The Brief

After California lawmakers passed a state housing law that allows taller apartment buildings near train lines, Los Angeles leaders are facing a tradeoff: If they want to delay full implementation of the law, they’ll have to choose some parts of the city to upzone.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 into law last year. Starting July 1, the law is set to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall to be built next to subway stations and smaller buildings within a half-mile of light rail and rapid bus stops.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and a slim majority of the L.A. City Council had expressed opposition to SB 79, in keeping with the long-standing preference of many city leaders to leave untouched the three-quarters of L.A.’s residential land zoned for single-family homes.

Now, some L.A. leaders are scrambling to pull a delay lever that was built into SB 79. The provision allows cities to put off the law’s broadest effects until 2030, as long as they agree to allow more housing development in certain neighborhoods in the interim.

“If we don't do this, what happens is SB 79 goes into effect full-on,” said Bob Blumenfield, chair of the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, during a meeting on Tuesday. “I really want to avoid that happening.”

Options for delay

The state law lets cities delay implementation in neighborhoods deemed to be “low resource,” in areas at high risk of fires or sea level rise or are designated as historically significant. Even with those carve-outs, some higher-income neighborhoods near train stops will still be subject to upzoning.

The city’s Planning Department produced a report last week laying out three different approaches for the City Council to delay SB 79. All of them involve local incentive programs that would allow developers to build apartment buildings in neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes.

The first option would allow buildings up to four stories tall, while the second and third options would permit buildings up to eight stories.

During the committee meeting Tuesday, homeowners spoke against the changes the new law would bring and the city’s upzoning plans.

“Single-family neighborhoods are where families put down roots — they are the beating heart of Los Angeles and SB 79 runs a stake right through that heart,” said Shelley Wagers with the Beverly Grove Neighborhood Association. “We must use every tool to prevent irreversible harm and buy time.”

Advocates for increased housing development said they favored the report’s third option, which would allow mid-sized apartment buildings within a half-mile of existing train stops, as well as planned stations and rapid bus stops.

Scott Epstein, policy director for Abundant Housing L.A., said that approach “offers the best opportunity to meet our housing targets and ensure that neighborhoods rich in transit services and high-quality schools are doing their part.”

What happens next

The Planning and Land Use Committee could not get a three-person majority to agree on the best path forward, so the decision will now go to the full City Council for further debate.

Blumenfield said his recommendation as committee chair was to allow mid-rise apartment buildings in many neighborhoods, but only near existing train stops, not planned stations or rapid bus stops. He also recommended more exemptions for certain historic preservation zones.

Nithya Raman, a committee member who is also running for L.A. Mayor, said she found the report’s recommendations difficult to follow. Passing a delayed implementation plan could stave off changes in some neighborhoods, but only for a while, she said.

“Eventually we will have to do something,” Raman said. “So the question is just what do we do now and what do we do later.”

But council members have little time to figure out which approach they prefer. City planners told the committee that in order to have a delay ordinance in place by July 1, the council would need to decide what direction to take by early March.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

First, find your neighborhood council:

• Find out which council represents you by searching your address here.
• Sign up to have council agendas sent to your inbox here.
• Find information on when and where your council meets here.
• Check out all Community Impact Statements your council submitted since 2008 here.
• Want to get paid to attend and document public meetings? Learn how to become an LA Documenter here.

1. Your neighborhood council is one of the easiest ways to get involved in L.A. government

If you’ve ever complained about something happening on your block, wondered why a project was approved or wanted your neighborhood to get funding for an event, a neighborhood council meeting is a place to start.

The Neighborhood Council system, established in 1999, is made up of volunteer-led councils that give residents a direct way to weigh in on hyper-local issues, proposed projects and neighborhood programs. 

There are 99 neighborhood councils across L.A., each serving about 40,000 residents.  That gives residents a more local forum for raising concerns than the city’s 15 City Council districts, which each represent nearly 260,000 people. 

So what can a neighborhood council actually do? 

Neighborhood councils don’t make city laws or set city policy. But they do have a couple of ways to make their voices heard. They can approve Neighborhood Purpose Grants of up to $5,000 for nonprofits and schools, helping pay for neighborhood events and programs. 

They can also draft Community Impact Statements (CIS) that tell the mayor or City Council whether the neighborhood council supports, opposes or wants changes to a proposed policy or project. And meetings are a chance to hear directly from city, county and state representatives about what their offices are working on.

2. You don’t have to be a neighborhood council member to participate

Neighborhood Council meetings are generally open to anyone who lives, works, studies or runs a business within the council’s boundaries. And you don’t have to sit on the board to speak during public comment. 

What to expect at your first meeting: Every neighborhood council is a little different, but most include updates, agenda items and public comment. If you want to speak, check the meeting instructions or ask how to sign up. And it’s OK to just listen the first time.

3. Check the agenda before you go

This is the part that can save you from showing up to a two-hour meeting only to find that the issue you care about has been moved to another meeting — or that the meeting itself has been canceled at the last minute.

The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, also known as EmpowerLA, maintains a database of neighborhood councils, including their members, meeting frequency and locations. 

Meeting schedules are also available through the LA Documenters public meetings database  under the “Meetings” tab. 

Some councils also maintain their own websites and social media pages with meeting dates, locations and agendas. Before you head out, check at least one of those sources — and ideally the council’s own website or social media — to make sure the meeting time, location and agenda haven’t changed.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Authorities evacuated approximately 20 homes on the Long Beach Peninsula Monday evening after punishing tides and pounding waves may have damaged their foundations, according to the Long Beach Fire Department.

The seaside homes have endured days of high surf slamming into the boardwalk, which is just outside their doors. Waves were powerful enough to breach a protective seawall and send water and sand pouring into the neighborhood. The surf has been unusually strong because of the remnants of Hurricane Marie churning through the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles away.

Crews were clearing away sand and pumping out water throughout the day Monday, and some residents were cleaning out their garages and porches that had been inundated. Then, while surveying for damage, first responders spotted alarming cracks around some homes, Long Beach Fire Department Capt. Jack Crabtree said.

Concrete slabs between the homes had started to crack or buckle, with some of the fissures running all the way up to or under homes’ walls. Unable to tell if the buildings’ foundations were compromised, city officials decided to issue evacuation orders “out of abundance of caution,” Crabtree said.

All the evacuated homes are along the beachside boardwalk, called Seaside Walk, between 63rd and 67th places, Crabtree said. High surf hits that area particularly hard because waves coming in at the correct angle pass through a gap between the Alamitos Bay jetty and the breakwater that protects the rest of the city.

City employees replace wooden slats along the boardwalk after a sand berm and section of the boardwalk’s wooden boards were washed out along the Peninsula in Long Beach on Wednesday, July 29, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Building inspectors are on their way to determine if the houses are safe or at risk of collapsing.

Many streets along the Peninsula were also still closed as crews continued to try to clean up.

They were still being inundated during the most recent high tide on Monday evening, Crabtree said.

This isn’t the first time the Peninsula has dealt with high tides and hurricane-driven waves this year — and more could be coming. An exceptionally strong El Niño this year is expected to give the coastal neighborhood a glimpse of what rising sea levels could mean.

Nearly 86,000 of California’s children ages 0 to 3 — more than 5% of the state’s infants and toddlers — are estimated to have experienced homelessness in 2023-24, according to new data analysis by SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.

This is a 15% jump from about 74,000 young children in the year prior.

Only about 12,000 of those children in 2023-24 were enrolled in early learning programs. It is often in early learning programs where staff members are able to identify children experiencing homelessness and provide critical services for their development.

That just 14% of the youngest children experiencing homelessness are in these programs is potentially a troubling sign, experts say. It may indicate the state is not set up to accurately identify and reach most of these children.

“We just don’t have the full picture,” said Erin Patterson, a senior director at SchoolHouse Connection. “Data reporting infrastructure everywhere is lacking when it comes to infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness. There is no singular federal agency or program that captures everything.”

This is after years of sustained efforts by child homelessness experts that have led to heightened attention and short-term funding for students experiencing homelessness and the significant barriers K-12 schools face in identifying them. That focus has not always included the youngest Californians — infants and toddlers — in part because the state’s early learning system is far more fragmented.

This data from SchoolHouse Connection, an organization that advocates for homeless students, and Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan initiative to prevent and alleviate poverty, was shared with EdSource ahead of the Sept. 23 release of their third annual report on the prevalence of homelessness among children 0 to 3 nationwide.

The nearly 86,000 homeless infants and toddlers were 5.19% of about 1.6 million children ages 0 to 3 in 2023-24. The number is an estimate, taken by looking at the percentage of first grade students who were identified as homeless during the 2023-24 year and applying it to the census age group percentages for children ages 0 to 3.

To get to the number of children accessing early childhood programs, the researchers looked at enrollment data from Early Head Start, home visiting programs and local educational agencies, which are required to identify younger children experiencing homelessness if they receive federal funding.

Some children might have been identified and are simply not reflected in the estimate, in part because data access is extremely limited and fragmented across multiple public agencies, say the researchers.

Student homelessness across the K-12 system has risen 4% in the most recent data available. In years prior, it rose by up to 15%, according to state data.

Child homelessness experts contend the rise in student homelessness reflects several factors, including California’s skyrocketing cost of living and the end of pandemic-era housing protections.

At the same time, they point to short-term infusions of funding that have helped schools improve data collection systems and identification practices that allowed them to begin supporting more students.

Homeless liaisons have attributed many of those gains to a 2021 historic federal allocation of $800 million for schools nationwide, of which California received $98.76 million. The one-time pandemic-era funding was dedicated entirely to identifying and supporting students experiencing homelessness.

Child homelessness experts say data shows the funding worked: after what appeared as a significant dip in student homelessness rates at the peak of the pandemic, there was a sharp increase once schools reopened. They attribute this dramatic shift to the identification efforts by liaisons, who by then had the funding to hire staff to make phone calls to families they knew were struggling, distribute gas cards to help families get their children to school, pay for emergency temporary housing for evicted families and more.

The closest California has come to matching those pandemic-era dollars is a one-time $116 million grant approved by the state Legislature this year. It will support identification efforts, though it remains unclear how the state will distribute the funding.

“The state’s really going to have to be targeted about where this money goes, and I think a set-aside amount for identifying our youngest learners makes a ton of sense because that $116 million is not going to reach everybody,” said Joseph Bishop, executive director and co-founder of the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

But experts warn that without long-term funding to maintain those efforts in the TK-12 system, it will be even more difficult to build similar identification capacity in the early learning space to ensure children 0-3 can also be connected to services they need as their families find permanent housing. At the same time, they foresee that more children are likely to be in need in coming years.

“Given what we know about worsening economic conditions, we can certainly surmise that families with children, in particular, have been impacted by housing instability and homelessness,” said Patterson. “The tricky part, though, is pandemic funds are gone, and that means the capacity to identify has dwindled in many places, so we might be entering a phase where we see homelessness increasing, but identification is scaling back because of limited capacity, both in early childhood programs and among local educational agencies.”

Why counting homeless infants and toddlers is tough — and why it matters

Not only is the data from SchoolHouse Connection and Poverty Solutions likely an undercount, but there are other factors that affect the ability to identify students. The early childhood services system in the state is more fractured than K-12, say researchers. And, there may be limited knowledge of the responsibility of local education agencies to identify and support homeless students.

Knowledge of how the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act applies to early learning programs is also less widespread. The law requires local education agencies, such as school districts and certain preschools, to identify and support homeless students, including those younger than 4, which is the age for entering transitional kindergarten.

How does the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act help?

When McKinney-Vento was enacted decades ago, it established a broader definition of homelessness for students. For example, the law considers a student homeless if they are staying with relatives or in temporary housing due to economic hardship, loss of housing or a similar reason.

The law can apply to preschools under specific circumstances, including when a program is funded by a local education agency, like a school district. This flowchart provides some detail into whether an early learning program might be a McKinney-Vento preschool.

And if a homeless liaison identifies a homeless student with an infant or toddler sibling, the federal act requires them to refer the young child to early learning programs.

Even when McKinney-Vento does not directly apply, many early learning programs have adopted its broader definition of homelessness and require certain exceptions be made for homeless families. This could include allowing a child to begin attending the program while providing a grace period for families to produce enrollment documentation or giving priority enrollment to homeless families.

An apparent disconnect between early learning and the TK-12 school system

Child education experts have noted a disconnect between early learning programs and the TK-12 school system, where homeless liaisons are already stretched thin.

“There’s a major flaw in not having those systems in place, and I think it can make the work of districts potentially more effective if we had earlier identification,” said Bishop of UCLA. “We don’t know or have the continuity across systems to know where kids are coming from, even sometimes within districts, let alone before TK.”

Bishop’s team published a report last week finding that nearly 300,000 homeless students were enrolled in California’s TK-12 public school system in the 2024-25 school year. This is an additional nearly 30,000 more students than what they estimated prior to the pandemic in 2018-19.

While the report did not include children experiencing homelessness who were enrolled in early learning programs — Bishop said his team wanted to include them but faced challenges obtaining the data — it found that many of the highest counts of homeless students were in elementary school districts.

Anticipating “where the need is coming from” via better identification and data collection could help districts better support their students.

“We’re sometimes shocked when students are struggling academically” once they reach elementary school, said Bishop. “That’s the ripple effect of not having the early warning systems.”