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MONDAY, MAY 04-MAY 10, 2026
Report: Rents in LA County still unaffordable but drop to 4-year low
VOL. 15,
The Trump administration aims to penalize disabled adults who live with their families By Eli Hager, ProPublica
By Joe Taglieri joet@beaconmedianews.com
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive The Big Story newsletter as soon as it’s published.
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he average residential rent in Los Angeles County has fallen to the lowest level in four years, but housing affordability remains elusive for many residents, according to a report released Wednesday. The median monthly rent cost fell to $2,520 in the first quarter of this year, down $97, or 3.7%, from 2025 and significantly under the peak of the 2022 pandemic-era spike, Realtor.com reported. Despite the recent cost decline, economists said rents remain high relative to incomes. A household must earn over $107,000 annually in order to rent a typical residential housing unit in the region. “Los Angeles is a market in transition,” Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in a statement. “Supply has finally caught up, giving renters more options and more negotiating power than they’ve had in years. But falling rents don’t automatically mean affordable rents.” Within Los Angeles city limits, the median asking rent was $2,682 in the first quarter of 2026, down 3.5% from 2025, according to the report. A significant gap remains between current asking rents and what many tenants actually pay. The median contract rent was $1,804 in 2024, more than $1,000 lower than currently listed rental costs. Analysts noted that disparity has contributed to the number of renters staying in place, with more than 86% of tenants remaining in the same unit year over year. Policy changes enacted in December and scheduled to take effect in July are
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A high-density mixed-use apartment complex in North Hollywood. | Photo courtesy of Junkyarsparkle/ Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)
also expected to shape the market. Los Angeles’ new Rent Stabilization Ordinance will limit annual rent increases to a maximum of 4%, down from a previous 8% cap, and apply to about 75% of rental units in the city totaling roughly 650,000. “The new cap is meaningful protection for the renters it covers,” Realtor. com Economist Jiayi Xu said in a statement. “But rent control is a double-edged policy. The same financial incentives that keep tenants safely housed in belowmarket apartments also make it harder to move, for a new job, a bigger space, a different neighborhood. With the gap between staying and switching already exceeding $1,000 a month, that lock-in will only deepen.” The result is a reduction of available housing inventory, as fewer tenants move
out of units renting below market rates. Xu said this reduced turnover is likely to intensify competition for the limited number of rental units that do become available, pushing rents higher throughout the market and increasing the likelihood of bidding wars among prospective tenants. Market trends varied across LA County, with higher-priced coastal areas seeing some of the steepest median rent declines. In Beverly Hills, median asking rents dropped 9.3% to $4,574, while Santa Monica saw a 2.6% drop to $4,187. Even higher-end markets such as Malibu saw rent cost declines, down 3.6% to $14,871. Inland and transit-oriented communities, however, held steady or experienced increases. Pasadena rents See Rents Page 24
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jumped 5.8% to $2,823, while Long Beach saw a 2.4% rise to $2,624. Culver City rents were relatively flat, up 0.2% to $2,821. Analysts said the divergence indicates changing demand, with renters attracted toward relatively more affordable areas and neighborhoods with transit access, while higher-cost coastal markets are adjusting after pandemic-era rent spikes. Smaller units, primarily residences with zero to two bedrooms, have seen the most noteworthy rent decreases. The median rent for these units fell to $2,241, representing a year-overyear drop of $135, or 5.7%. In contrast, larger units with three or more bedrooms experienced a more modest decline of $103, or 2.8%,
ven a glance at Shy’tyra Burton’s life reveals her need for the sort of federal government assistance that helps disabled Americans stay in their homes. Born two months prematurely into a poor family in Philadelphia, unable to breathe or swallow without tubes and largely confined to medical facilities until age 4, Burton was diagnosed with a litany of developmental and intellectual disabilities that left her with an IQ below 70. She persevered and graduated from a high school special education program, then attempted community college. But she struggled to grasp basic tasks and information. She couldn’t get hired, including at McDonald’s. After multiple medical and psychological evaluations and a hearing before a judge, the federal government approved her for the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides a basic income to those with severe disabilities and to indigent older people. For Burton, now 22, the $994 monthly benefit is lifesaving but not enough to completely support herself on her own. So, like many SSI recipients, she has continued to live with her father, who makes around $2,000 a month as a Philadelphia sanitation worker. Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize people like Burton simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing. The administration is working See Disabled adults Page 07
on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether. The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud. White House Budget Director Russell Vought and Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano abandoned a different proposed regulation involving disability payments last year after ProPublica and other news outlets reported on the harm that the plan would cause to hundreds of thousands of largely bluecollar workers in red states. (The disability programs are administered by the Social Security Administration but separate from the retirement program for which the agency is named. The Trump administration has promised not to cut Social Security retirement payments.)