from cooling equipment.

The developer counters that the generators will be strictly regulated, a “closed-loop cooling technology” will use water efficiently and noise will be “similar to a typical commercial area,” according to a handout shared with residents at Wednesday’s meeting.

Monterey Park City Hall was packed to capacity as people waited to testify in opposition to a proposed data center.

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The developer has also agreed to an environmental impact report.

Kung and others say an EIR is the least the developer should do. They say they’re also troubled by the decision to locate a data center in a city of roughly 60,000 people, more than half of them immigrants.

“They see a small city full of Asians and Latinos, and they don’t think we’ll fight back,” Kung said. “But they’re wrong.”

“People, not machines”

So many people showed up that the lobby was converted into overflow space.

Among them was Alex Leon, a mathematician who attended with his wife, a phlebotomist, and their two young daughters.

“This has kind of been our dream, living in Monterey Park,” Leon said. “I just don’t want it to turn into an industrial farm for big data.”

Alex Leon came to speak out against the proposed data center with his wife Janette and their two daughters.

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Like dozens of others, Leon wasn’t there just to watch, but wanted council members to listen. When his turn came to give comment, he met the eyes of the council members.

“Monterey Park should be built for people, not machines,” he said. “For families, not server racks. For community life, not industrial infrastructure. This is our home, and it’s worth defending.”

“Open and honest conversations”

A handful of speakers supported the project, including a representative for the developer. Laziza Lambert pivoted at the podium to face the crowd.

“We just really want to be good, long-term partners with the community and hope to have open and honest conversations,” she said, as some in the audience started to jeer.

Residents voiced concerns that once one data center is approved, the floodgates would open, noting that the developer owns another parcel on the same street.

But much of the anger that night was aimed at city leaders. Speaker after speaker said they had been kept in the dark.

Tran and

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Katherine Torres, a real estate agent and president of the Monterey Park Women’s Club, said the organization is apolitical, but she would be sure to tell the members.

“I swear, I’m going to spread the word about the data center because they need to know,” she said as the room erupted in applause.

She looked at the council members with whom she was on a first-name basis.

“I have dinner with you guys,” she said. “I go to your events. Why didn’t I know?”

A surprise shift

By the fifth hour, nearly 80 residents had spoken. Then it was the council’s turn to give comments before their vote on the 45-day moratorium.

Two members said they supported going beyond a temporary pause and considering a permanent ban. Jose Sanchez’s opposition to data centers was already known to those closely following the issue. But Elizabeth Yang’s was not.

Yang told the room that her mother and stepfather live within a mile of the proposed site.

The council meeting was preceded by a rally against data centers.

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“I’m not going to vote for something that’s going to hurt my own family,” she said.

She added she was disappointed the developer had not done more with outreach and information.

“Because of all of you feeding us good information, I’m siding with no data center,” Yang said.

The remaining residents started clapping and rose to their feet.

What’s ahead

The council unanimously approved the 45-day moratorium during which city staff will draft an ordinance that could ban data centers outright — a proposal that will return to the council for a vote.

Outside council chambers, Steven J. Kung praised his fellow residents for speaking out and pushing the council to think bigger.

“I’m so proud of Monterey Park and our residents,” he said. “The more I’m here, the more I fall in love with the people.”

He’d celebrate that night. But then it’d be back to work, making sure the ban stands and Monterey Park keeps data centers out for good.

The developer would not be sitting back either. Lambert, the representative for the developer, said they were moving forward with plans to host a town hall with residents in the next couple of weeks.

When Christian Bryson needs quick weather information, like for this weekend's massive snowstorm, he doesn't wait for the 5 p.m. local newscast. Instead, he turns to Ryan Hall.

"It's as if he's sitting in the living room with you tracking the storm," said Bryson, a 21-year-old meteorology student at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Hall, who goes by "Ryan Hall, Y'all" on his social media platforms, calls himself a "digital meteorologist" and "The Internet's Weather Man." His YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers. Hall did not respond to a request to comment about his platform.
Hall is part of an increasingly popular genre of social media weather accounts that share information leading up to extreme weather, and then livestream for their viewers, sometimes for hours at a time. Overall, Hall offers solid information and is a good communicator with a few technical omissions, experts told NPR. But the weather genre online spans a wide range of sources — from amateurs with no science background to accredited meteorologists.
Experts say that while weather influencers can help fill an information gap, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X tend to prioritize engagement and likes over accuracy. That means extreme weather updates on social media are often sensationalized or lack context, says Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University.
"They're not going to the National Weather Service web page, they're just looking at what's in their feed," Lackmann said. "Once you start clicking on viral extreme weather stuff, then the algorithm is going to just feed you more and more."

Rise in social media use for weather updates

Lackmann, who is also head of NC State's department of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, said in 2024 during Hurricane Helene, a weather disaster that swamped western North Carolina, killing 108 people, he started to see more and more people getting their weather information from social media
He says that, in the face of extreme weather events, people need credible and authoritative sources such as the NWS.
But with social media, sometimes "you get some kid who wants to get a lot of shares and likes and be an influencer on social media," he said.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist for the weather app MyRadar, has personal experience with both worlds. He worked for years at the Washington Post as a meteorologist, and now posts weather forecasts on the internet.
Cappucci said his success on Facebook, Instagram, and X shows how rapidly people are shifting from getting their weather information from traditional news outlets versus social media.
"Within two months, I was able to reach 60 million-plus people on social media, just on Facebook," Cappucci said
Bryson, the 21-year-old, said Hall and other credible weather influencers use language that non-meteorologists understand and they can share information at any time of the day.
"The fact that it's available at your fingertips," Bryson said. "I could go to Ryan Hall at 4 p.m. I'm eating my dinner and get the information that I need."

Digital meteorology can help fill information gaps 

There are positives to having meteorologists and credible weather sources on social media, Lackmann said. He's seen local weather influencers in North Carolina help disperse information from official outlets.

"There's a real need for that kind of localization and personalization of weather information," Lackmann said.
Aaron Scott, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Tennessee at Martin, said digital meteorology, a relatively new certification program that encompasses all forms of digital media, has an important place in the new media landscape.
"People do trust them, and they have built rapport," Scott said. "Sometimes that can make the difference if someone's going to actually go take shelter from a tornado or not."
Scott's department at UT Martin is now offering a digital meteorology class dedicated to teaching students how to engage with an online audience.
Cappucci also sees the positives with his own content. Social media allows for more flexibility than on-air television, he said. He pushes back on climate misinformation or weather conspiracy theorists.

A minefield of misinformation on social media

But all three experts interviewed by NPR see the downsides in the way social media algorithms push the most sensationalized — not always the most accurate — information to the forefront.
"The brightest colors, the most outlandish information will always get more following than actual truthful information," Cappucci said.
Cappucci said the ability to make increasing amounts of money on social media can also lead to inaccurate weather information.
"As TV viewership wanes and as salaries come down, it's easier to make up that money by posting crazy stuff online," Cappucci said.
Meteorologists use a number of different numerical models as they predict the possible outcomes of an extreme weather event. Because of this, people can "cherry-pick" one model and sensationalize a forecast, Lackmann said.
"You cry wolf too often, and people won't take proper precautions when there really is a high probability of an extreme event," Lackmann said.

The effort to preserve credible weather reports

Meteorologists and other weather professionals are grappling with how to navigate the new media landscape and prioritize accurate information, the experts said.
NWS has increased its social media presence, Lackmann said. Experts at the American Meteorological Society have discussed a social media certification that extends beyond the digital media certification currently available.

Scott said how the field will grapple with social media, and now AI-generated media, is "a huge question mark."
"That's the million-dollar question," Scott said. "How do we make it? Do we have some type of badging system where you're certified, you're not? Then, who decides that?"
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