The Brief

When new parents say they feel like buying a house in Los Angeles is becoming increasingly impossible, they’re not exaggerating. Federal data shows they’re right.

No American city shuts millennials with kids out of homeownership more than L.A.

Millennial parents in Los Angeles own less than 10% of family-sized homes — those with at least three bedrooms. Instead, large homes in L.A. are two-and-a-half times more likely to be owned by empty nesters in the baby boom generation.

That’s according to a recent report from the real estate company Redfin. Researchers analyzed U.S. Census data and found that 23.7% of L.A. metro area homes with three bedrooms or more are owned by people aged 58 to 76 with no children at home. In contrast, parents aged 26 to 41 own just 9.4% of those L.A. homes.

“The gap is so pronounced in Los Angeles because the supply shortage is so pronounced,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist. “Because of the scarcity, it's like if a baby boomer is occupying a home, that’s one less home that a millennial with kids could occupy.”

This divide exists nationwide. But the Redfin study reveals that young parents in L.A. are faring the worst. They’re even less likely to own a family-sized home than their peers in cities like San Francisco and New York, where millennials with kids own 10.9% and 11.8% of large homes respectively.

‘Inertia’ keeps L.A. homeowners in place

These statistics raise a high-stakes question for L.A.’s young parents: Why aren’t older homeowners downsizing? When their kids grow up and leave home, why aren’t baby boomers in L.A. selling their houses to families who actually need the space?

Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California urban planning and demography professor, says L.A. gives homeowners plenty of reasons to stay put. Their home values continue to grow rapidly. And California’s Prop. 13, which voters passed in 1978, keeps property taxes low for long-term homeowners.

Myers said, “Your value is appreciating the longer you procrastinate. You're protected from taxes. Then, on top of that, you're protected from having to buy a new house with a new mortgage at a higher [interest] rate. Those are all killer incentives.”

Californians are also living longer. Many are working longer too. Unlike their counterparts in colder states, they enjoy weather that gives them little reason to seek better climates in their golden years. Florida sunshine does not beckon Southern Californians.

“The number one reason why people don't move is just inertia,” Myers said.

Where older homeowners have gained, younger Angelenos have lost. Skyrocketing home values mean few millennials can afford to buy a house today. Some are getting financial help from their parents, but not all Angelenos have relatives who can assist with down payments.

Thirty years ago, a median-priced L.A. County home cost about five to six times the median household’s annual income. Today, those homes cost more than 10 times the median income.

Baby boomers to the rescue

Some older homeowners are realizing that unless they start to share all that accumulated wealth, their adult children could be forced to leave L.A.

In 2020, Rose Liebermann saw her daughter Natasha Gershon, 38, struggling to house herself and her two kids after a divorce. Gershon had been caring for her autistic son as a stay-at-home mom. Without proof of steady income, landlords were reluctant to accept her. She ended up needing to pay an entire year’s worth of rent up front to secure a three-bedroom home.

“Her needing to basically deplete any financial cushion she had to get a rental — to just get a place for her to have a roof over her head — it was excruciating as a parent to witness that,” Liebermann said. “It became clear that we had to come up with a solution.”

That solution came in the form of an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in the backyard of a home Liebermann purchased in the West Hills neighborhood of L.A.’s San Fernando Valley in 2021. She now lives in that recently constructed ADU while Gershon raises her kids in the main home.

“I'm very, very lucky because my mom stepped in and really gave up her entire life to allow us to have a permanent residence,” Gershon said. “Without her, I really don't know what my housing situation with the kids would look like.”

Natasha Gershon and her mom Rose Liebermann sit in the living room of the West Hills home where Gershon lives with her children.

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The move was made possible by Liebermann selling her previous home in Granada Hills. She and her then-husband purchased it in 1987 for about $160,000. She raised Gershon there, and said she wouldn’t have left if her daughter hadn’t needed help. It sold for over $900,000.

“It's mind-boggling,” Liebermann said of her previous home’s skyrocketing value. “And it's a tragedy for all the young people in L.A.”

Gershon recognizes that not everyone is lucky enough to have a home-owning parent in L.A. willing to pursue an ADU.

A 2023 report from the United Way of Greater Los Angeles found that L.A. County’s Black and Latino households had lower homeownership rates (33.5% and 39.1% respectively) than white and Asian households (53.9% and 54%). The report also estimated that white families own homes valued 1.65 times greater on average than those owned by Black families.

“What does it cost to get into the L.A. home market? It's sacrifice,” Gershon said. “But you have to have the resources and the ability to make those sacrifices. And that's definitely a privilege that a lot of people don't have.”

Are ADUs the new starter home?

State lawmakers passed bills in 2016 making it much easier to build ADUs across California. Homeowners in L.A. immediately responded by building thousands of new backyard homes, more than in other part of the state. In 2017, ADU permits grew almost 30-fold in the city of L.A. By 2018, ADUs accounted for half of all the city’s new housing.

Not all of those ADUs are helping millennial parents find a place to raise their kids. Some homeowners are renting out their ADUs for extra income. Others list them on sites like Airbnb. In some cases, they’re being built as work-from-home offices or exercise spaces.

But Jon Grishpul — co-owner of Maxable, a company that guides homeowners through the process of building an ADU — says these units can help millennials in other ways, even if they don’t have parents who already own a home in L.A.

For example, young families could purchase a home and rely on rental income from a backyard unit to help cover their mortgage. Or two millennial families could co-buy a property with the intention of constructing an ADU for one of the couples.

“The housing market was not made for [millennials] here in L.A.,” Grishpul said. “Something like an ADU solves many of those problems, because it's significantly more affordable than buying a new home.”

Natasha Gershon stands in the backyard of her West Hills home, which features an ADU for her mom and a playground for her kids.

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Multi-generational living is nothing new, and it remains normal for many cultures in L.A. But over time, homeownership became wrapped up in the California Dream, leaving many millennials feeling embarrassed about living with their parents into adulthood.

Gershon said when she was younger, she never pictured her mom living in her backyard. But now, she sees a big silver lining to her unexpected circumstances. There’s always someone nearby to help with child care. And her kids get to spend more time with their grandma.

“That's the biggest upside,” Gershon said. “When you’re living next to family, you have the benefits of family. I wouldn't change that aspect of it for anything.”

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How to have a voice on housing affordability

Nearly every pop music holiday song written in the past 80 years owes at least some of its DNA to one Christmas tune in particular: "White Christmas," written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby, which he first recorded in 1942.

It's reportedly still one of the best-selling songs of all time in any genre, though chart data from decades ago is unreliable. Even given that murkiness, the Guinness Book of World Records named it as the best-selling physical single of all time in 2012.

"White Christmas" wrote the formula for modern secular holiday songs — despite its complex and troubling history.

Songwriter Irving Berlin wasn't destined to be a Yuletide magic maker. He was born Israel Baline in Siberia to an Orthodox Jewish family; his father was a cantor turned kosher butcher. But Berlin embraced assimilation — he married an Irish Catholic woman and had Christmas trees in his house. Even so, for Berlin, Christmas was a holiday shadowed by personal tragedy.

"On Christmas Day, 1928, his only son died. He always told members of his family that he disliked Christmas for this reason, that he could never, never get past the sadness that he experienced on Christmas Day," said author and New York Times contributing writer Jody Rosen, who wrote a book called White Christmas: The Story of an American Song.

The infant Irving Berlin Jr. died suddenly, less than a month after he was born. And at its heart, "White Christmas" is a deeply melancholic song.

Most Christmas carols and pop songs were unabashedly joyful. Berlin's song represented a turn, Rosen said: "It was strange to have a song that was all about this nose-pressed-up-to-the-glass feeling."

It also set a certain standard for Christmas songs that are about nostalgia, about some lost Christmas past. (Think, for example, of another enduring hit that came shortly after Berlin's smash: "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," which Judy Garland sang in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis, and which was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.)

But there's other stuff going on too. Irving Berlin was a hit machine as a Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songwriter. As a New Yorker and an immigrant himself, he was intimately familiar with a particular genre of songs, Rosen said: "That tradition of so-called 'home songs,' you know, songs that pine for a lost place, a lost ideal. These songs are so huge because we have an immigrant population, lots of people who've done a lot of moving. So there were songs about Irish people longing for Ireland and Italians longing for the old country there."

He said Berlin took that genre and flipped it into a Christmas song.

That's especially true of a largely forgotten, tongue-in-cheek introductory verse Berlin originally wrote for "White Christmas." The narrator is a New Yorker stuck in California (as Berlin frequently was, churning out songs for Hollywood): "The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway ... but it's December the 24th, and I am longing to be up north!" the protagonist sings.

Rosen said most people listening to "White Christmas" are missing additional subtext. He said that much of that nostalgic vibe in "White Christmas" — all that longing for a pristine, innocent Christmas of yore — is a reference to explicitly racist minstrel songs like Stephen Foster's "Old Kentucky Home," sung by Al Jolson and others — music that was still a staple in Berlin's day.

Foster was inspired by the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and the song, hailed by Frederick Douglass and Paul Robeson, was meant to be empathetic to the abolitionist cause — the narrator is longing to be reunited with his wife and children, but their family has been torn apart by slaveholders. It later became a popular tune at minstrel shows, with its saddest lines omitted and its meaning twisted.

In "Old Kentucky Home," Rosen said, "You have, grotesquely, the freed Black man longing for life back below the Mason-Dixon line, back on the plantation. Here, instead of a Black man in the north longing for the sultry south, we have a well-to-do white person longing for the wintry north."

But the racial dynamics of "White Christmas" aren't just a matter of subtle references to older songs. Irving Berlin had great commercial expectations for "White Christmas." He built a whole movie around it: 1942's Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

Holiday Inn is stuffed with racist stereotypes and an entire blackface number. (That scene is usually excised from TV broadcasts today, but the whole film is available to stream online.) As Crosby and his love interest, played by Marjorie Reynolds, prepare to perform a song about Abraham Lincoln, Crosby spreads greasepaint on her face, as the orchestra plays "White Christmas" underneath. Not only is "White Christmas" the movie's biggest hit, it's also the film's romantic theme.

Blackface on stage and on screen was very much a recent memory for 1940s audiences, said scholar Brynn Shiovitz. She's the author of the book Behind the Screen: Tap Dance, Race, and Invisibility During Hollywood's Golden Age.

In Holiday Inn, Shiovitz said, "We get a pairing of nostalgia for Christmas, but also nostalgia for blackface, because so many of the people that were watching Holiday Inn when it premiered in the theaters grew up watching vaudeville, grew up watching their parents maybe even perform in blackface."

Audiences loved the song "White Christmas" and its spotlight in Holiday Inn — and American GIs stationed abroad during World War II clamored for the Armed Forces Radio Service to play the song. "White Christmas" was so sturdily successful that Hollywood made another movie centering the song in 1954 — also called White Christmas — this time starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

Since then, legions of musicians have recorded their own versions of "White Christmas" — including The Drifters, Elvis Presley, Iggy Pop and Sabrina Carpenter. And of course, each generation adds new layers of meaning to the song as it is stitched into our holiday season each year, said Shiovitz.

"With all of these other memories that people have of Christmas, whether it's being piped in while you're shopping, or it's playing on the radio in the car as you're driving to visit family — it's easy to kind of separate it from its history. People develop new memories with it. People have their own ideas of what the song represents, so it's just incredibly complex," Shiovitz said.

Today's audiences and artists don't necessarily hear or even know about the song's racist history, Shiovitz said — but that doesn't mean it's not there.
This story was edited for radio and digital by Jennifer Vanasco.
Copyright 2025 NPR

From Los Angeles to Sacramento, teachers unions, many fueled by the “We Can’t Wait” campaign organized by the California Teachers Association and a slew of contract renewals, are rallying for higher pay, better benefits, smaller class sizes and other classroom improvements. Some are threatening to strike.

In the West Contra Costa Unified School District, the call for improved pay and benefits, and classroom improvements, resulted in a six-day strike by the district’s 1,450 teachers that ended earlier this month. The teachers won an 8% pay raise over two years and will no longer have to pay healthcare premiums.

The strike is emboldening other teachers unions that are at an impasse with their districts over contract negotiations.

“We are leading a historic wave of resistance to demand safe staffing, affordable healthcare and student-centered budgets, and local chapters are organizing to strike if needed,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association. “Richmond showed us exactly what is possible: When we stand up for what schools educators and students deserve, we can transform public education.”

There are at least 14 school districts around the state that are at an impasse with teachers unions over contract negotiations. They are: Los Angeles Unified, San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified, Berkeley Unified, Madera Unified, Evergreen School District, Little Lake City, Upper Lake Unified, Duarte Unified, Newport-Mesa Unified, Oak Grove Union, Apple Valley Unified, Twin Rivers Unified and Natomas Unified.

CTA campaign ratchets up the pressure

Most of these districts’ unions are part of the CTA’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign, which has spent the past few years aligning contracts to end on the same date in order to add pressure on districts in areas where multiple unions would be negotiating and could potentially strike at once.

The campaign has also shared demands for smaller class sizes and caseloads for special education educators, and more counselors, nurses and mental health professionals in schools, as well as competitive wages and benefits to retain and recruit teachers.

“It is our belief that we’ve been siloed,” said Brittoni Ward, president of Twin Rivers United Educators in Sacramento County. “Unified districts all over the state have been dragging themselves year after year through contract bargaining that gets us nowhere. We don’t make any progress, and we all essentially are fighting for the same things. So why not unify on our common goals and make change happen.”

School districts are largely pushing back on union demands, saying that with declining enrollment and rising costs, there isn’t enough money to pay teachers more. Teachers disagree, pointing to expensive outside contracts, high administrative salaries and ample reserves in some districts.

Now, teachers in several districts, including San Francisco Unified, Natomas Unified, Twin Rivers Unified, Madera Unified and Upper Lake Unified, have indicated — by vote or informal survey — that a majority are ready to strike.

Will L.A. teachers strike again?

United Teachers Los Angeles plans a strike vote in January and has already begun polling teachers to determine if there is interest. A strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District would affect 516,000 students.

There is precedent. UTLA took to the picket lines twice in recent years — in 2019, when they went on strike for six days for higher wages, and in 2023, when they walked out in support of school staff in another union.

“I will say that, like in previous years, we have gone on strike, and we’re certainly ready to go on strike,” said Julie Van Winkle, UTLA vice president. “And we feel like we need to be ready in case the district keeps ignoring our demands and making counterproposals that are inadequate. But, we’re also very open to a settlement.”

Los Angeles Unified teachers and the district are negotiating a three-year contract that would have started at the beginning of this school year. Teachers want a complete overhaul of their salary schedule, beginning with an $80,000 starting salary for new teachers, instead of the current $65,000, Van Winkle said.

They also want more arts and physical education teachers, lower class sizes in 11th and 12th grades, free child care centers in closed schools, additional resources for special education, and more psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors and pupil services staff.

Los Angeles Unified district leaders have increased their offers to UTLA multiple times in ongoing negotiations, most recently offering a 4.5% raise and 1% bonus, according to a district spokesperson. The district estimates that UTLA’s demands throughout the 2027-28 school year total more than $4 billion above the district’s current expenditures.

“We deeply value the educators and professionals who serve our students,” the spokesperson said. “We also have a responsibility to maintain long-term financial health so that every generation of Los Angeles students — today and in the future — receives the high-quality, equitable education they deserve.”

District wants to cut benefits

Teachers in the Little Lake City School District in southeastern L.A. County have yet to call a strike vote, but Maria Pilios, president of their teachers union, is preparing them for the possibility.

The 205-member union isn’t asking for a wage increase; instead, they want smaller class sizes and fully staffed special education classrooms. But the district is negotiating to reduce the amount it pays for its healthcare premiums. It currently pays 100%.

The district intends to start taking the contributions from teachers’ paychecks in January while negotiations resume, Pilios said.

Teachers and staff, many of whom grew up in the community, feel betrayed, Pilios said. She said teachers have gone without raises in the past to ensure they could retain full health benefits.

“This has changed the relationship between the staff and the district,” Pilios said.

The district’s decision means a $12,000 annual pay cut for teacher Mabel Manzur. The eighth-grade math teacher was diagnosed with cancer for the second time recently and was in the middle of treatments when she learned about the insurance change.

Manzur had to make a difficult decision: keep the doctors and treatment she had or move to a cheaper policy and start over with another doctor and possibly new treatments. She worried that her cancer history would make it difficult for her to be accepted into a new plan.

Still negotiating last year’s contract

Madera Unified teachers are tired of waiting for a contract for the 2024-25 school year, so more than 90% have indicated they are ready to strike if an agreement can’t be reached, according to David Holder, president of the Madera Unified Teachers Association.

The union wants a retroactive 8% raise on base salary, but the district is offering 4%.

According to the district, teachers have received a total compensation increase of nearly 38% over the last decade.

“A new teacher coming to Madera, on average, is making about $9,000 less in their first year than the surrounding districts, Holder said. “And so, Madera Unified is almost like a training district where we have young educators — a lot of probationary interns coming in here, finishing their credentials, getting some experience, and then they leave.”

Holder said there are still 30 to 40 open teaching positions in the district being filled by substitute teachers.

Madera Unified had 284 teachers resign from the district since the 2021-22 school year, a 93.5% retention rate, according to a statement from the district.

The union won’t bring forth proposals for this year or next until last year’s contract is completed, Holder said. The union and district started state mediation over the contract last week.

Sacramento could have two districts on strike

Two Sacramento County teachers unions are at an impasse with their districts, meaning potential strikes could affect 60,000 of the county’s students. Both districts are part of the “We Can’t Wait” campaign.

Teachers unions for both Twin Rivers Unified and Natomas Unified are seeking increased pay, a reduction in healthcare costs, smaller class sizes and more special education staff, among other things.

Twin Rivers teachers and district administrators have a long way to go before they reach an agreement. The teachers want a 12% increase in salary over two years. The district has offered 2.5% the first year and no guarantee for the next year, said Ward of Twin Rivers United Educators.

The district’s proposal would mean teachers at the top of the salary schedule would earn $152,000 annually, according to a letter from the district sent to staff in November. Beginning teachers would start at almost $77,000.

Twin Rivers Unified leaders said that the district’s salaries are among the highest in the state and that class sizes remain low.

The teachers union is also asking that the district pay more of the insurance premiums. Twin Rivers currently pays the full premium for a basic plan, but asks teachers to pay for higher-cost health plans, according to the letter.

A family of two on the Kaiser family plan pays about $1,600 a month for insurance, and others with more family members pay more, Ward said.

The district and union began their negotiations in February and are now working with a state mediator. The parties might end up having the contract negotiations move to a state fact-finding panel because of the district’s reluctance to bargain, Ward said.

Twin Rivers United Educators' executive board has already authorized a strike vote, and 80% of its membership signed a petition indicating they are ready to strike if necessary. A strike could happen as soon as March, Ward said.

The union has been at odds with the school district before, getting as far as the fact-finding stage, but it has never gone on strike.

“This time we are mobilized, and we’re ready,” Ward said. “Our membership is ready. And they see what’s going on in Richmond. They’re seeing things happening around the state, and they’re like, if that’s what it takes, we’re ready. We’re here for it.”

EdSource data journalist Daniel Willis contributed to this report.

President Trump disparaged Hollywood director Rob Reiner, who died along with his wife over the weekend in what officials are investigating as a homicide. Their 32-year-old son, Nick, has been arrested.

Reiner, 78, was a prominent supporter of the Democratic Party and a vocal Trump critic.
"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood," Trump said in a post on Truth Social Monday morning. "Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS."

Trump went on to say that Reiner had a "raging obsession" with him, "with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before."

His post concluded with, "May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"

Tributes for Reiner have been pouring in, including from former President Barack Obama, who said that "beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action."

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request at around 3:40 p.m. local time Sunday and discovered the bodies inside the couple's home.

Reiner's son Nick had a history of addiction, which inspired the 2016 movie Being Charlie, which Nick Reiner worked on with his dad.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has had a public falling out with Trump, criticized the president's comments.

Referencing Nick Reiner's history in a post on X, Greene called the incident "a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies."

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