The Brief

Jasmine Delgado flips through an old family photo album at the dining room table of her childhood home.

One snapshot from the 1960s shows Delgado’s dad posing near the Venice Beach Boardwalk, not far from where she grew up along the border of Culver City and L.A. Another photo captures farm workers on strike in the 1930s. Her grandfather picked celery back when much of the state’s crop was grown in Venice.

Now, Delgado worries she and her infant son Theo may have to sever family roots going back more than a century.

“It breaks my heart,” said Delgado, 31. “I'm a Westside girl, through and through. I was born and raised here. My dad was born and raised here... I just don't know if Theo is going to be able to be raised here.”

Across Los Angeles, millennial parents are being driven to the same conclusion. The region’s severe lack of affordable family-sized housing has families moving out of state or deciding to delay having kids, leading to declining school enrollment and broken family ties.

Family-sized apartments in L.A. cost $4,000 to rent

The math is startling. In the mid-1990s, close to 4 in 10 local households could afford a median-priced home in L.A. County, according to the California Association of Realtors.

With the current median home price reaching $817,100, only about 11% of local households can afford to buy today.

It’s not just homeownership that's getting further out of reach. Even renting an apartment with enough space for kids is increasingly inaccessible to millennial parents.

The city of L.A.’s most recent housing planning document estimates that a three-bedroom unit rents for about $3,995 per month, making family-sized apartments unaffordable to households earning less than $159,800 per year.

L.A. County’s median household income is about $83,000.

The region’s shortage of family-sized housing affordable to young parents has spurred lawmakers to consider new policies aimed at building cheaper apartments with more bedrooms.

On another front, some older Angelenos — who are far more likely than millennial parents to own large houses in L.A. — are beginning to construct additional housing units on their properties as a way to make space for young families.

But it could take years for such efforts to ease pent-up demand. Until then, millennials with kids will have to scramble to find space for their families.

Housing kids ‘seems impossible in L.A.’

After graduating from UCLA, Delgado rented housing with a friend. Later on, she moved into a small one-bedroom Brentwood apartment with her partner. She worked on Erin Darling’s unsuccessful 2022 campaign to represent L.A. city council district 11.

After becoming pregnant, Delgado said it was clear that she couldn’t afford an apartment large enough for children. So she decided to return to her parents’ home to care for her baby full-time.

“I have a lot of help from my family, which is part of why I moved back in,” Delgado said. Eventually, she wants to go back to work and find a place she and her partner can call their own.

“This isn't a permanent thing,” she said. “I don't want to be a stay-at-home mom forever. And I'm scared that the price of both housing and childcare is just going up.”

Her partner has floated the idea of relocating to Wyoming, where they could afford to buy a house.

Delgado admits the idea makes financial sense. But she’s not sure she’s ready for such a big move.

“I want a house for us, or even just a space of our own — it doesn't have to be a house,” Delgado said. “But it seems impossible in Los Angeles. That reminds me of how communities start to fracture, when people have to move far away from the places where they have roots, families, friends, jobs, memories.”

Jasmine Delgado plays with a family dog in her backyard, which abuts the 405 Freeway. Caltrans seized some of her family’s property for a mid-2000s widening project.

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David Wagner

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LAist

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The elusive hunt for an affordable 3 BDRM

Despite the cost and lack of space, many L.A. families are making apartment life work.

Brianna Mercado, 35, recently moved into a two-bedroom Eagle Rock apartment with her husband, 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. They previously rented a house in Monrovia.

“The biggest difference is just feeling like there's not so much outdoor space for the kids,” Mercado said. There are also times when different family members are on different wavelengths.

“When I'm tired, but the kids are bouncy, it can be difficult,” she said. “Or if my husband is wanting to cook up a storm, but I'm wanting to chill.”

Mercado is glad the apartment is close to her husband’s job as a humanities teacher in a private school her kids now attend (with a tuition break). And she’s happy they found an affordable place after an eye-opening search.

“I was very naive in what I thought would be available to us,” Mercado said. “There just weren't really three-bedroom homes that were within our price range.”

Brianna Mercado sits next to moving boxes full of art she plans to hang on the walls of her family’s new Eagle Rock apartment.

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David Wagner

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LAist

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For now, Mercado said her family has no plans to buy a home in Los Angeles. The prices, she said, are “outrageous.”

Buying a home would mean “leaving L.A. or getting really creative and figuring out how to do it with other people,” Mercado said, keeping her mind open to co-buying property with friends. “Those seem like the only two options.”

L.A. school enrollment is plummeting 

A 2023 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found that half (51%) of Californians aged 18 to 34 had considered moving to a cheaper area or leaving the state entirely due to housing costs. Younger Californians were more likely to view moving as a potential solution to unaffordable housing than respondents over 55.

Millennials aren’t just daydreaming about leaving L.A. Many are doing it. The county’s population fell by more than 90,000 between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022, driven in large part by families flocking to regions with more affordable housing.

Similar trends show up in public school enrollment. The number of students in K-12 schools has fallen by 15% across greater L.A. over the last decade, the steepest decline in all of California. The California Department of Finance projects L.A. enrollment will fall another 19% by 2032.

Julien Lafortune, a research fellow specializing in education at the Public Policy Institute of California, said economists have linked soaring home prices with declining birth rates among couples who rent. So it’s no surprise to see fewer kids showing up in L.A. schools.

“We take time to work longer and build up income to then save for and buy a house,” Lafortune said. “But if you start having children later, statistically you have fewer children.”

The Inglewood Unified School District announced plans last week to permanently close five schools. The district’s enrollment has fallen from 18,000 in 2002 to less than 7,000 today.

Young families also need home offices, in-law units

For families choosing to stay, squeezing into small apartments is common. About 270,000 households in the city of L.A. meet the federal government’s definition of overcrowding. At 17%, L.A. has one of the nation's highest rental overcrowding rates.

With room for kids at a premium, some L.A. couples are opting to delay having children. In an economy transformed by remote work, many young parents also need home office space. Some have to care for their aging parents too.

Don Fisco takes a call while his wife Deveny Fisco Rohrer works out of their two-bedroom apartment’s dining room.

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Zaydee Sanchez

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LAist

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Don Fisco, 36, works from home as a film and TV editor. His job requires a dedicated editing suite that currently takes up one of his apartment’s two bedrooms. His wife often does her marketing job out of their apartment as well.

“We're now at the point where we are soon to outgrow it, because we're hoping to expand and start a family,” Fisco said. He also wants his widowed father to join them from New Jersey after he retires from a career in the U.S. Post Office that began during the Carter Administration.

“We don't really want him to be there by himself,” Fisco said. “Not only are we trying to find a place that will be able to accommodate a work-from-home situation for not one but two people, have a space for a kid, but also for my retired father… Even with two incomes, I just can't see how you're able to do it.”

Fisco said public perception of millennials seems stuck on worn-out tropes about how slow they are to hit adult milestones like buying homes and having kids.

He said that’s not by choice.

“Millennials are in their 30s and 40s — they're not goofing off and partying,” Fisco said. “We want the ability to be lame and settle down. And we just have structural problems that are preventing us from doing that.”

Listen

How to have a voice on housing affordability

Thousands of immigrants who are lawfully in California are set to lose their food assistance benefits, known as CalFresh, starting this month.

The new restrictions stem from H.R. 1 — also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” — which Congress passed last year.

The changes remove eligibility for certain noncitizens, including people with refugee status and victims of trafficking. It also applies to immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan who have special immigrant visas for helping the U.S. government overseas.

 ”These are folks … many of whom have large families that we have a commitment to as a country because we welcomed them and invited them here to find a place of refuge,” said Cambria Tortorelli, president of the International Institute of Los Angeles, a refugee resettlement agency. “They’re authorized to work and they’ve been brought here by the U.S. government.”

The federal spending bill, H.R. 1, made sweeping cuts to social safety net programs, including food assistance and Medicaid. In signing the bill, President Donald Trump said the changes were delivering on his campaign promises of “America first.”

Officials estimate 23,000 people in Los Angeles County will be affected. The state estimates about 72,000 immigrants with lawful presence will be affected across California.

CalFresh is the state’s version of the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Undocumented immigrants have not been eligible to receive CalFresh benefits.

State officials say noncitizens who are currently receiving benefits will continue to get them until it’s time to renew their benefits — adding that people might be able to receive benefits again if their legal status changes to lawful permanent residents.

Who the changes apply to:

• Asylees
• Refugees
• Parolees (unless they are Cuban and Haitian entrants)
• Individuals with deportation or removal withheld
• Conditional entrants
• Victims of trafficking
• Battered noncitizens
• Iraqi or Afghan with special immigrant visas (SIV) who are not lawful permanent residents (LPR)
• Certain Afghan Nationals granted parole between July 31, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2023
• Certain Ukrainian Nationals granted parole between Feb. 24, 2022, and Sep. 30, 2024

Nearly every student in the California State University system has used artificial intelligence tools, but most don’t trust the results, are worried about how AI will affect their future job security and want more say in systemwide AI policy.

That’s according to results of a 2025 survey of more than 80,000 students enrolled at CSU’s 22 campuses, plus faculty and staff — the largest and most comprehensive study of how higher education students and instructors perceive artificial intelligence.

Nationwide, university faculty struggle to reconcile the learning benefits of AI — hailed as a “transformative tool” for providing tutoring and personalized support to students — and the risks that students will depend on AI agents to do their thinking for them and, very possibly, get the wrong information. Educators want a say in how and which AI tools are used. Students across the CSU system want to be included in those discussions.

Some professors teach students how to use AI and encourage students to use it, while others forbid its use in the classroom, said Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, representing more than 470,000 students.

“Both of these things are allowed to coexist right now without a policy,” she said.

Karroum said that faculty practices are too varied and that what students need are consistent and transparent rules developed in collaboration with students. “There are going to be students who are graduating with AI literacy and some that graduate without AI literacy.”

In February 2025, the CSU system announced an initiative to adopt AI technologies and an agreement with OpenAI to make ChatGPT available throughout the system. The system-wide survey released Wednesday confirms that ChatGPT is the most used AI tool across CSUs. The system will also work with Adobe, Google, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft and NVIDIA.

Campus leaders say the survey and accompanying dashboard provide much needed data on how the system continues to integrate AI into instruction and assessment.

“We need to have data to make data-informed decisions instead of just going by anecdote,” said Elisa Sobo, a professor of anthropology at San Diego State who was involved in interpreting the survey’s findings. “We have data that show high use, but we also have high levels of concern, very valid concern, to help people be responsible when they use it.”

Faculty at San Diego State designed the survey, which received more than 94,000 responses from students, faculty and staff. Among all responding CSU students, 95% reported using an AI tool; 84% said they used ChatGPT and 82% worry that AI will negatively impact their future job security. Others worry that they won’t be competitive if they don’t understand AI well enough.

“Even though I don’t want to use it, I HAVE TO!” wrote a computer science major. “Because if I don’t, then I’ll be left behind, and that is the last thing someone would want in this stupid job market.”

Faculty are divided about the impact of AI on teaching and research. Just over 55% reported a positive benefit, while 52% said AI has had a negative impact so far.

San Diego State conducted its first campuswide survey in 2023 in response to complaints from students about inconsistent rules about AI use in courses, said James Frazee, vice president for information technology at the campus.

“Students are facing this patchwork of expectations even within the same course taught by different instructors,” Frazee said. In one introductory course, the professor might encourage students to use AI, but another professor teaching the same course might forbid it, he said. “It was a hot mess.”

In that 2023 survey, one student made this request: “Please just tell us what to do and be clear about it.”

Following that survey, the San Diego State Academic Senate approved guidelines for the use of generative AI in instruction and assessments. In 2025, the Senate made it mandatory that faculty include language about AI use in course syllabi.

“It doesn’t say what your disposition has to be, whether it’s pro or con,” Frazee said. “It just says you have to be clear about your expectations. Without the 2023 survey data, that never would have happened.”

According to the 2025 systemwide survey, only 68% of teaching faculty include language about AI use in their syllabi.

Sobo and other faculty who helped develop the 2025 survey hope other CSU campuses will find the data helpful in informing policies about AI use. The dashboard allows users to search for specific campus and discipline data and view student responses by demographic group.

The 2025 survey shows that first-generation students are more interested in formal AI training and that Black, Hispanic and Latino students are more interested than white students. At San Diego State, students are required to earn a micro-credential in AI use during their first year — another change that was made after the 2023 survey.

Students in this year’s survey said they want training that will be relevant to their careers. “I want to learn AI tools that are actually used in my industry, not just generic chatbots,” a mechanical engineering student responded. “Show me what engineers are actually doing with AI on the job.”

The California Faculty Association, which represents about 29,000 educators in the CSU system, said in a February statement that faculty should be included in future systemwide decisions about AI, including whether the contract with OpenAI should be renewed in July.

“CFA members continue to advocate for ethical and enforceable safeguards governing the use of artificial intelligence,” the CFA said in the statement, asking for “protections for using or refusing to use the technology, professional development resources to adapt pedagogy to incorporate the technology, and further protections for faculty intellectual property.”

Many Southern California cities and institutions are dropping big, grabby news today. Before you go "what the what" — remember, it's the first day of April.

Here's a roundup of some of the April Fools' news dump items.

Irvine, the 'pickleball-only' city

Irvine announced that it'll be converting all tennis courts into pickleball courts by 2027. That's one notch for Team Pickleball in the ongoing turf war between tennis lovers and pickleball players over the fight for court space to engage in their beloved sport.

"Starting today, April 1, all tennis courts are being converted to pickleball courts as part of a citywide effort to make Irvine a pickleball-only City by 2027," the post stated. "We don’t just think this is a good idea … we dink it’s a great one."

Catch that? They "dink" it's a great idea.

All hail Queen Latifah in Long Beach

Over in Long Beach, Mayor Rex Richardson announced the city's reigning royalty, the Queen Mary, will be renamed after another queen.

"After careful consideration, I am proud to announce that the Queen Mary will officially be renamed the RMS Queen Latifah," he said. "Long Beach is stepping into a new era as a major music destination — with a new amphitheater, a deep cultural legacy, and a future built on sound. It’s only right that our most iconic Queen reflects that energy."

In real-real news, LBC native and everyone's favorite Olympics commenter Snoop Dogg is headlining the grand opening show of the Long Beach Amphitheater in June. That's the new waterfront venue near the RMS Queen Latifah.

Prolific author gets his own library branch

Suspense writer James Patterson has more than 200 novels to his name, selling more than 450 million copies. If anyone deserves his own namesake branch, it would be Patterson, no?

The Los Angeles Public Library certainly dinks so, announcing today the James Patterson Canoga Park branch, "with wall to wall Patterson books and programming centered around this prolific author."

Eau de corpse flower

The opening of the corpse flower has become an annual event at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. The event brings legions hoping to get a whiff of the famed flower's "pungent aroma."

The San Marino institution announced that it's bottling the scent, as part of its new "The Huntington's Stank Collection."

"A musky gym sock note opens this unique fragrance, with a sweet, rotten-egg base to ground it. Smells like you – but smellier," the post explained.

Adopt something you can just leave at home, always

Pasadena Humane got in on the fun with a special event — today only — where you can adopt a rock.

"Adoption ROCKS! And today only, you can adopt a friend you won't take for granite," the message said.