The Brief

With young families increasingly shut out of buying houses in Los Angeles, local lawmakers are now debating ways to spur the creation of more family-sized apartments. Without those units, they see L.A.’s overcrowded housing getting worse and more families leaving the state.

But affordable housing developers in L.A. are largely focused on creating smaller rental units — understandable given the state’s shrinking average household size and the push to get more unhoused Angelenos into permanent homes.

That has left little consensus on how to get larger units built. In the meantime, some millennial parents are coming up with their own creative solutions.

“It's sort of a ridiculous situation that we've put young couples into where we say, if you want to have enough room to actually have kids, you have to leave,” said Nolan Gray, a UCLA urban planning doctoral student and research director of California YIMBY.

Gray not only studies the housing crisis — he and his partner are living it, he said. They’ve considered moving to her hometown, Guatemala City, before having kids. An affordable condo or townhome would probably keep them in L.A., he said. But 78% of residential land in the greater L.A. area is zoned to disallow these dense forms of housing.

“You're not getting the supply of starter homes that can accommodate new and young families,” Gray said. “So folks have to leave.”

Few L.A. apartments have enough space for kids

Millennial parents who find renting is their only option are left with few kid-friendly choices. L.A.’s most recent housing planning document estimates that just 14% of the city’s rental homes have three bedrooms or more, compared with 70% of owner-occupied homes.

New affordable housing developments in L.A. are even less likely to contain family-sized units.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has succeeded at getting developers to propose thousands of new income-restricted apartments through her signature housing streamlining program, known as ED1. But few of those apartments will be large enough to accommodate kids.

A new analysis by real estate data firm ATC Research finds that about 92% of apartments in the ED1 pipeline are studios or one-bedrooms. Two-bedrooms make up about 6.6% and three-bedrooms are less than 2%.

Can L.A. lure developers into building larger apartments? 

Some elected officials say L.A. needs to correct this imbalance by offering incentives to developers who include more three-bedroom apartments in their projects.

Paul Krekorian, the current L.A. city council president, recently put forward a motion proposing a plan to let developers exempt third bedrooms from square footage calculations and add an extra story to their buildings — as long as they agree to keep large apartments affordable to moderate-income families for 99 years.

“I think that that will help move the needle in changing the market incentives more towards family housing,” Krekorian told LAist. “It's becoming increasingly difficult for people to enter the housing market to purchase. Which means they're going to be renters for a longer period of time. Which means we have to figure out how to fix this.”

A third of L.A. households are made up of four people or more. And the vast majority of the city’s households are renters. Without enough family-sized apartments for all of them, Los Angeles suffers from overcrowding at higher rates than any other major city.

According to U.S. Census figures, 17% of the city’s renter households are overcrowded, meaning they have more people than rooms. Families squeezing into small apartments were unable to isolate from one another, worsening the spread of COVID-19 early in the pandemic.

Krekorian’s motion has not yet been scheduled for a vote.

Or should the city mandate larger units? 

Some community advocates look at L.A.’s overcrowding and conclude that city officials shouldn’t give developers perks to build larger apartments — they should require it.

“If a new development does not meet the needs of Boyle Heights, then it is not welcomed in Boyle Heights,” said Pamela Agustin-Anguiano, director of the nonprofit Eastside LEADS.

City planners are currently crafting an update to the Boyle Heights Community Plan, a document that will guide future development in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood. A recent analysis found that 30% of Boyle Heights homes are overcrowded.

A woman walks in front of a tiled mural depicting rows of homes in Boyle Heights.

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Eastside LEADS supports increasing the Community Plan’s existing requirement for affordable housing projects to include at least two bedrooms in 30% of their units. Councilmember Kevin de León — the area’s representative who is in a November runoff to retain his seat — has pushed to raise the recommended threshold to 60%.

But Agustin-Anguiano said building larger apartments isn’t enough. She said they must also be affordable to families earning 15% of the area’s median income, or $14,750 per year. Previous income cutoffs for affordable housing went no lower than 30% of the area’s median income.

“That is not the income of Boyle Heights,” Agustin-Anguiano said. “A majority of the residents that we organize with earn less than $20,000 a year.”

Why experts say mandates could backfire

Some housing researchers worry that mandates can scare away developers focused on low-income housing.

“Having that as a mandate may result in no affordable housing being built,” said Muhammad Alameldin, a policy associate with UC Berkeley's Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

Developers in California already struggle to finance affordable housing projects that maximize the number of rentable units by focusing on studios and one-bedrooms, Alameldin said.

“The cost to build that extra bedroom per square foot might make it so that the rents being returned are not enough,” Alameldin said. “Two-bedrooms and three-bedrooms are in this category where the current system — financially, policy wise — doesn’t incentivize this practice.”

An analysis performed for the city by consulting firm AECOM concluded that increasing the two-bedroom Boyle Heights mandate from 30% to 40% would “further limit project feasibility and decrease the overall potential number of housing units … undermining citywide housing goals.”

Alameldin said lawmakers could instead explore other reforms to boost family-sized apartments. For example, he said, fire safety codes that currently require most apartment buildings to include two staircases could instead require one, the standard in many places outside the U.S. The layouts needed to fit two staircases typically take space away from additional bedrooms.

“By having one single staircase, typically in the middle,” Alameldin said, “you could have a whole floor be a unit. Or half a floor be a unit. And it fits within those smaller spaces, so you can build more two- and three-bedroom units in urban areas.”

Families find their own creative solutions 

While lawmakers and policy experts debate the finer points of how to build more family-sized housing, some L.A. families are creating their own solutions.

Thomas Irwin and his wife, both 31, were renting a backyard accessory dwelling unit in East L.A. when they had their now 4-year-old son. Buying a home was way out of their budget. But staying in their 600-square-foot rental couldn’t accommodate their growing family.

“We knew it wouldn't be long-term,” Irwin said. “We were planning to have a second kid. And we just weren't going to have the square footage in the house to be able to have a whole family.”

That’s when Irwin started thinking about a different path to homeownership: splitting the cost of a duplex. He and his wife had a friend of nearly 10 years who was willing to team up. In 2022, shortly before their second child was born, Irwin and his wife co-purchased a duplex in City Terrace with that friend for about $800,000.

Thomas Irwin stands outside the City Terrace duplex he co-owns with a friend who lives upstairs, while Irwin and his family reside on the ground floor.

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Irwin said in order to stay in L.A., more young parents are going to have to think outside the box and sacrifice on their ideal family home.

“People who bought 20 or 30 years ago, they are doing OK — their homes have appreciated a lot in price,” Irwin said. “For us who are younger, under the age of 40, who didn't have that opportunity, there's just no way those types of homes are going to go down in price to a degree that they're going to be affordable.”

At about $2,300 per month, the monthly payment on their two-bedroom downstairs unit is pretty similar to what they would be paying to rent a similarly sized apartment, Irwin said. But they get the benefits of homeownership, including a backyard with views of the downtown L.A. skyline — and the chance to build equity over time.

With their son and daughter sharing a bedroom, “There are days where it feels tight,” Irwin said. “On the other hand, when we think about the alternatives, it's probably a lot better than most.”

Why some say bring back public housing

For other families, the complexities involved in co-buying a property may sound less appealing than simply leaving California for cheaper housing elsewhere. Some policymakers hope to convince them to stay through assistance with buying a house all their own.

The California Dream For All program offers down payment assistance to first-time home buyers in exchange for a cut of the home’s appreciating value after owners sell later on. That said, this program’s funding disproportionately bypassed prospective buyers in L.A. when it was rolled out last year.

Despite efforts to give first-time buyers a leg up, USC urban planning professor Dowell Myers said the current outlook is so bleak for young families that L.A. lawmakers should consider reviving a familiar but neglected policy — building more public housing.

“I'm not a promoter of public housing,” Myers said. “But I gotta tell you, the current crisis is so bad and we need action so quickly that it would not be out of the question.”

L.A. stopped building public housing in the 1950s, but some state and local lawmakers are now pushing for more direct government involvement in housing production.

Alex Lee, who represents parts of the San Francisco Bay Area in the California Assembly, has introduced a bill that would create a government-run social housing authority to build and lease homes to families who would pay no more than 30% of their income on housing. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a similar bill spearheaded by Lee last year.

Locally, L.A. city council members Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez have expressed support for social housing models similar to those in cities like Vienna, Austria, where more than half of residents live in housing owned or subsidized by the government.

Whatever solution lawmakers pursue, Myers said, older homeowners in L.A. should feel more responsibility for supporting new home building in their neighborhoods for today’s young families.

“Stay in your house,” Myers said. “But please vote for more housing.”

Listen

How to have a voice on housing affordability

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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