UCLA study looking at quality of life finds LA County residents are not satisfied

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- According to a survey conducted by UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs, the quality of life for L.A. County residents remains low. What's to blame? Inflation, homelessness, and the lack of affordable housing.

"The lower income folks are the same people who's income hasn't come back to pre-pandemic levels and they're the ones getting clobbered by inflation," said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former elected official and the current director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA.

The survey says 94% of respondents said they were affected by inflation, 25% of participants said they're afraid their own families will go hungry and 73% said their quality of life has been impacted in the last year by a homeless encampment.

"Twenty-eight percent of our respondents said they go to bed at night losing their home and becoming homeless as a result," said Yaroslavsky. "28%. There are 10 million people who live in this county. That means 2.8 million people go to bed at night worried they're going to become homeless."

Paul Krekorian, the President of the Los Angeles City Council, said wage disparity, the cost of living and the cost of housing are all going to dramatically impede the county's ability to recover.

"That has to be our singular focus," he said.

One of the overall takeaways was that only 23% of those surveyed expect life to return to the way it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evidence of that: 36% said they work between home and work and 14% said they always work from home.

However, lower income residents were more likely to work away from home and 61% more likely than those who live in higher income households.

This was the survey's 8th year and saw the second lowest quality of life rating, only two points higher than last year.

The survey was presented at the UCLA Luskin Summit, which ABC7's Josh Haskell had the honor of moderating. Students we spoke with ABC7 said they were inspired by elected officials and leading experts in the environment, housing, and homelessness.

"There's just so many people here and so many people who come here to make change. Yes, there's a lot of issues, but there's a lot of issues elsewhere as well and I think we can make change that can then be replicated elsewhere as well," said UCLA student Eleanor Murphy.