The Brief

Four months ago, the Palisades and Eaton fires delivered twin jolts to Los Angeles County’s already fragile housing landscape. The region’s supply of housing fell sharply as entire neighborhoods turned to ash.

And demand surged when thousands of families were forced into a rental housing market with few affordable options.

The result was as predictable as it was disturbing. Rents quickly spiked on home listings, often above the 10% limit established by California’s law against post-disaster price gouging.

Chelsea Kirk, a policy director with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, started tracking these listings in an online spreadsheet that soon went viral, attracting national and global attention from onlookers who were outraged at how L.A. landlords were responding to the tragedy.

“I just got fired up,” Kirk told LAist in the latest episode of our Imperfect Paradise podcast.

The episode traces the growth of the Rent Brigade, a collective of like-minded rent hike investigators who assembled around Kirk with the goal of fighting post-fire price gouging.

You can listen to the full episode here:

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In the days after LA’s early-January wildfires, tenant advocate Chelsea Kirk noticed a trend: rent gouging. Rents were shooting up past their legal limit. In the wake of the fires, as natural disaster collided with LA’s severe housing shortage, we trace how a collective of volunteers organized themselves to bring rent gouging to light in LA County. What did they find? And where do we stand on rent gouged listings and charges, four months later?

How the Rent Brigade took on LA’s landlords

In the days after LA’s early-January wildfires, tenant advocate Chelsea Kirk noticed a trend: rent gouging. Rents were shooting up past their legal limit. In the wake of the fires, as natural disaster collided with LA’s severe housing shortage, we trace how a collective of volunteers organized themselves to bring rent gouging to light in LA County. What did they find? And where do we stand on rent gouged listings and charges, four months later?

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Before January was over, the Rent Brigade released a study that found more than 1,340 Zillow listings in apparent violation of the state’s price gouging law less than two weeks after the fires started. As of this week, the tally had grown to more than 8,000 listings.

Thousands of questionable listings; four criminal cases

Rent Brigade volunteers gather at Bernie's Coffee Shop near LACMA.

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Courtesy of the Rent Brigade

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For months, the group continued to document thousands more listings that appeared to have broken the law. But, so far, the number of criminal cases filed can be counted on one hand.

Prosecutors have filed misdemeanor charges over alleged price gouging in four cases:

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed charges against La Cañada Flintridge real estate agent Mike Kobeissi for allegedly raising rent on a listing by 38%. Kobeissi told LAist he had not broken the law.
  
• Bonta’s office later filed charges against real estate agent Lar Sevan Chouljian for allegedly attempting to rent a Glendale home for more than 50% above the listed rent. Chouljian said in a text message to LAist, “There was absolutely no price gouging involved.”
  
• In a third case, Bonta’s office charged landlord Edward Kushins and real estate agent Willie Baronet-Israel for allegedly increasing rent on a Hermosa Beach home by 36%. Baronet-Israel and Kushins’ attorney both told LAist they did not intend to price gouge.
  
• L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto filed charges against homeowner Noelle Cooke and real estate agent Roger Perry for allegedly illegally raising rent by 38%. Perry’s attorney told LAist that Perry “de-listed the property in less than a day and a half on his own accord once his company advised that the listed rent exceeded the newly enacted mandate… there was no financial harm to anyone.” LAist also reached out to Cooke for comment, but has not heard back.

In a separate case involving a short-term rental operation, prosecutors in Feldstein Soto’s office said they uncovered evidence of post-fire rent hikes of up to 56% in Zillow listings posted by Blueground US, Inc. The city attorney filed civil charges in that case, not criminal.

Some prosecutors have yet to file any charges

About a week after the fires broke out, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman joined LAist’s Airtalk and said his office had received dozens of rent gouging complaints. He said people breaking the law were “engaging in completely disgraceful and shameful conduct,” and justice would be “swift and the penalties will be severe.”

Hochman has yet to file any price gouging charges.

“The district attorney’s office cannot file charges unless law enforcement presents a case to our office for charge evaluation and case filing consideration,” a district attorney spokesperson said in an email to LAist.

“To date, while there are many pending investigations, law enforcement has not presented a case to our office to charge under California’s price gouging law,” the spokesperson said.

All the cases brought forward so far are in early stages. Arraignment dates in two of the cases filed by Bonta’s office are set for later this month. If found guilty, the defendants face up to one year in jail and up to $10,000 in fines.

For those fighting rent gouging, ‘a sense of defeat’

Rent Brigade volunteers at an event in Pasadena on May 4.

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Courtesy of the Rent Brigade

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The Rent Brigade says they’ve now found more than 8,000 listings that appear to have broken the law. Kirk said it’s been disappointing to see charges filed in connection with less than 1% of the listings documented in the spreadsheet she started.

“There was so much outrage publicly and by political actors that I thought maybe people will see justice for once,” Kirk said.

Months later, she acknowledged: “There is a sense of defeat.”

State and local prosecutors say they’ve sent hundreds of warning letters to property owners suspected of price gouging. They say these admonitions have succeeded at getting many landlords, who are sometimes unaware of the law, to lower their rents to within legal limits.

Prosecutors also say they need to see more than a fishy Zillow listing before filing charges. In order to confidently bring forward a criminal case, they want to find renters who were actually harmed. They’ve encouraged people to submit complaints that include screenshots, texts and emails showing landlords and real estate agents engaging in price gouging.

Kirk said she brought one example with a clear victim — including screenshots of text messages between a landlord and prospective tenant — to the  L.A. County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs and to the L.A. city attorney’s office.

She said there’s been no movement on that case. Prosecutors have said they won’t comment on ongoing investigations.

Chelsea Kirk and a Rent Brigade volunteer at a community action night in February.

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Courtesy of the Rent Brigade

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Giving up on L.A.’s rental market

Tenant advocates say they believe some landlords have felt emboldened by the limited enforcement, raising rents above legal maximums with little fear of repercussions.

Meanwhile, some families who lost their homes to the fires became so discouraged by stratospheric rent hikes that they gave up looking at publicly listed properties.

Tina Poppy said she saw lots of price gouging in L.A.’s rental market after her family’s home in Altadena was destroyed. She said hunting for a longer-term living situation was maddening.

“I saw my old house in Silver Lake, and it was $7,000 a month,” Poppy said. “I had rented it up until 2019 for $2,000 a month. When I saw that, I just closed my laptop.”

Instead, she started working her social circle. She went down her list of friends and acquaintances to ask if any homes were available for her, her husband, two children and three dogs.

Eventually Poppy’s family landed in the home of a friend who planned to move to Pennsylvania. That friend is charging them the equivalent of her monthly homeownership costs.

Poppy said since the fires, her family has seen the best and the worst of L.A.

“People trying to profit off of your pain, and then on the flip side, people that are like, ‘Here, you can live in my home and I'll move out and I'll find another place to live,’” Poppy said. “Really, you see both sides of it — the human generosity and then, just human greed.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve an $843 million homelessness spending plan that includes nearly $200 million in reductions to programs and services in the next budget year.

Among those programs is Pathway Home, which helps move people from encampments into temporary housing. The county reduced funding for that program by $92 million, which will shrink it from 20 project sites to seven, officials said.

Supervisors also approved $105 million in reductions to other programs, including large cuts to street outreach teams, homelessness prevention programs and other supportive services.

County officials said they had to reduce spending in order to cover the rising costs of operating shelter beds and the loss of tens of millions in temporary state and federal funding, including some COVID-19 relief dollars.

“With federal neglect and state cuts, we have to do more with less,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath told LAist. “And we will.”

The county’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing has been warning about the looming shortfall since July. County officials solicited input on how to fill an initial $303 million gap.

Since then, the department adjusted the county’s homelessness spending plan, after finding some one-time state grants and cost-saving measures.

The budget year starts July 1.

Some funding restored

Last month, local homeless service providers urged county officials to restore all of the more than $200 million in proposed reductions to programs and services. Some supervisors raised concerns about specific cuts.

Since then, new revenue projections show the county stands to bring in $21 million more through Measure A than originally anticipated.

Measure A is a sales tax ordinance, approved by L.A. County voters in 2024, that funds homeless services and affordable housing initiatives. It is expected to generate about $1 billion annually, but exact revenues fluctuate with consumer spending.

The county’s slightly rosier revenue projections allowed the homeless department to roll back a fraction of the proposed reductions.

“It’s not a windfall and it doesn’t solve every challenge, but it does give us the ability to restore important programs that were on the chopping block,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said.

The board voted to use much of that $21 million to restore funding for two dozen full-time outreach workers and about 100 shelter beds that were previously on the chopping block.

The plan approved Tuesday also calls for $5 million in Measure A revenue to partially restore funding for interim housing in Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale. It restored more than $1 million to operate family solution centers — hubs to connect unhoused families with services — and about $500,000 for a program that helps military veterans access government benefits.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she wishes Pathway Home funding could be maintained. She said it’s been crucial for helping people living in RV encampments in her district, which spans from Koreatown to much of the South Bay.

"These restorations don't expand encampment resolution operations,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “The services with the greatest impact in the Second District remain reduced, and the current plan does not replace what was cut."

County homelessness officials told supervisors the 100 shelter beds they saved will be prioritized for people living in encampments and will help make up for cuts to Pathway Home.

"The reduction to Pathway Home is not a reduced commitment to encampment resolution,” L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing director Sarah Mahin said Tuesday. “It’s a recognition that it was built on one-time funding and we need to expand strategies to include more cost-effective resolution solutions."

New oversight push

The supervisors also voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve a new motion focused on accountability in homeless service contracting. The motion by Horvath and Kathryn Barger directs the homelessness department to work with the county auditor-controller to create strict oversight procedures for contracts, including random site visits, performance monitoring and provisions for termination.

They said the goal is to prevent the mismanagement that has plagued the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and the fraud that has resulted in recent arrests. Last month, federal authorities arrested Alex Soofer, director of a nonprofit called Abundant Blessings, on suspicion of embezzling tens of millions in dollars meant to serve unhoused Angelenos. Soofer pleaded not guilty to the charges this week.

"Public dollars intended to address homelessness have gone unaccounted for under LAHSA," Horvath said. “That is unacceptable and it ends now with the county.”

Last year, the board voted to divert more than $300 million in county homelessness dollars away from LAHSA and administer the funds itself with a new homelessness department.

“As the department launches, every contract, every dollar, and every outcome must withstand scrutiny,” Horvath told LAist in a statement. “We don’t have resources to waste or time to lose in addressing the homelessness crisis.”

Barger described instances of fraud within the homeless services sector as “moral failures” that cannot be tolerated.

“They represent theft from the most vulnerable people in our community,” she said.

She also argued that ethical service providers “should not have their reputations destroyed by the criminal actions of a few bad actors.”

Barger told fellow supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting it’s their responsibility to monitor how county homelessness dollars are being spent — and to defund programs that aren’t generating results.

“Setting the budget is the easy part,” Barger said. “We have to see results. And if we don’t, we have to have a debate at this board: is that the best use of these resources?”

The department must report back to the board in 60 days with their full plan for monitoring contractors and preventing fraud and misuse of public funds.

Auditor-Controller Oscar Valdez told supervisors his office would submit a plan to county homelessness officials Tuesday.

A crew of four moon-bound astronauts will remain on the ground for at least a month after NASA delayed the launch of the Artemis II mission. During critical pre-launch testing Monday, mission managers uncovered a number of issues that prevented the completion of the test.

NASA is now planning a March launch date for the four astronauts — three from the U.S. and one from Canada — on a ten-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth, traveling farther than any humans have ventured into deep space.

Issues leading to that delay began about an hour into Monday's test, known as the wet dress rehearsal. As the team began fueling the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sensors picked up a hydrogen leak. Super-chilled hydrogen is used as the fuel for the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Hydrogen is an efficient propellant for rockets — but its molecules are so tiny and light they can escape even the tightest of seals. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said they had troubleshooted the initial leak, but when they began to pressurize the tank, another leak surfaced.

"And so as we began that pressurization, we did see that the leak within the cavity came up pretty quick," said Blackwell-Thompson.

(L/R) NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator Lori Glaze, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, and manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program, John Honeycutt, hold a news conference on the Artemis II mission at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday.

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Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo

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AFP via Getty Images

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Hydrogen leaks plagued testing of NASA's Artemis I mission in 2022. Blackwell-Thompson said lessons learned from that uncrewed flight were utilized for Artemis II, but there's more investigation is needed.

The wet dress rehearsal uncovered other issues — including a problem with the Orion capsule, which will carry the crew to the moon. While no one was on board Monday, teams practiced preparing the spacecraft for its passengers. A valve that pressurizes the vehicle required additional attention and took more time to close the hatch than anticipated.

Teams also uncovered issues with cameras due to cold weather and audio dropouts across communication channels. "As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems and the public," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post on X, and that NASA will only launch when the agency is ready.

Work now begins to fix the issues. NASA will require another wet dress rehearsal before giving the "GO" to put astronauts on board. "All in all, a very successful day for us on many fronts," said Blackwell-Thompson. "Then, on many others, we got some work we've got to go do."

The earliest launch window for another attempt is March 6. NASA has additional launch opportunities on March 7, 8, 9 and 11.

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were released from quarantine and will remain in Houston, Texas. They'll re-enter quarantine about 14 days ahead of the next launch attempt and make the trip to the Kennedy Space Center six days before liftoff.

Artemis II is testing key systems of the Orion spacecraft, like its maneuverability and life support systems, ahead of the planned Artemis III mission that will take humans to the lunar surface. The Artemis II will mark the first time humans have returned to the moon since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A trial got underway Tuesday in a case alleging that Huntington Beach illegally dilutes the power of Latino voters with its at-large election system.

Cities across Orange County and elsewhere in California have faced similar challenges over the past decade. Most have settled out of court by adopting by-district elections, where voters only vote on a city council representative from their area, rather than requiring candidates to run citywide. A notable exception is Santa Monica — the city has been fighting a challenge to its at-large election system in court for nearly 10 years.

Now, Huntington Beach is following suit.

The case was brought by the nonprofit group Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Victor Valladares, a Huntington Beach resident and Democratic Party activist. It’s being heard by Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig L. Griffin.

The argument against at-large city elections

The plaintiffs allege Latino voters can’t elect a candidate of their choice under the current system, in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. This alleged dilution of Latino voting power, they say, leads to poor representation and negative consequences for the city’s majority-Latino Oak View neighborhood.

“Their needs get ignored,” Kevin Shenkman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said during his opening statement Tuesday. “It is a natural result of the at-large election system.”

Latinos make up about 20% of the population in Huntington Beach. Under a draft map of electoral districts drawn up by demographer David Ely, a witness for the plaintiffs, the district that includes the Oak View neighborhood would be 40% Latino. Plaintiffs argued this would give residents more power to elect a city councilmember who represents their interests.

The city’s defense of at-large elections

In their opening argument, lawyers representing Huntington Beach argued that Latinos in Huntington Beach are spread across the city and politically diverse.

The city’s lawyers also argued that recent elections of Latino city council members, including MMA star Tito Ortiz in 2020 and Gracey Van Der Mark in 2022, prove the city’s current at-large election system doesn’t impede Latino residents’ ability to participate in the local political process.

“The system works, it’s not broken, and the evidence will show that at trial,” said Anthony Taylor, one of the attorneys representing Huntington Beach.

The trial is expected to last into next week.

Go deeper

• Why were AI-equipped police cameras installed in this majority Latino Huntington Beach neighborhood?
• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Voting by district gives Latino candidates a boost in Orange County
• District elections mean big governing changes for many California cities