Rising Temperatures Cause Students to Underperform Across the World UCLA’s Edith de Guzman highlights how overheated classrooms are widening educational inequities.

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An article published in the Los Angeles Times quotes Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, highlighting how rising temperatures are undermining students’ ability to learn—particularly in underserved communities. A comprehensive review, analyzing data from 14.5 million students across 61 countries, found that heat exposure reduces cognitive performance, especially in complex subjects like math. Even moderately warm days, between 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, impair students’ attention, memory, and focus.

Heat doesn’t affect all students equally. Black, Latino, and low-income students experience up to three to four times more learning loss from heat exposure compared to white and affluent peers. This disparity is largely due to inequalities in infrastructure—many under-resourced schools lack adequate air conditioning, shade, or green space, making classrooms unbearably hot during warmer months.

“As classroom temperatures rise over time — especially during extended heat waves or in schools with less shade, poorer insulation and lacking access to air conditioning — students tend to show declines in attention, memory and test performance,” said Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. Heat can also affect students’ abilities to enjoy outdoor recreational activities, having serious effects on their physical, mental and social well-being, she said.

The study also found that these effects are cumulative, with heat exposure throughout the school year having a greater impact on learning than just exam-day temperatures. Simple solutions—such as air conditioning, improved ventilation, and increasing tree canopy around schools—can dramatically reduce heat-related learning loss. However, many schools lack the funding to implement these upgrades.

Rebuilding for Resilience: Minjee Kim on Post-Fire Urban Planning In the Building Better Cities podcast, Minjee Kim discusses how the aftermath of L.A.’s wildfires presents a chance to reimagine recovery—through sustainable, equitable, and long-term urban planning.

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Dr. Minjee Kim, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, was featured on the Building Better Cities podcast in the episode titled “Who Rebuilds LA? Planning Post-Fire Recovery with Dr. Minjee Kim.” In the wake of the devastating LA wildfires, Kim presents this disaster as an opportunity to rethink how cities rebuild with long-term resiliency in mind. “The L.A. fires presented the opportunity to think large scale,” she says. “I see the Los Angeles fires that happened as an opportunity to think about urban planning and development in the long term… in terms of resiliency and fire resiliency, but also in terms of what is a good sustainable form of urban development.”

In conversation with host Kate Gasparro, Kim discusses how post-disaster recovery can serve as a launchpad for long-term, equitable urban planning—if supported by the right governance structures. Drawing from her research and experience advising the L.A. County Blue Ribbon Commission on post-fire recovery, she explores potential models for regional redevelopment agencies, citing examples from San Francisco, New York City, and Cincinnati.

Edith de Guzman on How Extreme Indoor Heat is a Public Health Crisis De Guzman advocates for stronger renter protections amid Los Angeles’ rising temperatures.

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Edith de Guzman of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, is quoted in a Patch article highlighting the urgent need for air conditioning access in Los Angeles rental housing and the broader health impacts of rising temperatures on vulnerable communities.

“Extreme indoor heat isn’t just a climate issue — it’s a public health issue,” says de Guzman. “The effects of unsafe indoor heat are not hypothetical — we all know what it’s like to live through a heat wave. It affects everything: your ability to work, cook, sleep and even breathe.”

As Los Angeles braces for a future with triple the number of 95-degree days due to climate change, a new report by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) urges stronger tenant protections to ensure renters have access to air conditioning — which it calls a life-saving necessity during extreme heat. The report highlights that many low-income renters in South L.A. lack cooling options and fear retaliation if they request them, despite the severe health risks posed by prolonged indoor heat. While California law mandates heating, it does not require landlords to provide cooling, prompting calls for new policies to guarantee tenants the right to install or receive AC.

Dorothy Faye Pirtle blends public policy and culinary arts to increase food access

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Family, community and food have always been at the core of Dorothy Faye Pirtle’s educational journey. Growing up African American and Korean American in what was once known as South Central Los Angeles, Pirtle, a dual master’s candidate in public policy and urban regional planning, has been a longtime social justice advocate.

“For me, it’s about leading an interdisciplinary life through school, food, cooking,” she said.

Pirtle’s interest in this life began in a very personal way. With few Asian ingredients found at local grocery stores, Pirtle’s mother, who is Korean, grew produce in their backyard. Pirtle was able to connect with that part of her heritage as she learned how to grow and cook her own food, such as using herbs like mugwort in savory dishes and knowing which types of lettuce were best for Korean lettuce wraps. One of Pirtle’s fondest childhood memories was eating her mom’s seaweed soup.

Her focus on community and activism also started early. At 12 years old, Pirtle witnessed the civil unrest that spread across Los Angeles in April 1992 following the acquittal of the officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. She would go on to attend community events and meet Asian American and Pacific Islander leaders such as Marcia Choo and K.W. Lee.

Lee, a pioneering Asian American journalist who called Pirtle his “adopted granddaughter” during her fellowship at the K.W. Lee Center for Leadership, taught her and other Koreans about cross-racial solidarity. Choo, who later wrote one of Pirtle’s recommendation letters for UCLA, also modeled for her the importance of community-building, service and engagement. They inspired her to think more deeply about racial inequality.

Community activism through food

Pirtle began her higher education journey at UC Irvine, where she majored in social science. She also received associate degrees in culinary arts/chef training, professional baking and restaurant management from Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

While living in South L.A. City after finishing trade school, Pirtle began to connect food, community and policy together.

Her local supermarket — which supports 75,000 people — shut down, leaving neighborhoods without fresh produce and other goods.

“If you wanted to buy a tomato or cilantro — or laundry detergent — where would you go? I created the California Black Council on Food Policy out of this need to address what was happening in my community,” she said.

The coalition has gone on to tackle food disparities through solutions driven by Black communities experiencing these issues.

Using her previous work experience managing farmers markets and working at a business development center, Pirtle devised the idea of helping entrepreneurs access resources within the farmers market space and created the nonprofit Lily of the Nile 1992. The organization, which she founded in 2021, operates farmers markets, farm stands and food distributions to bring California-grown produce to South Los Angeles. It provides research on farmers market programs and facilitates access to these markets even for those who are spatially segregated from them while also fostering community by celebrating African American culinary traditions.

Pirtle works with farmers from historically underrepresented backgrounds to help them write grants. She secured a Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program award for K&K Ranch, a family-owned farm, to purchase a refrigerated truck. She plans on establishing farmers markets across the area and hosting the farmers she writes grants on behalf of.

“This work is very much about relationships and honoring what people do,” Pirtle said.

From Lulu to the Luskin Center

Her farmers market expertise and culinary skills ultimately brought Pirtle to UCLA. She drew on this experience while working at Lulu at the Hammer Museum. Conceived by Alice Waters and David Tanis, the farm-to-table restaurant allows people to experience regenerative, sustainable and seasonal produce. As a forager, Pirtle sourced local food from farmers markets and from around L.A. for their rotating menu.

“I would ask the chef, ‘Is there something special you want to make, and is there an ingredient that you’re looking for?’ And then I would go out and find the item,” Pirtle said.

This work and the connections made at Lulu deepened Pirtle’s interest in pursuing further education at UCLA. Pirtle became a dual degree student because she believes public policy can take a finite amount of resources and create infinite public good, such as through programs like CalFresh and farmer subsidies to help address food insecurity and inequities.

For her, it was a full-circle moment: UCLA was always Pirtle’s dream school, and she recognizes UCLA professors Kimberlé Crenshaw and Cheryl Harris, both legal scholars on race and justice, as two of the main reasons why.

She plans to use the knowledge gleaned from her dual master’s to develop urban gardens and farmers markets in South L.A. Currently, she is working on developing a farmers market with her nonprofit Lily of the Nile 1992 and the Lulu Project, Lulu’s arm for regenerative food and community wellness.

“My impetus for attending graduate school was looking at the community I came from and figuring out how I can make a difference here,” she said. “It was about deepening my relationship to land, people and place.”

This article was originally published on UCLA Newsroom. Read the full article here.

Terriquez Helps Spotlight Forgotten Latina Lesbian Activists in Groundbreaking L.A. Exhibit Terriquez, director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and faculty at UCLA Luskin, supports powerful exhibition that brings long-overdue recognition to Latina lesbian activism in East Los Angeles.

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A new exhibition showcasing archival collections of prominent Latina lesbians and narrating their involvement in LGBTQ+, immigrant, labor, and housing justice movements, will be presented at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College.

Veronica Terriquez, director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) and professor of urban planning, supported the curation of the “On the Side of Angels” exhibition, which features materials from the CSRC Library archives: photography, posters, magazines, and video footage from the collections of policy and civil rights advocate Laura Esquivel, tenant rights attorney Elena Popp, and former CSRC librarian Yolanda Retter Vargas. The exhibition was co-curated by Vanessa Esperanza Quintero and Jocelyne Sanchez and is on view through August 30.

“Our mission is to share with the public as much history as possible, including highlighting historical moments — and people — who tend to not receive all the attention or credit for their important work,” Terriquez said. “We are incredibly proud of this exhibition because it features women who championed immigrant rights, safer working conditions, and broader acceptance of LGBTQ and other marginalized communities — efforts that have paved the way for cross-movement solidarity in Los Angeles and beyond.”

Terriquez is co-founder of the Latina Futures 2050 Lab, an initiative focused on uplifting Latina leaders, scholars, and changemakers by producing research and storytelling that informs policy, empowers communities, and shapes a more inclusive future.

Her scholarship at UCLA Luskin centers on social movements, youth civic engagement, and intersectional equity, with a particular focus on low-income communities of color.

Terriquez Highlights Stark Latina Wage Gap in New Regional Study New research reveals significant wage gap for Latina workers in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties.

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Veronica Terriquez, a professor of Urban Planning and director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center, co-authored a recent UCLA-led study that reveals a stark wage disparity faced by Latina workers in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Despite making up nearly half of the female workforce in those regions, Latinas earn only 47–50 cents for every dollar earned by non-Hispanic white men — a gap Terriquez attributes to systemic barriers such as limited access to quality education and occupational segregation.

“Many Latinas are the primary earners in their households, and they contribute significantly as taxpayers and community members. When they are underpaid, the impact extends beyond individual workers, affecting families’ ability to access housing, education and health care and to plan for retirement,” the authors wrote in their analysis. “The consequences of their financial challenges ripple across the entire region.”

A Chicana sociologist and longtime advocate for social justice, Terriquez also co-founded the Latina Futures 2050 Lab, a CSRC initiative dedicated to advancing research and policies that promote equity and opportunity for Latina communities.

Read all Santa Cruz County reports here.

A Resourceful Upbringing Inspires a Life of Service Early life lessons propel Luskin Public Affairs major Cecy Rivera to fight for her community

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By Mary Braswell

As a sophomore in high school, Cecy Rivera set out to fix a problem she saw in her Orange County community.

Fellow students from low-income families like her own showed great promise, but they lacked the communication and leadership training needed to fulfill their potential. So Rivera secured a grant to co-found and co-teach a program to help bridge the skills gap.

That early success fueled Rivera’s activism and ambitions, and she has since won multiple honors, including a Bank of America Student Leaders award for civic-minded youth and an Obama Foundation scholarship for public service. At a ceremony at the United Nations, she was celebrated as a “Hispanic Star: Changemakers Shaping America.”

The UCLA Luskin Public Affairs major spent fall quarter in the intensely selective White House Internship Program, coming back to California just in time to cast her vote as the youngest member of the state’s 2024 Electoral College slate.

All of this by age 19.

“Public service is the one pathway that encompasses everything that I love and allows me to help people,” Rivera says.

Her earliest memories reveal a gift for creative problem-solving. Born in the United States, the daughter of farmworkers was raised in Mexico until age 7.

“What I learned during those years was how to make something where there is nothing,” she recalls.

“We would have art projects and classroom projects, and my family just didn’t have the money to buy the supplies,” so Rivera figured out how to make paintbrushes from string and pencils, and paint from whatever vegetables were in the house.

“All of those experiences taught me how to be scrappy, and I think that’s such a big asset now.”

woman in lilac jacket in ornate roomCecy Rivera casting her vote as a California elector in 2024 …
woman in lilac jacket in ornate room
woman in lilac jacket in ornate room
group of young people
group of young people

Upon her return to the U.S., Rivera was a star student, eventually attending a dual enrollment high school on the campus of Santa Ana Community College that enabled her to graduate with a liberal arts associate’s degree.

Off campus, she sought out experiences that would satisfy her thirst for learning: an apprenticeship at the UC Irvine School of Law, an internship with U.S. Rep. Lou Correa — and a financial literacy course she took at age 15 where she realized many of her peers were at a distinct disadvantage.

“Part of that program was creating a ‘Shark Tank’-like pitch of a business venture. And when I looked around the room, I felt that the students from my low-income community, most of them first-generation, weren’t actively participating.

“That’s when it hit me. These students have never had a course on public speaking, on interviewing, resume prep, on how to communicate, how to negotiate with one another, all of that.”

She drew on the skill she had honed since childhood: identifying a challenge and brainstorming a solution.

With her friend Avery Ngo, Rivera launched Competitive Edge, a program that would teach critical thinking, assertiveness, team-building, email etiquette and other professional skills to more than 700 disadvantaged students.

The venture, which debuted when Rivera was in 12th grade, was made possible with seed funding and mentorship from the Dragon Kim Foundation, an Orange County nonprofit supporting youth empowerment and entrepreneurship.

“At that point in my life, I had gone through so many supportive programs … and had the opportunity to experience how other people behave, the way they carry themselves, their demeanor,” Rivera said. “And so I knew that I had to give that back to the students, to show them an example of what else was out there.

“And by building this organization, I was able to find out the things that I was good at, like making community partnerships and reaching out to people and creating a curriculum. I loved it.”

After this first entrepreneurial experience, doors of opportunity opened, one after the other. Rivera’s internship with Congressman Correa led him to support her participation as a California elector. And the coveted White House internship brought a series of “wow moments,” including watching Marine One lift off and meeting the vice president, first lady and Cabinet officials.

“As a little Mexican girl who could never even dream of anything like this, it was incredible,” she says.

Now at UCLA, she’s on track to complete her Public Affairs major and Education minor in three years, with plans to graduate in 2026. She aspires to develop new school designs and curricula that broaden opportunities for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status.

This summer, Rivera will travel abroad to study innovative educational models and bring their lessons back home. The trip will be funded through her Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship, a two-year program to shape the next generation of leaders.

“One thing that we can do right now is tailor our curriculum to be more individualized, to bank on the unique interests and talents of each student, to get them to explore and expand their horizons,” she says.

“Why not make school, the one place where students spend so much of their time, the place where they grow the most?”

 

 

Training Youth to Turn Their Passion Into Action Undergrad Fiona Lu advocates for economic justice by forming strategic coalitions, including with UCLA Luskin alumni

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By Mary Braswell

UCLA Luskin undergrad Fiona Lu entered the world of political activism while still in high school, moved by the realization that students like her could effect real change — with the right tools and strategies. Her vision is already paying off with legislative success, including the recent passage of a California law expanding access to menstrual products.

“Your experience as a community member is all you need to be a policy advocate,” says Lu. “You don’t need to have a prestigious degree — what you see in your community matters.”

With the dual goals of advancing economic justice and training other young people to maximize their political impact, Lu co-founded the advocacy organization What We All Deserve in November 2023. The group’s outreach to California lawmakers included two UCLA Luskin alumni, Assemblyman Isaac Bryan MPP ’22 and Sen. Caroline Menjivar MSW ’22, who authored and co-authored AB 1810.

The new law ensures that the state’s incarcerated population has unimpeded access to menstrual products, addressing what Bryan called a “gross abuse of power” in jails, prisons and juvenile facilities, where period products were at times withheld in an atmosphere of coercion, humiliation or harassment.

“It’s an issue at the intersection of gender rights, reproductive rights, but also poverty,” says Lu, a second-year student with plans to major in Public Affairs and Labor Studies and minor in Asian American Studies.

two young women at podium

Lu, right, and Esther Lau, co-founders of the What We All Deserve advocacy group. Photo by Monet Oganesian

AB 1810 is one of two What We All Deserve-supported bills that have been enacted, and two more are in the pipeline. In recognition of its impact, the group was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from an Allstate Foundation initiative to support youth empowerment.

Lu says her activism is shaped in part by the help that she, her mother and her 7-year-old brother have received through government assistance programs.

“I was a free lunch kid. And I still benefit from a lot of support systems the state of California and the federal government provide, like the Pell Grant and the Cal Grant,” Lu says.

“These support systems are so, so crucial, not just for people who are impoverished but also for people who might be going through a period of unemployment. Your economic circumstances can affect your physical and mental health and the type of life you think can be possible for you.”

Before launching her own advocacy venture, Lu was active in student-powered organizations such as Gen-Up and California High School Democrats, where she learned tangible ways to turn policy priorities into action. Key among those is building alliances with elected officials.

Last year, when What We All Deserve was working on the proposal that would become AB 1810, Lu reached out to Bryan.

“He has a such a robust background in criminal justice advocacy, and we were really glad that he was able to champion this idea,” she said.

Her first contact with Menjivar came years before, when Lu was a junior in high school. Menjivar had just been elected to represent a San Fernando Valley district in the state Senate, and Lu felt she would be the perfect author of another bill, still pending, that would make menstrual products affordable for low-income Californians.

“Sen. Menjivar is a social worker, and she knows how much access to basic needs affects your health and your overall well-being,” says Lu. “So I contacted her office and said, ‘We have this really cool policy idea. I would love it if we could meet with you.’ And she said yes.

“We really want to let young people know that sometimes it’s just that easy.”

Menjivar said that, as a state senator, she has prioritized authoring youth-serving and youth-led bills, and Lu is one of her strongest legislative collaborators.

“Not only a pleasure to work with, Fiona also has a pivotal voice that’s deeply knowledgeable on the issues young people face today,” says Menjivar.

“She is a determined leader in grassroots advocacy, including building the youth coalitions that are so important to our future, and I’ve absolutely loved every opportunity we’ve had to work together.”

Through What We All Deserve, Lu and co-founder Esther Lau are sharing these strategies for forging effective alliances with youth across California and now Texas and New York.

“A lot of times, young people think they have to have policy expertise or technical data or something super hardcore to speak to the people we elect,” Lu says. “But they’re supposed to represent your voices, and you’re supposed to feel comfortable talking to them. So that’s a big part of what we’re trying to demystify.”

Lu applied to UCLA as a Public Affairs pre-major because of its emphasis on social change.

“It’s a really unique program. We’ve already established that there is inequality in the U.S., in California, in our own communities. But in these classes, we’re asking, how can we work toward rectifying that? And how can we find policy solutions that are grounded in community values?”

She honed her advocacy skills during UCLA’s summer internship program in Washington, D.C. And at the invitation of Social Welfare Professor Laura Wray-Lake, Lu addressed an international youth conference hosted by UCLA Luskin last spring and beamed to an audience of 720,000 people worldwide.

Lu says her work is motivated in large part by the brother she is helping to raise.

“Watching my brother grow up has helped me really ground my anti-poverty work in this idea that children deserve this,” she says. “All children are not born in the same circumstances. But all of them deserve to thrive.”

This story appears in the 2025 issue of Luskin Forum magazine, coming soon in print and online.

Zev: Legendary L.A. Politico Retires From UCLA Luskin Faculty Yaroslavsky used his real-world experience grappling with the region's knottiest problems to teach and mentor UCLA Luskin students

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UCLA’s Blueprint magazine interviewed Zev Yaroslavsky, who joined the UCLA Luskin faculty after decades serving in elected office in Los Angeles. Yaroslavsky is retiring from teaching this summer but will continue to direct one of the Luskin School’s signature projects, the annual Quality of Life Index measuring Angelenos’ contentment with life in L.A. This article is reprinted with the permission of Blueprint.

By Jean Merl

On the eve of a Jewish holiday last fall, Zev Yaroslavsky was standing in the front yard of his Los Angeles home when a neighbor he hadn’t seen for a while walked by on his way to the synagogue. The man stopped to greet Yaroslavsky and posed a question that gladdened the former longtime elected official.

“‘Is it my imagination, or has the homeless situation gotten better around here?’” Yaroslavsky recalled the man asking.

“It’s not your imagination,” Yaroslavsky responded, adding details about at least two area homeless encampments that were cleared when their inhabitants had been housed and offered services under Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program.

“It took time, but they housed them,” Yaroslavsky, 75, said in a far-ranging interview as he prepared to retire this spring from his second career, teaching at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. “They didn’t just sweep them to another street. They housed them. It’s not easy, but you can do it.”

Yaroslavsky knows his subject. He served nearly four decades as an elected official: on the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 to 1994, when he was elected to the county Board of Supervisors. Term limits required him to retire from that post in 2014. Until then, he had wrestled with — and helped shape responses to — nearly every major issue in the region: health care, land development, open space preservation, police reform, public transportation, cultural development. And homelessness.

Soon after leaving the Board of Supervisors, Yaroslavsky was invited to return to UCLA, where he had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees before leaving a doctoral program to pursue a calling to social activism and politics. He eschewed a common path for retiring politicians — a corporate position or a lobbying or consulting gig — in favor of joining his alma mater, a public university where he could continue his life of service.

“I wanted to bring a real-world perspective to students,” he said. “And I wanted to learn from them.”

From elected office to academia

Yaroslavsky’s decade at the Luskin School has placed him squarely at the intersection of public policy and academia. He has taught classes on public policy and directed the Los Angeles Initiative, which conducts the Quality of Life Index, an annual survey of county residents’ satisfaction levels in several categories, including housing costs and homelessness.

He has helped steer bright young students into careers in public service, including Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles). In the spring of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, he turned his class into a crash course in crisis management by inviting various public officials to talk — via Zoom — about how they were responding to the pandemic.

Although academics and politicians often don’t speak the same language, Yaroslavsky said it is important that they listen to and learn from one another.

“I do think there is a functional role between academia and government,” he said, noting that think tanks and researchers provide data and reports for policymakers to use in their attempts to find solutions to pressing problems. “It’s important,” he adds, “for academics to understand the pressure politicians are under from constituents and for politicians to know what the facts are.”

Paying attention to the research helps policymakers find solutions and avoid mistakes. “We can’t live without it,” he said.

A history of homelessness

In his role as an academic, Yaroslavsky was one of the authors of a comprehensive study of homelessness in the region, published in 2021 by the Luskin Center for History and Policy. “The Making of a Crisis: A History of Homelessness in Los Angeles” detailed some 120 years of ebbs and flows in the problem, including causes and recommendations.

Earlier, during his time as a county supervisor, Yaroslavsky led an effort to take a comprehensive approach to homelessness, a problem he compares to a Rubik’s Cube — a complicated puzzle that can’t be solved quickly or easily.

In 2007, he spearheaded Project 50, a two-year county pilot project that focused on Skid Row people who were deemed the most vulnerable. The project got them into housing and offered them services to help with the issues that had caused them to be homeless, including addiction and mental health problems. It was based on a successful program in New York City, and it pioneered what is now the standard thinking about ways to combat homelessness — first, provide a home, then address underlying problems to keep people from falling back into life on the streets. The process can be costly and time-consuming, and its success depends in part on removing such stumbling blocks as housing costs, racial discrimination and poor education. But advocates of this approach say the social and financial costs of not solving what has become a crisis are much higher.

Man seated and autographing bookYaroslavsky signs a copy of his memoir “Zev’s Los Angeles” at a UCLA book event in 2023. Photo by Mary Braswell
Man seated and autographing book
Man seated and autographing book
Man with bouquet of flowers
Man with bouquet of flowers

For years, Yaroslavsky said, he had behaved like most other politicians. Stay away from homelessness, was the standard political advice, because it’s intractable and costly and you will be branded a failure if your efforts fall short. And it was easier back then to ignore homelessness because it was largely confined to Skid Row and not the crisis that has spread throughout many communities and spilled into pricy, middle-class neighborhoods today.

He said this began to change in 2002, when his daughter, then in graduate school and living in the Bay Area, urged him to pay attention to the issue. He hired a deputy to work on homelessness in 2005. She told him about a pioneering “housing first” program in New York City. On a visit there to attend his son’s law school graduation in 2007, Yaroslavsky toured the program, Common Ground, based in the converted Times Square Hotel, and met with its founder. He pushed for something similar in Los Angeles.

Project 50 worked well for a time. Clients stayed housed and accepted support services, and budget officials found the costs were more than made up by the savings in emergency room visits, arrests and other consequences of life on the streets. A county analysis showed the program cost $2.2 million but saved $2.4 million. As the pilot program was nearing its end in 2009, Yaroslavsky proposed extending and expanding it to 500, then to 5,000, taking it countywide. But he couldn’t get a second from any of the other four supervisors. Yaroslavsky put smaller projects based on the Project 50 model into his own district, but the countywide version died.

Since then, homelessness has exploded into a region-wide crisis that no longer can be ignored, Yaroslavsky said, lamenting that the failure to expand Project 50 in 2009 “basically cost us almost a decade” in solving the problem.

In 2016, voters in the city of Los Angeles approved Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure for permanent supportive housing, and the following year, county voters approved Measure H, which enacted a 1⁄4-cent increase on the sales tax for 10 years to alleviate homelessness. Bass won the mayor’s office in November 2022 after a campaign that centered around combating homelessness. Her first official act was to declare a state of emergency because of homelessness. County supervisors followed suit a month later.

Reflections on service and politics

Yaroslavsky, in his 2023 memoir, “Zev’s Los Angeles: From Boyle Heights to the Halls of Power,” called homelessness “the moral challenge of our time” and outlined ways to meet it. His experiences naturally have informed his views on Bass’ attempts. He gives her high marks while acknowledging there is still a long way to go. Other circumstances, ranging from income disparity to the lack of an elected executive in the power-diffused county, also pose considerable obstacles, he added.

A Los Angeles Times analysis of Bass’ program late last year found significant progress in her goal to find shelter for those living on the streets and clear the encampments that had sprung up along public rights of way. But the campaign to find or build permanent affordable housing remained a tough challenge. Bass called improving the system of support services, including substance addiction treatment, a “top, top issue” as the program headed into its second year.

Yaroslavsky praised Bass for her comprehensive approach and willingness to put herself in charge of the program and accept responsibility for it.

“I’m a cheerleader for her,” Yaroslavsky said. “I think she’s doing the right thing.”

But he’s realistic, too. “I’ve said from the start that [homelessness] was not created overnight and it’s not going to be solved overnight. But she’s making progress, and she has created a sense of possibility and is publicly committed to solving the problem.”

Bass also is well suited to the task because of her collaborative manner and her background as a physician’s assistant and community activist before being elected to the state Assembly and then Congress, Yaroslavsky said. He also touted her commitment to Los Angeles.

“She has made it clear she is not interested” in running for another office and probably has eight years to work on the issue, said Yaroslavsky, who expects Bass will serve a second term.

But one of the toughest obstacles to overcoming the problem is an acute shortage of affordable housing.

Increasingly, people are at risk of falling into homelessness, not because they are drug or alcohol abusers or mentally ill, but because they can no longer afford their rent on the wages they earn, Yaroslavsky said. Remedying that will take government intervention, including but not limited to housing subsidies, so that “the people who provide the backbone of the labor market here can afford to live here and not be forced out onto the street” where they eventually develop other problems.

“There’s a structural inequity in our housing economy that creates this homelessness problem,” Yaroslavsky said, “and we’ve got to deal with it.”

L.A. County Residents’ Satisfaction With Quality of Life Matches Lowest in Year 9 of Survey High cost of housing is the most important factor impacting the annual Quality of Life Index, particularly among renters

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By Les Dunseith

Concerns over the high cost of living pushed the satisfaction of Los Angeles County residents back to its lowest-ever level, with renters feeling especially pessimistic about their futures, according to an annual UCLA survey.

The Quality of Life Index, or QLI, is a project of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs  that measures county residents’ satisfaction in nine categories. The overall rating fell two points from last year to 53 on a scale from 10 to 100, marking the second time in three years it came in below the survey’s 55 midpoint since the index launched in 2016. That means a majority of respondents are dissatisfied with the overall quality of their lives.

fever chart shows rating change over time

The cost-of-living rating dropped from 41 to 38, the lowest satisfaction score ever observed for any category in the survey. Although all major demographic subgroups rated the cost of living negatively, the lowest scores came from women, 36 (33 from those 50–64 years old) and Latinas, 36 — as well as renters, 35.

Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the study at UCLA, said renters, who make up nearly half of survey respondents, are being disproportionately affected by the economic and inflationary pressures facing the region. More than half, or 59%, cited housing as the most important factor in their rating.

“Housing costs have gone up,” Yaroslavsky said. “And incomes have not gone up anywhere near commensurate with what’s happened to housing.”

While 61% of homeowners feel optimistic about their economic future in Los Angeles County, 51% of renters report being pessimistic. Only 23% of renters think they will be able to buy a home where they would want to live at some point in the future.

pie chart shows only one in four renters expect to buy a home eventually

 

This year’s survey also produced striking results on the issue of homelessness.

“We discovered very little optimism about whether the current programs and efforts to eradicate homelessness will work,” Yaroslavsky said.

More than half, or 60%, of respondents said homelessness in their area has gotten worse over the past year, with only 10% saying it has gotten better. Just 20% are more hopeful than they were last year that the homelessness situation in Los Angeles County will improve.

Respondents were also asked whether they worried about becoming homeless themselves, with the highest levels of anxiety expressed by people living in households earning less than $60,000 annually at 44%, renters 37% and African Americans 33%.

“Despite the best efforts of state and local officials, the public is more negative and less hopeful about solving homelessness,” Yaroslavsky said.

In an election year, do such findings signal possible voter upheaval?

“It feeds an overall sense that things aren’t working well,” said Yaroslavsky, a former elected official. He framed this year’s results in the context of nearly a decade’s worth of research showing positive results for neighborhood quality and racial/ethnic relations, but low marks in categories commonly associated with decisions by public officials.

“A main theme over the last nine years is that Angelenos love the neighborhoods where they live. We appreciate diversity and get along with others better than some people think. And the quality of life for most of us is pretty good,” he said. “But at some fundamental level, people think our governmental institutions are letting them down.”

The QLI showed minor changes from the previous year in most categories, although satisfaction with education fell three points to 48, the second-lowest score behind cost of living. While transportation/traffic jumped eight points in importance from 2023, it remained among the three lowest categories in quality-of-life importance.

Among Angelenos who are employed, 55% are working full time at a workplace away from their home. Of those, 59% of Latinos, 64% of African Americans, 63% of men over age 50 and 63% of Latino men always work away from home.

The last year has seen a modest decline in most ratings for elected officials.

  • Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna is viewed favorably by 34% and unfavorably by 26%. Last year was 37% favorable and 21% unfavorable.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is viewed favorably by 42% and unfavorably by 32%, a drop from 46% favorable and 23% unfavorable in last year’s QLI.
  • Respondents had a slightly favorable view of the city councils in their cities: 37% favorable and 32% unfavorable. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is viewed more negatively: 27% favorable and 35% unfavorable.

Regarding the environment, 25% of respondents said climate change had a major impact on their quality of life in the last year; 38% saw a minor impact. The 2024 QLI also asked about the availability of air conditioning: 75% of Angelenos have it in their homes but with substantial variation by region, income and race/ethnicity.

  • Some of the differences likely relate to climate patterns: 48% of residents in the ocean-cooled South Bay communities have air conditioning compared to 92% in the hotter San Fernando Valley.
  • Residents most lacking in air conditioning, 40%, are at the lowest end of the income scale (under $30,000 per year), compared to just 11% for those making over $150,000 per year. And 30% of renters do not have air conditioning.

This year’s QLI is based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with 1,686 county residents from Feb. 22 to March 14. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3%.

Funding for the Quality of Life Index is provided by Meyer and Renee Luskin through the Los Angeles Initiative. The full report is being published April 17 as part of UCLA’s Luskin Summit.

View the report and other information about this year’s study, plus previous Quality of Life Indexes, on the website of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

text with report name and a map of Los Angeles County