The University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate today released its second annual State of Los Angeles County Housing and Neighborhoods (SOLACHAN) report, a comprehensive, data-driven examination of the county's housing and demographic landscape.
This year's report identifies signs of progress in Los Angeles County’s housing market, including record-setting production of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), the share of new rental units affordable to low-income households nearly doubling (from an average of 10% in prior years to almost 20% this year), and a leveling off of homelessness after more than a decade of steady increases. The report also cautions that L.A. County continues to fall short of its state-mandated housing goals, and that the region's housing challenges are far from solved.
“This year, we have real bright spots to point to,” said Jared Schachner, the report’s Research Director. “Our report shows that when voters and local leaders make it easier to build and invest in expanding affordable housing, it works: housing gets built, and more of it reaches the families who need it most. Unfortunately, our county’s housing shortage has been decades in the making. This year's gains barely scratch the surface, but we’re seeing that progress is possible.”
The following insights from the report illuminate trends in the region's current housing and demographic landscape:
Housing Supply: Slow but Meaningful Progress, with Modest Gains in Affordability
● Housing production has dropped significantly since the 1950s, even as the county’s population has continued to grow.
● In 2025, 19% of new rental units were affordable to low-income households. This almost doubles the share of affordable new rental units over the last seven years, which was only 10%.
● Despite an overall dip in housing production from 2024 to 2025, ADU production surged; 2025 was the highest annual total of new ADUs on record. Even with this ADU growth, L.A. County continues to fall well short of its state-mandated housing goals.
Population Characteristics: A Rebound, But Fewer Young Families
● In 2024, L.A. County saw the first signs of population growth since its decline began in 2015. Year over year, the county gained around 100,000 new residents, partially reversing pandemic-era losses while mirroring a nationwide trend in metropolitan growth.
● The number of households in L.A. County continues to grow, straining the region’s housing supply, though a decline in single-person households in 2024 – the first in years and in line with a national trend – may offer some relief.
● L.A. County's under-24 population plummeted between 2014 and 2024, declining by nearly twice the national rate. At the same time, the share of households with children in L.A. County dropped from above the national average to below it.
Homeowners: A Market Stuck in Place
● Homeownership remains far less common in L.A. County compared with the rest of California and the country.
● Over the last decade, homeownership rates have fallen across all income groups, but middle-income households have experienced the steepest declines.
● Demand for mortgages in L.A. County is historically low, with fewer applications in the past three years than during the aftermath of the Great Recession.
Renters: More High Earners Renting, More Low Earners Burdened
● Compared to a decade ago, a greater share of renter households in L.A. County are earning over $150,000, a sign that more high-income households are remaining renters for longer as barriers to homeownership mount.
● In 2024, more than half of renters (57%) in L.A. County are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Black renters consistently face the highest rent burden levels in the county, with Hispanic/Latino renters facing the second highest.
● The percentage of renters enduring severe rent burden — spending more than 50% of income on rent — has doubled over the past decade among middle-income households (those earning $50,000 to $100,000), showing that this problem is no longer confined to the lowest earners.
Houseless Angelenos: Numbers Stabilize, But Unsheltered Rates Stay High
● After more than a decade of steady increases, homelessness in LA County has leveled off. The 2025 count fell by 5% (to under 67,800) and held flat in 2026.
● A growing number of unhoused Angelenos live in vehicles. From 2022 through 2025, the number of vehicles exceeded the number of people sleeping on the street or in tents and makeshift shelters. This population’s needs also differ significantly, as individuals living in vehicles are more likely to be employed and less likely to experience chronic homelessness.
● The vast majority of unhoused Angelenos lived in L.A. County before losing housing, and just 1% were last housed outside the U.S., indicating no evidence that immigration is a driver.
● Women and girls account for 1 in 3 unhoused Angelenos and are more likely to be sheltered than unsheltered, while Black residents remain overrepresented among L.A. County’s unhoused population.
Naturally Affordable Housing in Los Angeles County: Measuring an Aging but Critical Supply
● Naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) is unsubsidized rental housing that remains affordable, especially compared to newer market-rate housing. Historically difficult to measure, this analysis identifies NOAH by building age and size.
● According to our novel classification scheme, NOAH units — built before 2000 — span three tiers of relative affordability within L.A. County's 1.08 million multifamily rental units in buildings of 5+ units, out of 1.85 million total occupied rental units countywide. The smallest, most affordable buildings (Core) make up 43% of that multifamily stock, mid-sized buildings (Expanded) make up 23%, and larger buildings (Marginal) make up 9%.
● Hollywood-Studio City stands out, with both the largest total NOAH stock (approximately 155,000 units across all three tiers) and the second-highest concentration of NOAH units (61% of its rental units).
● Even in the most affordable NOAH buildings (Core NOAH), the typical renter – who has a lower income, on average, than renters in non-NOAH units – spends 35% of their income on rent and thus remains cost-burdened. Yet they would likely spend more of their income on rent if forced to move into a non-NOAH unit. Because subsidized housing cannot be built or scaled quickly enough to replace this stock, preserving NOAH is essential to sustaining what affordability the county's rental market still has.
“One of the starkest patterns in this year's data is that renters who might otherwise be positioned to buy are locked out of homeownership,” said Schachner. “This finding reflects many of the county’s housing challenges at once. By restricting supply, we’ve effectively calcified the housing market, preventing many would-be homeowners from accessing ownership opportunities. These relatively affluent would-be homeowners may be bidding up rents, preventing low-income renters from securing stable and affordable units, and precluding unhoused Angelenos from accessing the housing market altogether. The County is finally beginning to turn the tide: investments in affordable rental housing are bearing fruit, and the homelessness crisis appears to have reached an ebb. But sustaining this momentum and building on it is crucial given the depth and persistence of the County’s housing challenges.”
Developed by USC Lusk's Neighborhood Data for Social Change (NDSC), SOLACHAN builds on NDSC's longstanding work to make neighborhood-level data accessible and actionable. Launched in 2017, NDSC is a publicly available online platform created to equip community leaders, policymakers, and advocates with reliable information on ten primary factors that shape neighborhood well-being, including demographics, education, employment and income, air and water quality, food insecurity, health issues, housing and real estate, public safety, and social connectedness. While the NDSC platform makes neighborhood-level data on these indicators available for public use, SOLACHAN provides a focused, in-depth annual analysis of housing access, affordability, availability, and inequality across L.A. County, including measures of progress toward meeting the region's state-mandated housing goals.
This year's report also features a dedicated chapter presenting an original method developed in partnership with Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA) for identifying naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH): unsubsidized rental housing that is relatively affordable compared to other units in the market. The chapter serves as a proof point for what a more integrated data infrastructure could offer L.A. County: a clearer, more coordinated picture of progress toward the region's affordable housing goals. The report was further supported by LABarometer, a research center housed at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, and the USC Homelessness Policy Research Institute.
This year's report also features a dedicated chapter presenting an original method developed in partnership with Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA) for identifying naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH): unsubsidized rental housing that is relatively affordable compared to other units in the market. The chapter serves as a proof point for what a more integrated data infrastructure could offer L.A. County: a clearer, more coordinated picture of progress toward the region's affordable housing goals. The report was further supported by LABarometer, a research center housed at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, and the USC Homelessness Policy Research Institute.