What happens to a great city
when its people can't afford to stay?​

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Los Angeles was once the ultimate destination for self-made dreams, but that promise is fading. As the cost of living hits record highs, the city is becoming a luxury few can afford, pricing out the very people who give it life

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RENTS

A renter earning minimum wage in California would need to work roughly 80 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom in Los Angeles County.

National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2024

 

HOUSING SHORTAGE

California needs 2.5 million additional homes to meet housing demand, a shortfall decades in the making that Los Angeles has done little to close.

California Dept. of Housing and Community Development, 2022

 

HOMELESSNESS

More than 75,000 people were counted as unhoused in LA County in 2023 - the largest homeless population of any county in the United States.

LA County Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), 2023 Greater LA Homeless Count

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INFRASTRUCTURE

Los Angeles has an estimated $4.6 billion backlog in deferred street repairs.

City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services, 2022

 

CITY COUNCIL

Council members hold near-unilateral power over development in their districts — a tradition known as "councilmanic prerogative" that has made the city's housing shortage a political choice, not an inevitability.

 UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

 

The nurses, the teachers, the line cooks, the bus drivers - the people who make Los Angeles work - are being priced out past the city limits. When they go, what exactly is left?

 

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What is it going to take to restore Los Angeles to what it was envisioned it to be? 

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