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Jackie and Shadow, whose trials and triumphs in parenthood have been livestreamed to the world from Big Bear, got another shot at raising at least one chick this season after welcoming a third egg to their nest Tuesday.
Their legions of fans were left crushed earlier this year when Jackie's first two eggs were lost. Friends of Big Bear Valley, which operates the livestream, confirmed in January that an egg was cracked. A raven then came back to the nest later that day and breached both eggs.She could still lay another egg as part of her second clutch, like she did several years ago after her eggs also were broken or breached by ravens. She's typically fertile and able to lay eggs January through April each year.A Crosstown analysis of data indicates that the pace of actual building may be considerably slower. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’swas supposed to slash red tape and accelerate approval times for housing projects that consist entirely of affordable, or below market rate, units. She said builders had already broken ground on 6,000 of them.The slower-than-advertised pace of affordable units is just one part of a broader stagnation afflicting the city’s home-building sector. Last year, a total of 7,892 apartment units were permitted, according to. That includes everything from affordable units to luxury apartments. It represents a 1% increase from the year prior but a 34% decrease from 2019.address this month, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass boasted that her administration had fast-tracked the construction of more than 30,000 affordable housing units.was supposed to slash red tape and accelerate approval times for housing projects that consist entirely of affordable, or below market rate, units. She said builders already had broken ground on 6,000 of them.Just 26% of affordable units entitled during ED1’s first year, 2023, have been granted building permits, all of which have been approved for two years or more. “Mayor Bass was correct in her statement that 6,000 units are currently under construction,” the mayor’s press office said in a statement to Crosstown. The mayor’s office did not provide a clear explanation as to how that total was calculated. The slower-than-advertised pace of affordable units is just one part of a broader stagnation afflicting the city’s home-building sector. Last year, a total of 7,892 apartment units were permitted, according to. That includes everything from affordable units to luxury apartments. It represents a 1% increase from the year prior but a 34% decrease from 2019. Los Angeles faces an acute housing shortage, a problem that has exacerbated a longstanding homelessness crisis and has contributed to rising unaffordability that burdens many of the city’s residents. According to the Southern California Association of Governments, theDespite the chronic need for more housing, builders say they are up against an array of obstacles in Los Angeles. Production costs are more than double the average costs in Texas, according to a,” has also been blamed for construction slowdowns. The levy, which went into effect in April 2023, adds a 4% tax on residential and commercial properties sold for $5.3 million or more, and a 5.5% tax on properties sold for over $10.6 million, including apartment blocks. The revenues are intended to be put toward affordable housing. But the extra tax makes building an apartment project and then selling it particularly burdensome. Ari Kahan, principal of California Landmark Group, said his development firm has significantly scaled back their Los Angeles projects. “We still explore unique opportunities, but we cannot afford the risk of both ULA and the inevitable other shoe dropping on another related issue in the city of L.A.,” Kahan said. The city’s housing crisis has been at the forefront of Bass’s first term agenda. ED 1, which went into effect in 2023, was intended to fast-track construction by reducing approval times for affordable housing projects and shelters to 60 days. The directive prompted a flurry of new proposals. But moving those proposals from the drawing board to actual construction has been slow.— which incentivizes low-income housing near bus and train stations — have been big enticements for new development. However, Kahan said Measure ULA has made it difficult for developers to turn a profit on those projects, and he predicts that most of them will never be built.through January 2026. Critics assail the nickname “mansion tax” because the levy equally applies to multifamily apartment buildings and commercial properties, not just expensive single-family homes. Fifty-nine percent of transactions are single-family residences, 25% are commercial properties and 13% are multi-family residences, according to the Joe Donlin, director of United to House LA, the coalition of housing, labor and renters groups behind the measure, defended the tax and said it’s important to let the policy “breathe and take effect” to understand its full impact. He called the measure an economic engine for the city, adding that $400 million in ULA revenue went out to affordable housing developers last fall. “We’re talking about hundreds of new homes being built, thousands of new construction jobs, investment in neighborhoods that haven’t seen investment like this in a long time,” Donlin said. Donlin said Los Angeles’ housing struggles are likely due to stubbornly high interest rates, insurance costs and construction material costs around the time Measure ULA went into effect. Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president of LA Family Housing, said she has been able to sidestep Measure ULA because she manages the properties she builds instead of selling them. For her, one of the biggest affordable housing hurdles is a lack of federal assistance to help low-income tenants pay rent. “ largest housing gap is for our extremely and very low-income households. In order to make housing affordable to that target income group, it would require a larger allocation of rental subsidies,” Klasky-Gamer said.aimed to cut over $26 billion from federal rental assistance programs, but the House Appropriations Committee rejected the cuts andfor housing assistance programs. Tenant-based vouchers received $2.4 billion more than they did in the 2025 fiscal year, and the project-based rental assistance program received an extra $1.65 billion.In a rocky year for issued apartment permits, some Los Angeles neighborhoods showed marked increases, while others saw steep declines. Westchester had 787 apartment units permitted last year, the most of any neighborhood. North Hollywood had the second most at 502, and Mid-City had the third most with 449. Downtown saw a substantial dip in permits issued. Last year, 207 units were approved, nearly half as many as the year before and an 87% decrease from 2022. The regression comes as downtown contends with a massive homelessness population. Downtown had the most non-emergency calls for homeless encampments, 8,417, of any neighborhood in 2025, according to MyLA311 service data.and compared those with the Department of Building and Safety’s permits issued for new apartments. In addition, we compiled the number of apartment new units permitted for construction in the city over the past decade. In, Crosstown used a slightly different methodology to determine the number of permitted apartments in the city. The slight changes in methodology account for the difference in numbers in that article.East L.A. is the most populous unincorporated community in the state. Here’s what that means and how it affects its nearly 119,000 residents.East L.A. is not a city, and it’s not part of the city of L.A.. Instead, it’s an unincorporated part of L.A. County, and even though it’s the most populous unincorporated area in California, community organizers say many residents are unaware of the problems that raises.An unincorporated area is land within a county that has not been designated to be a city, meaning that it relies on county services, including for law enforcement, public works and local government. Instead of being governed by a city council and a mayor, major decisions for East L.A. residents fall under the authority of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.East Los Angeles is home to nearly 119,000 residents, but the community has no mayor or city hall.East L.A. is not a city, and it’s not part of the city of L.A. Instead, it’s an unincorporated part of L.A. County, and even though it’s the most populous unincorporated area in California, community organizers say many residents are unaware of the problems that raises., there are approximately 120 to 125 unincorporated areas in the county, which altogether represent two-thirds of its total area and one-tenth of its population. “For the 1 million people living in these areas, the Board of Supervisors is their ‘city council’ and the supervisor representing the area is their ‘mayor,’” the departmentAn unincorporated area is land within a county that has not been designated to be a city, meaning that it relies on county services, including for law enforcement, public works and local government. Instead of being governed by a city council and a mayor, major decisions for East L.A. residents fall under the authority of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. East L.A. residents have called for representation that’s more closely tied to their community and financial transparency, saying they want to know how their tax dollars are spent locally.Solis also makes decisions for the nearly 2 million other residents who live in District 1, which covers more than 20 cities, stretching from Silver Lake to Pomona, as well as various neighborhoods of the city of Los Angeles, including Boyle Heights and downtown.Independent cities often provide residents with their own municipal services such as law enforcement, firefighting, animal control, trash collection, road maintenance, library services and parks.: In addition to serving East L.A., the station also serves the cities of Commerce, Cudahy and Maywood, as well as unincorporated Belvedere Gardens, City Terrace, Eastmont, Saybrook Park and Union Pacific.The L.A. County Fire Department serves all of the unincorporated area within Los Angeles County, as well as 60 incorporated cities, 59 of which are in Los Angeles County and one in Orange County. L.A. County Public Works responds to calls about graffiti, potholes, illegal dumping, homeless encampments, transportation services and building and safety permits, among other things.211 L.A. County provides health and social service resources, including housing support, mental health care, financial assistance and recovery resources. During disasters, like wildfires and other crises, the line provides real-time information and can help people find shelter, food, financial help and emotional support.concluded that cityhood remains financially unviable for the region. Residents have continued their calls for more financial transparency and better representation. A new effort on the horizon may allow citizens to directly advise the county on issues unique to East LA.The report that deemed cityhood unfeasible for unincorporated East LA last year recommended the formation of a Municipal Advisory Council — a formal, citizen-led body that would provide residents with a structure for public input and give stakeholders a direct line of communication to county leadership. At the first of six community forums on Saturday, Feb. 21, some residents deemed the MAC a stepping stone towards proper incorporation down the line. Others asked for better economic investment and access to a localized, itemized budget every year for residents to understand how their tax dollars are spent on improving social services and local businesses. “Every problem we have, can be solved if we have a local government,” resident Francisco Cardenas. “We have nobody to complain to.”where residents are invited to weigh in. The next meeting will take place Thursday at East L.A. Library, located at 4837 E. Third St. Reporting for this story came from notes taken by Andrew Lopez, a Boyle Heights Beat contributor and Los Angeles Documenter, at the East LA MAC community forum on Feb. 21. The LA Documenters program trains and pays community members to document what happens at public meetings. Check out the meeting notes and audio onIf you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.Former L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley is suing the city of L.A., alleging that her removal after the Palisades Fire was retaliatory.Crowley from her role as chief in February 2025, saying that Crowley had failed to deploy enough firefighters before the Palisades Fire started. Last summer,against the city of L.A. and Bass in which she alleged defamation and that the mayor had thrown her under the bus after the fires.The lawsuit, filed Friday, accuses Bass of “orchestrating a campaign of retaliation to conceal the extent to which Bass undermined public safety and transparency.”about the risks posed by LAFD’s “worsening resource and staffing crisis” and instead further cut the department’s budget. She claims that Bass retaliated against her by removing her as fire chief and relegating her to a lower position in the department following comments Crowley made publicly about the LAFD being underfunded. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and “accountability for Bass’ calculated efforts to punish a dedicated LAFD civil servant for exposing the truth, and for choosing the safety of the city and its firefighters over the interests of Bass and her cover-up.”.: “There is nothing new here,” said Yusef Robb, senior advisor to Bass, in a statement. “Ms. Crowley was removed from her post for her failure to predeploy and her decision to send 1,000 firefighters home instead of keeping them on duty on the morning the fires broke out. This lawsuit has no merit.”For more on the fallout between Mayor Bass and Kristen Crowley over the city's response to the Palisades Fire, listen toOne in nine Angelenos experience medical debt in L.A. County, almost a million people. For the past two years, L.A. County has been working with a nonprofit, Undue Medical Debt, to help struggling residents by abolishing unpaid medical bills. We look at one person’s struggle with medical debt at a young age, and how she learned her bill got erased.Long Beach resident Alexy Cordova got into a car crash when she was just 16 years old. She needed multiple surgeries, and over the years her emergency visits continued because of constant pain. The visits created a mountain of medical bills that went into collections.One of her bills — a charge for $2,200 dollars — has been erased. That happened through a county pilot program with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, which buys the debt for pennies on the dollar.She says knowing that the bill is gone has been a big relief. She encourages others to do what she does now: get an itemized list and negotiate your bill.When she was 16 years old, Cordova was in a car crash that resulted in multiple surgeries on her spine and intestines. But over the years, her pain kept coming back to the point where she was constantly in the emergency room.For Cordova, who’s now 25, living with that debt was a heavy burden. She wanted to pay it off, but she was young, and with a minimum wage job, it was hard to save and focus on her education at the same time. “You want to pay this, but you have all these other bills,” Cordova said. “What comes first? Obviously not medical debt. I mean, not to me. I’m going to be honest.” Many of the bills went into collections. Recently, she paid a repair service to help take care of them — but then she received a letter in the mail. She almost assumed it was another bill, but when she opened it, she realized it was something else entirely.“ I definitely felt relieved,” she said. “Knowing that I have a bill really does stress me out, and it adds to everything that I have going on.” So far, L.A. County’s pilot program has abolished more than $363 million in unpaid medical bills, for 170,000 residents. You can’t apply for the relief; instead the program works with certain hospitals and healthcare providers to identify debts eligible for the program.shows that visiting an emergency room just once a year makes you twice as likely to face medical debt. It also disproportionally affects lower-income households and Latino and Black patients. Cordova says her situation happened because she wasn’t getting the right help at those emergency room visits, and doctors weren’t telling her where to go next. She ended up finding a specialist at the recommendation of her mother, a step that finally reduced her pain. Cordova has learned from her debt experience and has some suggestions: Ask for itemized bills any time you get charged for care, so you can see what you’re being asked to pay for, and “ If you don’t understand a charge, look into it. If you feel like it’s excessive, say something. I didn’t know that when I was younger,” she said. More medical debt relief is on the way for L.A. County residents. According to an Undue spokesperson, they have about half of the current contract still to spend for the pilot program.
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