The Brief

By law, the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is supposed to be reserved for residents who can’t afford to live anywhere else. For decades, the building was a haven in the city’s sky-high housing market, where artists, musicians and people down on their luck could rent rooms for about $500 a month. At the end of the day, longtime tenants would hang out at Al’s Bar, a legendary punk and alternative rock venue on the ground floor where bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers played long before they sold out stadiums.

But amid the largest homelessness crisis in the nation, the American’s owner has turned the building into a boutique hotel where tourists can book rooms for as much as $209 a night.

And the city has done nothing to stop him.

Long before Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared a housing emergency last year, city officials recognized that affordable housing was vanishing and sought to address it by making it difficult for developers to scoop up the residential hotels whose single-room dwellings were the only places many people could afford. Residential hotels consist of small, bare-bones rooms, some with shared bathrooms and most with no kitchens, in aging downtown buildings and roadside motels. In 2008, the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance to place strict limits on the conversion of more than 300 such buildings, totaling nearly 19,000 rooms (about 15% of the city’s lowest-cost housing units today).

But seven years later, the American’s new owner, Mark Verge, called the residents to a meeting. He said he planned to remodel the crumbling building and, according to tenants, offered to pay them to move. For months before the meeting, rumors had swirled around the American, said Jomar Giner, a barista who lived there until late 2014. The main topic on everyone’s mind, she said, was: “They’re going to ask us to move, but where are we going to live?”

Many of the American’s residents said they took Verge up on his offer, unaware that his plan to eventually turn the American into a tourist hotel was supposed to be illegal under the residential hotel law. The conversion disrupted a tight-knit community that had lived at the hotel for years — including at least one person who said he ended up sleeping in his car.

Under the law, Verge was required to compensate the city for the loss of affordable housing by either building replacement units or paying into a fund for housing construction. In Verge’s case, that could have cost more than $10 million. But like many landlords, Verge did neither of those things, and the city Housing Department didn’t compel him to, even though the law provides for $250-per-day fines and jail time for violators.

Scouring city records and online advertisements, Capital & Main and ProPublica identified 21 residential hotels, totaling more than 800 dwelling units, that were supposed to be preserved as housing but that have recently been on offer to tourists.

“That is illegal by statute and problematic for several reasons,” because residential hotels are supposed to be for the city’s lowest-income people, said Deepika Sharma, a housing law professor at the University of Southern California. “These are the folks struggling the most.”

It’s a staggering loss considering the severity of L.A.’s affordable housing shortage and what it would cost to replace 800 dwellings: more than $475 million at the current average cost of nearly $600,000 for the construction of a single affordable unit.

Some hotels have done little to hide their boutique transformations, advertising “expertly crafted” cocktails in a lobby bar and “a whimsical home away from home” for $270 a night. The hotels list rooms on their websites, on travel platforms like Expedia and Booking.com and on outdoor signs.

The American says on its website that the hotel in L.A.’s Arts District provides “affordable options for guests who are looking to make the most of their visit to the city of angels without blowing their entire vacation budget.”

Yet none of the 21 hotels, including the American, have received clearances from the city that would indicate they’ve replaced the low-cost housing they’ve taken off the market, Housing Department records show. Nor have the owners taken the other option of paying the fee to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. And none have been fined or prosecuted for failing to comply.

L.A. Housing Department director Ann Sewill referred questions to her staff. “We need to enforce it better,” said Greg Good, a senior policy adviser at the agency. “We’re working 24/7 to get there, and we’ve got to get better.”

A man pushes his cart filled with aluminum cans past the American Hotel in April. He said he has lived in L.A.’s Arts District for some 40 years and currently stays in a small room inside a gas station.

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Barbara Davidson

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Verge — who founded Southern California’s go-to apartment listing service, Westside Rentals, before selling it to CoStar Group, the parent company of Apartments.com — insisted he was unaware of the residential hotel law and of the American’s inclusion on the city’s residential hotel inventory.

“I don’t know about this magical list,” Verge said, though records show the city informed his lawyer that the American was residential after he bought the hotel in 2013.

Verge said he has been paying the city’s hotel tax for years and noted that he has openly advertised the American as a hotel.

“Do you know how many banners I’ve put on that thing?” he said. “I definitely don’t think I’m violating any law.”

The story of how Verge was able to convert the American into a tourist hotel underlines the city’s failure to preserve affordable housing — and how easily landlords have avoided the law.

One of the most pro-tenant ordinances

Today, more than 1 in 10 unhoused people in the U.S. — some 75,000 people — live in Los Angeles County. Far beyond downtown’s Skid Row neighborhood, tents and tarps are jammed together under bridges alongside overflowing shopping carts, broken-down bicycles and blankets. Men and women wrap themselves in ragged blankets under the overhangs of grocery stores and strip malls. They spread bedrolls in parks and next to the stars of celebrities on Hollywood Boulevard.

A roadside encampment in L.A. in December 2022. Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency over the city’s homelessness crisis on her first full day in office.

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Frederic J. Brown

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The human misery on display across the city made homelessness the central issue in the 2022 mayoral race and drove Bass to proclaim a housing emergency on her first day in office.

But in reality, the emergency has been coming for a long time. Nearly two decades ago, L.A. officials foresaw that rapid gentrification would eat away at residents’ ability to live in the city. Residential hotels were rapidly being converted to condos.

So, in 2008, the City Council voted to preserve the hotels with a law. L.A.’s then-housing director Mercedes Márquez — who now leads the mayor’s effort to combat homelessness — called it at the time, “without question, one of the most pro-tenant ordinances to come before the City Council in its entire history.”

City officials drew up a list of 336 hotels, using the state’s legal definition of a residential hotel: a building of six or more units that are the primary residences of their guests. Some were traditional single-room occupancy buildings with shared bathrooms. Others were motels with various claims to fame. One was the hotel where singer Janis Joplin was found dead; another served as the site of Julia Roberts’ apartment in the final scene of “Pretty Woman.”

By the time of the ordinance, the once-grand downtown hotels that served travelers in the early 20th century and the roadside motels that catered to mid-century motorists had fallen out of fashion with tourists. City officials determined they were being used as living spaces for local residents, not tourist accommodations.

The new law strictly limited what residential hotel owners could do with their properties. But Márquez and the city attorney’s office assured councilmembers it would stand up in court: A nearly identical San Francisco law had been upheld by California’s Supreme Court in 2002, and the U.S. Supreme Court had reviewed the case, affirming the state’s power to decide such issues. Márquez signaled that enforcement would be stringent.

City councilmember Bill Rosendahl, who strongly supported the ordinance, asked Márquez somewhat tongue-in-cheek questions about a prime beachfront property in his district that had been designated as a residential hotel.

“My God, I could tear that down and build high-end condos and move in the rich. Does this stop me from doing that?” Rosendahl asked.

“Pretty much,” Márquez replied.

The law “is designed to make it difficult,” although not impossible, for owners to convert their buildings into condos or tourist hotels, Márquez told the City Council. Owners would first have to apply to the Housing Department for approval. They would then have to either replace all the residential housing units or pay a fee, set at the acquisition cost of nearby property plus the cost of constructing 80% of the replacement dwellings.

Márquez referred an interview request to the mayor’s press office, which did not make her available. And she did not respond to emailed questions.

“I would think the owners would find it quite onerous,” Gary Painter, an economist who specializes in housing at USC, said in a recent interview. “Anything that makes it harder for them to fully exercise their options on their real estate, they’re going to be upset about.”

Many hotel owners are indeed unhappy with the residential hotel designations. Ray Patel, who heads the North East Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association, said the law was an unfair attempt to shift the burden of L.A.’s housing problems onto hotel owners.

“The city was trying to avoid the elephant in the room: how difficult it is to build housing,” he said. “There’s too much red tape.”

But in adopting the law with no opposition, the City Council decided that limiting hotel owners’ property rights was in the public interest because the loss of residential hotel rooms had become a housing emergency that affected elderly, disabled and low-income people “who are least able to cope with displacement in the Los Angeles housing market.” The council predicted that “unregulated conversion or demolition of residential hotels would lead to an unacceptable and socially harmful increase in homelessness.”

The ordinance allowed owners to appeal their designations by submitting tax records, housekeeping reports and guest registration records to prove their buildings had operated as traveler hotels. Patel, who owns the Welcome Inn on old Route 66 — Colorado Boulevard in the Eagle Rock neighborhood — said he submitted reams of paperwork, got his motel off the list and helped others to do the same. About 100 properties were removed, though others have since been added. The city’s most recent list contains more than 300 hotels.

Some hotel owners have tried to challenge the ordinance in court, arguing that the city’s designation of the motels as residential amounts to an unconstitutional government taking of private property. But last year, a federal judge dismissed one claim, noting that the ordinance falls within the city’s authority to promote residents’ health and welfare. And in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected another hotel’s claim and upheld the ordinance as a “rational” attempt to preserve low-income housing.

Barbara Schultz, director of housing justice at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said the law is well-settled. Her 2002 lawsuit against the city’s redevelopment agency resulted in a settlement that preserved downtown residential hotels and sparked the city’s interest in an ordinance.

“The city is squandering a great opportunity to have more housing,” Schultz said. Without tight enforcement, she said, “people on the street who could be in housing are not.”

By the time Verge bought the American, the Housing Department had determined it to be a residential hotel in 2008 and again in 2011. City records show Verge’s attorney inquired about the American’s status, and in a 2013 letter, the department confirmed it was subject to the residential hotel law, providing him a copy of the ordinance.

“I don’t even recall anything like that,” Verge said in an interview, asserting that he bought the American because he intended to run it as a tourist hotel.

How Verge turned the American into a tourist hotel

Verge said in an interview that he wanted to buy the American in 2013 because of its rich history and his own memories of hanging out with friends at Al’s Bar.

“We were kids from Santa Monica and liked to go there,” he said. It was, he added, a “different world.”

Al’s Bar, located on the American’s ground floor, rose to fame in the city’s arts and music scene in the 1980s and 1990s as it attracted up-and-coming bands like Nirvana, Hole and Sonic Youth. Some tenants thought of Al’s as their living room where they played pool and drank beer. But it also attracted celebrities. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown and singer Linda Ronstadt once dropped in at Al’s, where graffiti covered the walls and a neon sign near the bar warned, “TIP OR DIE.”

Patrons, including some American Hotel tenants, hang out at Al’s Bar in the late 1990s. The bar closed in 2001.

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Courtesy Sally Mander Howard

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But above all, the American provided cheap housing for people who didn’t have other options. The American, which was originally called the Canadian, was built in 1905 as the one of the only Los Angeles hotels where African Americans were welcome. And ever since, it had been a refuge for people on the margins of society. It was a classic residential hotel that one former tenant dubbed “a flophouse for artists,” offering basic single rooms and shared bathrooms.

At the American, former residents said they needed no application or credit check. A month’s rent would buy a month’s shelter, no questions asked.

When Verge took over, the American was in bad shape. In 2012, a housing inspector had warned the building department that the hotel was in danger of collapsing.

Verge denied offering buyouts to move and said the residents requested relocation payments from him. “I’m not a cash for keys guy,” he said. But seven former residents interviewed by Capital & Main and ProPublica said they had received a buyout offer and knew of others who had as well. A printed notice provided by a former resident says, “the owner of the building would like to offer relocation assistance to anyone already considering a move.” The former residents said Verge also promised that if they were willing to endure the noise and dust of a remodel, he would let them stay. And some did.

Verge said the American had been partially operating as a tourist hotel when he bought it. But five tenants said that wasn’t the case. “They were all residents,” Giner wrote in an email. A photo published in the Los Angeles Times in 2013 shows Verge perched atop a pay phone outside the hotel. Just above him is a sign that reads, “Apartments for Rent,” with the name of his company, Westside Rentals.

Verge had started other hotels, restaurants and bars and seemed to bet that the American’s mystique would lure guests willing to lug suitcases up stairs and share bathrooms for a chance to drink in the hotel’s bohemian past. Graffitied walls, an Al’s sign and a giant mural of L.A. artist Ed Ruscha adorn the building’s façade, though most of the American’s artist residents and the noise and chaos of the hotel’s heyday are long gone.

A guest leaves the American Hotel in April.

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Barbara Davidson

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For Verge, who once owned racehorses and was briefly the CEO of Santa Anita Park, it was a bet that paid off.

Yet Verge never applied to the Housing Department for permission to convert his new purchase, according to department records. And as he remade the American into a tourist hotel, Verge suffered no legal repercussions for failing to build replacement housing or pay the in-lieu housing fee to the city. Either option would have been costly: In addition to site acquisition, the cost of building affordable housing averaged about $450,000 per unit between 2014 and 2016, according to the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.

Even when the American remodel began, it slipped undetected through a key enforcement mechanism in the residential hotel law: The Housing Department must approve building permit applications at residential hotels to ensure the owners aren’t converting rooms into tourist accommodations.

Five times between 2014 and 2018, the American applied for building permits. Verge repaired a crack in an exterior wall and put a new roof on the building. He remodeled bathrooms and repaired drywall and stucco. But only one permit was ever reviewed for adherence to the residential hotel law, according to building department records.

In 2016, a housing inspector found 32 rooms had been remodeled and a laundry area had been added, noting “permit required.” Records show the inspector didn’t inquire about whether the rooms were redone for short-term guests and never followed up. Verge wasn’t cited for violations of the residential hotel law.

The Housing Department’s code enforcement director Robert Galardi told Capital & Main and ProPublica that the hotel was inspected last November, resulting in “minimal code violations with compliance obtained in a timely manner.” The inspection made no mention of the hotel’s tourist offerings, which the hotel advertises on a sandwich board sign just outside the front door.

Told of the tourist conversion, Galardi said he’d “conduct further investigation.”

Failure to enforce

The Housing Department has plenty of mechanisms for enforcing the law, yet the city has used hardly any of them — even in the face of what appear to be violations.

The TikTok account of the Hometel Suites in Koreatown features videos of guest rooms and the reception desk as K-pop songs play in the background. Guests can dine on $115 steamed crab dinners at the hotel’s seafood restaurant. Years ago, the Housing Department had determined Hometel — once known as the Hamilton — to be a residential hotel, and in 2008 and in 2011 the department informed the hotel’s then-owners it was subject to the ordinance.

Galardi said his inspectors saw no evidence of short-term rentals at the Hometel when they visited the hotel in May 2019. But at least since March of that year, a three-story-tall banner on the façade has shown a family with suitcases on a luggage cart and the message “Book your stay today.”

General manager Becky Hong said neither she nor the owner would comment on Hometel’s residential hotel status or city enforcement, and she did not respond to emailed questions.

A review of more than 10,000 pages of Housing Department documents obtained under the California Public Records Act, including inspectors’ notes, correspondence and other enforcement records, along with interviews with housing officials, shows hotel owners have little reason to fear fines or prosecution for violating the residential hotel law.

Logan Altman, the former owner of the Ramona Motel in South Los Angeles, said when he bought the property in 2016, the previous owner had assured him he could rent out rooms on a nightly basis without fear of a city crackdown.

“What I heard was enforcement was somewhat lax,” he said. “The seller said he hadn’t had any problems.” And neither did Altman, according to Housing Department records. He sold the motel to a nonprofit housing developer in 2021.

In the past 15 years, L.A. Housing Department data shows, the city has cited just 17 hotels under the law. However, the city’s recordkeeping seems deficient: Capital & Main and ProPublica found two additional hotels it cited by separately looking through enforcement records provided by the department. Only four of the 21 residential hotels that Capital & Main and ProPublica found marketing rooms to tourists have been given warnings by housing inspectors for residential hotel violations.

A block away from Hometel at the H Hotel, a neon H on the building’s brick façade signals the former East West Hotel’s new hip vibe. A Saturday-night stay ranges from $200 to $270, and a crystal chandelier hangs above the lobby near a lounge where guests can order brunch and $115 bottles of champagne.

The H Hotel, formerly known as the East West Hotel, on 8th Street in L.A.’s Koreatown.

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Barbara Davidson

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A vendor sells clothing and kitchen items on 8th Street near the H Hotel.

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Barbara Davidson

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People dine at the H Hotel’s bustling restaurant, the H Cafe.

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Barbara Davidson

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Last year, a housing inspector noted that Nojan Haddadi, the H Hotel’s operations manager, told him that the property is currently being used as a “transient hotel,” using the legal term for hotels that rent rooms to tourists. But the hotel, which is officially designated residential, never applied to convert to a tourist hotel, Housing Department records show. And there’s no evidence in the records that the department took any enforcement action against the hotel for violating the residential hotel law. Haddadi told Capital & Main and ProPublica that the hotel hasn’t accepted long-term residents since 2019. He said he didn’t know if the hotel was violating the law but noted that the hotel’s management has asked the city to remove its residential designation. The H Hotel’s owner, Mike Barry, declined to answer questions, citing advice from his attorney.

When asked why the Housing Department hasn’t enforced the law against the H Hotel, Galardi noted that his inspector was barred from entering without an administrative warrant. Haddadi said the hotel had been instructed by its attorney not to let inspectors in. Galardi wrote, “Moving forward, staff will conduct further investigation regarding tourist units.”

Throughout the inspection records, a pattern emerged: Hotel owners or their attorneys could dodge city regulators simply by refusing to consent to inspections without a court order.

The department could obtain such warrants, but Galardi said that its inspectors have not secured them — to enter either the H Hotel or others whose owners have barred inspectors.

Even when city inspectors have attempted to enforce the law, their efforts have proved futile because they haven’t always followed up to ensure compliance. Between 2016 and 2018, L.A. housing inspectors ordered the owners of the Studio Lodge, Hyland Inn, Central Inn Motel and Top Hat Motel to either return their rooms to residential use or obtain the required clearances to convert them.

But after inspectors said they’d return to ensure the violations were corrected, attorney Frank Weiser, who represented the Hyland, the Central Inn and the Top Hat, sent letters to the Housing Department that said they would not be allowed to reenter without administrative warrants. Housing Department enforcement records show no evidence that inspectors obtained warrants — even though the hotels were also cited for fire safety and electrical issues that inspectors rated as “high severity” violations.

And until recently, travelers could still book rooms online at any of the three hotels.

The owner of the Central Inn and the manager of the Top Hat said they had recently begun providing short-term housing funded by local homelessness programs. But the Top Hat manager said the motel still does nightly rentals when there are vacancies, and both acknowledged they’d been offering daily rates until earlier this year. Neither hotel owner answered written questions about whether the nightly rentals violated the residential hotel law. The owner of the Studio Lodge didn’t return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Weiser, who still represents the Hyland’s owner, said he thinks the hotel corrected its housing code violations. But he said of the residential hotel violations, “The bottom line: There was never any action taken by the city. I think that speaks for itself.”

Sharma, the law professor, who previously advised former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti on housing policy, noted the residential hotel law allows the city attorney to seek court orders to stop building owners from renting to tourists.

“I think by even filing against a few buildings, it sends a message to the rest of the buildings that the city is watching,” she said. “That’s how enforcement works in larger scale.”

The residential hotel ordinance also required the Housing Department to file annual reports to the City Council and mayor, informing them of the total number of residential hotel units, any conversions or demolitions and the department’s enforcement activities. But in response to a public records request, the department told Capital & Main and ProPublica that it didn’t have any of the reports. The city clerk’s office said it has no record of receiving any, and Galardi said he didn’t think the reports were ever compiled.

Good, the Housing Department’s senior policy adviser, said that understaffing is an obstacle to enforcement, pointing out that a single inspector is assigned to all of the city’s residential hotels. “There are significant capacity issues,” he said.

The bleak contrast between the American’s trendy remodel and the city’s homelessness crisis can be seen on the surrounding streets. On one recent day, a man pushed a shopping cart full of plastic bags past the hotel’s sandwich board advertising rooms and suites. On another, a man covered head to toe in dirty blankets stood against a graffitied wall as a tour group admired the art behind him.

Tourists on an arts walk pass a man draped in blankets in the heart of the Arts District in April.

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Barbara Davidson

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As tourists spilled out of the American, many said they were shocked by the seemingly endless tents pitched on downtown sidewalks and were startled to learn that the American was supposed to be reserved for the city’s neediest residents.

“I don’t like to hear that,” said Britt Booram, a real estate agent from Indianapolis as she got into a black van after checking out of the hotel.

Galardi said Capital & Main and ProPublica’s reporting had “gotten the ball rolling” on another potential enforcement tool to shut down short-term rentals in residential hotels: the city’s 2018 Home-Sharing Ordinance, which regulates listings on sites like Airbnb. But it’s rarely been used in the past. The city has fined just two hotels, and the planning department issued warning letters to a third hotel in 2020.

Only one of the three has stopped accepting online bookings. The others continue to advertise residential hotel rooms to tourists.

The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.

What's the impact to coverage?

L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.

The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.

What's the impact to health-care providers?

More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.

The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.

What are proposals to help?

The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.

L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.

California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.

The California Department of Insurance announced Monday that it has taken the first step in the process to bring the allegations to a public hearing before an administrative judge. That could result in the state’s largest home insurer paying up to about $4 million in penalties, and suspension of its license for up to a year, meaning it could not write new policies in California during that time.

“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.

The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims — out of more than 11,000 filed with State Farm in response to last year’s fires — and found hundreds of violations in more than half them. Attorneys for the state called it a “troubling pattern” in their filing.

State Farm denied the allegations and called the state’s move “politically motivated” in a lengthy statement posted to its website.

Every Fire Survivors Network, a coalition representing thousands of L.A. fire survivors, pressured the state for months to investigate State Farm’s handling of wildfire claims.

Joy Chen, who co-founded the group after her home was damaged in the Eaton Fire, said the state’s action is far from enough.

“It’s just very disappointing to see our regulator issue a report that shows his own failures over the last 16 months,” she told LAist.

Only a few dozen homes have been rebuilt so far in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades since the fires destroyed more than 16,000 buildings, mostly homes, in those communities and nearby areas.

A survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels last year found that nearly three-quarters of L.A. fire survivors reported delays, denials and low payouts of their claims across all insurers.

“What we need is for all State Farm contracts to be enforced so that Los Angeles families can have the money that we need to move forward with getting back home,” Chen said.

The state’s alleged violations carry a fine of up to $5,000, and up to $10,000 if the violations are found to be willful. The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a possible penalty.

The Insurance Department said people with homeowners policies from any insurer can report problems with their claims at insurance.ca.gov or by calling (800) 927-4357.

Yes, you could put a screen in your backyard and call up your friends to watch a particularly compelling World Cup game after the tournament begins June 12.

But FIFA is turning each game into a public celebration, sponsoring 10 outdoor Fan Zone watch parties with large viewing screens across L.A. County through the final on July 19.

Details were released on Monday, including locations, dates and prices.

The Fan Zones open in a staggered schedule from one day to four days each, starting with the Original Farmers Market on June 18 - 21, and then popping up across the region until the glorious end on July 19 in downtown Burbank.

Ticket prices range from free (City of Downey, Union Station L.A., “Magic” Johnson Park, Whittier Narrows) to over $300 for a VIP experience with a viewing lounge and a concert at the downtown Burbank Fan Zone on the day of the World Cup final match on July 19.

Fan Zone kick off

At the first Fan Zone, at The Original Farmers Market from June 18 for four days, entry will cost you $5 per day or $17 for all four days. Kids age 3 and under are free. (FIFA says the zones are family friendly).

You’ll be able to see four matches there each of the four days, including Mexico vs. South Korea on June 18 at 6 p.m. and USA vs. Australia on June 19 at noon.

FIFA World Cup 2026 scarves are displayed during the ribbon cutting for the LAX/Metro Transit Center rail and bus public transportation station at LAX on June 6, 2025.

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Patrick T. Fallon

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You won’t have to squint to find your favorite player or catch the goals. The Farmer’s Market will include a 30-foot viewing screen as well as a 15-foot secondary screen to watch the games. There will be beer gardens, and you can purchase food from the Market's dozens of establishments.

Other Fan Zones

The West Harbor L.A. Fan Zone will give people an opportunity to experience the newest major development along the San Pedro waterfront, a 42-acre waterfront district that’s been years in the making.

The Union Station L.A. Fan Zone on June 25 is free and includes match viewing, music, food, and immersive fan experiences, featuring live DJs.

The final Fan Zone opens July 18 and 19 in downtown Burbank for the World Cup’s last two matches. FIFA says it’ll include “an adjacent international street fair filled with global flavors and cultural experiences.” Tickets range from $25 to over $300

The full list of the Fan Zones is here.

This of course, isn’t the only opportunity to watch World Cup matches with groups of people in SoCal. The city of L.A. will host its own watch parties.

Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.

Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved.

Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.

All asylum seekers are disqualified from federal financial aid. The few who qualify for California’s state aid may never know their options, or face hurdles in obtaining it due to a patchwork of financial aid processes.

The state’s higher education systems are not mandated to track asylum seekers, making state budget impacts nearly unquantifiable during legislative attempts to expand financial aid eligibility.

“I only see them struggling,” said Eric Cline, social services program director at OASIS Legal Services, which supports LGBTQ+ asylum seekers across the Bay Area and Central Valley. “I’m always surprised (when) a few clients tell me 'I just graduated from college.’ I think, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’”

Policy changes stoke uncertainty for asylum seekers

Asylum seeking is one of the least-protected immigration statuses in the U.S. Asylum seekers, who’ve fled their home countries fearing persecution and are asking the U.S. for protection, differ from refugees, whose status is granted before they enter the country. Asylum seekers apply upon arriving in the U.S.

Applicants can stay as their cases remain pending for years, though experts say the Trump administration is expediting deportations for numerous asylum seekers and ending cases before they can receive a full hearing.

As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time.

The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries. In the San Francisco immigration court system, which is popular among asylum seekers due to higher acceptance rates, a combination of firings by the Trump administration, retirements and relocations whittled the 21 immigration judges to two, according to reporting in Mission Local. Left behind is a caseload of nearly 119,000 immigration cases, the highest of any immigration court in California.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” also established new fees for asylum seekers, placing additional pressure on an already low-income population. Applicants must now pay an initial $100 application fee plus $100 per year while their case is pending, $550 for a work permit, and $745 each year to renew the permit. In addition, a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would effectively end the ability of asylum seekers to obtain work permits at all.

Royce Hall on the UCLA campus

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As they await a decision, asylum seekers are excluded from federal aid and some state financial aid programs, including Cal Grants under California law.

For one asylum seeker, Carol, being ineligible for financial aid meant she had to take time off from school to work to make ends meet. CalMatters is not using her full name because she fears speaking publicly may jeopardize her asylum case.

Carol did speak before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in 2023 urging lawmakers to pass AB 888, which would have expanded Cal Grant eligibility to certain asylum seekers. The bill ultimately did not pass.

She said she arrived in the United States at 17 and had spent more than six years waiting for her case to move through immigration courts, a period during which she said she was ineligible for financial aid.

“I’ve had to delay my educational journey several times, including going part-time and even taking a semester off from school to work,” Carol told lawmakers.

Without access to aid, she said she experienced homelessness, couch surfing and at one point slept on a mattress topper on a hardwood floor because she could not afford a bed. She worked multiple jobs at a time, skipped meals and attended class without the required course materials.

Her story, she said, was not new. Carol told the committee that four years earlier her brother had testified with a nearly identical experience on behalf of a previous bill that was ultimately vetoed, a cycle she argued could have been prevented.

“Had California taken action then, I wouldn’t have had to face the harrowing experiences that I shared with you today,” she said.

Despite the barriers, Carol graduated from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a caseworker with the International Rescue Committee, helping resettle refugees and asylum seekers. She told lawmakers she hopes to pursue a law degree and become an international human rights attorney.

The narrow path to college aid for asylum-seeking students

Many asylum seekers arrive eager to continue studies they began abroad, but quickly run into what Cline calls “a brick wall."

“All of our clients are low-income … they’re almost never eligible for generalized financial aid,” he said. “When you take away the financial aid aspect, it makes (college) pretty inaccessible.”

For California residents, annual undergraduate tuition is $15,588 at the University of California, $6,838 at the California State University and about $1,380 for 30 units at a community college. Students classified as non-residents — including some asylum seekers before establishing residency — can pay $54,858 at a University of California, about $20,968 at a Cal State before campus-based fees, and roughly $10,140 to $13,560 for 30 units at a community college, depending on the district. These figures do not include campus-based fees, housing or living expenses.

Even when students do manage to establish residency, the cost is still steep. For the many asylum seekers who arrive in the United States as adults, they may not have attended a California school previously, barring them from qualifying for state financial aid.

AB 540, the 2001 law that exempts undocumented students from paying non-resident tuition, only applies if the student attended a California high school or community college for three years.

Those who qualify through AB 540 can fill out the California Dream Act Application for state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, university system-specific grants, state loans, and the state’s middle class scholarship.

The application process can still be confusing for asylum seekers whose status is not fully accounted for in the design of the application. For example, asylum seekers often have Social Security numbers for work authorization, but affirming so while answering the financial aid pre-screening questions leads to undetermined eligibility because the questions don’t take into account the nuances of applying as an asylum seeker.

Stickers and flyers on a table in the Undocumented Community Center at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, on Nov. 28, 2023. At this center, undocumented students can access financial and legal aid as well as guidance in navigating grant applications.

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Asylum seekers often require extra help from financial aid counselors, but even counselors may not know how to help navigate eligibility rules. Students often wind up seeking help from undocumented student resource centers on public campuses, which are designed to help students who lack legal residency and those from mixed-status families find aid and academic support.

Kaveena Singh, the director of immigration legal services at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants, noted that she herself has written letters to financial aid offices to help explain the in-between nature of the few asylum-seeking students she has served.

As an asylum-seeking student in his mid-20s, L. ended up qualifying for state financial aid through AB 540. However, he misunderstood for six years exactly what aid he qualified for. L. wished to withhold his name and the names of the institutions he’s attended for fear of negative impacts on his pending asylum case.

Initially, community college didn’t cost him anything — but when he transferred to a large four-year university, the cost of college soared. He went to his university's financial aid office for help so often that all the staff there knew his name. It was a "big relief” when he was finally able to successfully fill out the California Dream Act Application, and obtain financial aid for his summer and fall quarters.

L.'s asylum case has been pending for nine years. He, his dad, mom and younger brother arrived in the United States in the winter of 2016, claiming asylum under fear of political retribution. His father organized political assemblies in China, and his mother was forced to have an abortion under the one-child policy.

“I just wish I could go home and visit family and friends and catch up for a good few weeks in the summer here and there to reconnect with my past,” L. said. “It's like there's two separate lives, like two entities being artificially cut.”

L. worked throughout high school and college, and worried about affording school.

Most days, the combination of family trauma and the limbo of waiting for his case means L. survives through “constant compartmentalization.”

In the meantime, he tries to carry on — he studies politics, and is interested in international relations and human rights.

"As rough as all that's happened, the silver lining is that one day hopefully I get a passport and a green card," L. said. "To help other people avoid such a hassle will be just as fulfilling for me."

Previous legislative efforts have failed

Legislative bills to extend state financial aid eligibility to asylum-seeking students have been introduced at least twice in recent years but have failed.

One attempt came in 2019, when Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, introduced SB 296, a bill that would have extended Cal Grant eligibility to students with pending asylum applications. The measure passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that it would "impose costs on the General Fund that must be weighed in the annual budget process."

“That was frustrating, but I understood it,” Allen told CalMatters. “The real issue is that we don’t have good data. Our schools don’t track asylum seekers, so we can’t easily calculate the cost.”

UC data on asylum-seeking students is protected due to privacy policies, according to Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson. The Cal State system reports it has less than 500 students with "asylum status," which includes both those who have an asylum granted and asylum seekers, according to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. The numbers are self-reported during the admissions process.

In spring 2025, 13,507 students self-identified as “refugee/asylee” across the California Community Colleges — up from 11,537 the prior semester — per the CCC DataMart. The data does not include a category for just asylum seekers. Students can self-identify their immigration status while applying, but asylum seekers are not specifically tracked, according to the college system’s spokesperson Melissa Villarin.

Four years after SB 296 failed, Democrat Sabrina Cervantes — then representing Riverside in the Assembly and now as a state senator — revived the proposal through AB 888, introduced in 2023. Like Allen’s earlier bill, AB 888 sought to make Cal Grants accessible to students with pending asylum applications by creating a direct eligibility pathway outside the AB 540 residency requirements. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously but was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee last September, effectively ending its chances for the year.

Cervantes declined an interview with CalMatters. “My Assembly Bill 888 would have created a new pathway for pending asylum seekers in California to apply for Cal Grant financial aid in pursuit of their higher education,” Cervantes wrote in a statement.

Newsom’s office declined to say whether he would support a future version of the proposal, pointing instead to his brief 2019 veto message.

“There’s nervousness around anything that involves new expenses," Allen said. “... We’re going to have to spend some time seeing what information we can get with regards to better data to get better estimated costs. I think that will help to better inform the conversation."

Andrea Baltodano and Chrissa Olson are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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