Jack Ross

Los Angeles

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Local journalist. RTs ≠ endorsements.

Articles

Santa Monica's elite are using an airport to block affordable housing

5 days ago | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publications Capital & Main and KCRW. It is co-published here with permission. In the neighborhoods surrounding the Santa Monica Airport, homeowners know little peace. Every few minutes, the whine of a jet engine intrudes on the suburban soundscape. But relief is coming. In 2017, locals won a more than seven-decade fight to close the airport. It is scheduled to shutter once and for all on Dec. 31, 2028.
Could Santa Monica Airport Closure Spur Push for Housing?

1 week ago | laprogressive.com | Jack Ross |Rob Maurer

A campaign to build housing on the site of the soon-to-be-shuttered airport is drawing pushback from opponents of new development. In the neighborhoods surrounding the Santa Monica Airport, homeowners know little peace. Every few minutes, the whine of a jet engine intrudes on the suburban soundscape. But relief is coming. In 2017, locals won a more than seven-decade fight to close the airport. It is scheduled to shutter once and for all on December 31, 2028.
Santa Monica Airport Closure Spurs Push for Housing

1 week ago | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

This article was produced in partnership with KCRW. In the neighborhoods surrounding the Santa Monica Airport, homeowners know little peace. Every few minutes, the whine of a jet engine intrudes on the suburban soundscape. But relief is coming. In 2017, locals won a more than seven-decade fight to close the airport. It is scheduled to shutter once and for all on Dec. 31, 2028. Santa Monica residents voted in 2014 to build a park on the site of the airport.
Maui’s Post-Wildfire Housing Crisis Offers a Warning for Los Angeles 🌴 🔥

Feb 6, 2025 | hothouse.substack.com | Jack Ross |Cadence Bambenek

Hello, dear Hothouse readers,I’m still digesting the new administration and the devastating L.A. Fires. I imagine I’m not alone. Given everything January threw at us, I’m working to pull together a dispatch to help us navigate the months ahead. In the meantime, before current events entirely eclipse recent memory of the L.A. Fires, I wanted to share this critical story by Capital & Main. This reporting previews lessons from the housing crunch unfolding now in Los Angeles County following the fires.
Maui's post-wildfire housing crisis offers a warning for LA

Jan 31, 2025 | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main. It is co-published here with permission. It wasn’t the images of flames ripping through neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and Altadena this month that really triggered Jordan Hocker’s anxiety. It was the flood of social media posts about rent-gouging in nearby Los Angeles County communities that appeared in the days that followed.
Maui’s Post-Wildfire Housing Crisis Offers a Warning for Los Angeles

Jan 28, 2025 | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

It wasn’t the images of flames ripping through neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and Altadena this month that really triggered Jordan Hocker’s anxiety. It was the flood of social media posts about rent-gouging in nearby Los Angeles County communities that appeared in the days that followed. Hocker lived on Maui when wildfires destroyed as many as 4,000 housing units in August 2023, leveling the town of Lahaina.
Abolish rent in LA? Tenant union founders imagine a different world.

Oct 17, 2024 | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publicationÂ Capital & Main.Â It is co-published here with permission. When Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two of the founders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, organized tenants in rent strikes such as the mariachis in Boyle Heights, they saw tenants could refuse to pay rent, win better conditions and still keep their homes.
After Years of Fighting Landlords, Activists Say the Problem Is Not High Rent - It Is Rent Itself

Oct 8, 2024 | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

When Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two of the founders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, organized tenants in rent strikes such as the mariachis in Boyle Heights, they saw tenants could refuse to pay rent, win better conditions and still keep their homes. To tenants’ surprise, “their keys still open the locks” and “their home, though they have not paid for it, persists,” they write in Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis.
Why so many Californians lose their evictions before trial

Aug 19, 2024 | kcrw.com | Jack Ross

In the Mount Washington home of Sal Gonzalez and Erica Orosco, cockroaches are skittering out of the shower wall. For months, Orosco and Gonzalez have pleaded with their landlords to fix dozens of problems in their family's apartment, including mold, a sagging roof, and holes in the floor. Then in March, the landlords filed an eviction against the couple, claiming the property's issues were the family's fault. "It's not like we're not paying the rent," Gonzalez says.
Two nights of violence at UCLA’s Solidarity Encampment

May 8, 2024 | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross |Joey Scott |Martin Macias

The masked men could be seen through the cracks in the wall — their hands snatched through the boards, grabbing at protesters’ faces — all while Israeli children’s music blared across Dickson Plaza. It was April 30, 2024. The mob beat protesters with sticks, sprayed them with bear mace, and tore down the boards forming the eastern barricade of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at UCLA. Twenty-four hours later, the boards were being ripped down again — this time by law enforcement.