Los Angeles County has made modest progress in expanding affordable housing while homelessness has leveled off, but a severe housing shortage continues to leave renters burdened by rising costs and many would-be homebuyers priced out of the market, according to a USC report released Tuesday.
The USC Lusk Center’s second annual State of Los Angeles County Housing and Neighborhoods report found that production of accessory dwelling units reached a record high in 2025, while the share of new rental housing affordable to low-income households nearly doubled from an average of 10% in recent years to 19%.
Researchers cautioned that Los Angeles County remains well short of its state-mandated housing production goals despite the gains.
The report also noted that housing production has fallen sharply since the 1950s even as the county’s population has continued to grow.
“This year, we have real bright spots to point to,” Jared Schachner, the report’s research director, said in a statement.
“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 report also found the county’s population grew by roughly 100,000 residents in 2024, marking the first signs of population growth since declines began in 2015. At the same time, the number of households continued to increase, placing additional pressure on the housing supply.
Researchers also found Los Angeles County’s population under age 24 declined nearly twice as fast as the national rate between 2014 and 2024, while the share of households with children fell from above the national average to below it.
Homeownership remained significantly less common in Los Angeles County than in the rest of California and the nation, according to the report. Researchers found homeownership rates declined across all income groups over the past decade, with middle-income households experiencing the steepest drop.
The report found a greater share of higher-income households remain renters because of barriers to homeownership. More than half of renters — 57% — spend more than 30% of their income on rent, while the share of middle-income renters spending more than half of their income on rent has doubled over the past decade.
Researchers also found homelessness in Los Angeles County has stabilized after more than a decade of increases. The county’s homeless population declined 5% in 2025 to fewer than 67,800 people and remained essentially unchanged in 2026.
According to the report, a growing number of unhoused residents are living in vehicles rather than on the street or in tents and makeshift shelters, while the vast majority of people experiencing homelessness lived in Los Angeles County before losing their housing.
“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,” Schachner said. “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.”
The report also examined naturally occurring affordable housing, or unsubsidized rental housing that remains relatively affordable compared with newer market-rate housing.
Researchers identified three tiers of such housing among Los Angeles County’s 1.08 million multifamily rental units in buildings with five or more units. The smallest and most affordable buildings accounted for 43% of that multifamily housing stock, while mid-sized buildings accounted for 23% and larger buildings accounted for 9%.
Hollywood-Studio City had the county’s largest inventory of naturally occurring affordable housing, with approximately 155,000 units across the three categories, and the second-highest concentration, with such housing accounting for 61% of its rental units.
Even renters living in the most affordable category of those buildings typically spend 35% of their income on rent, according to the report.