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Shane Phillips

@shanedphillips.bsky.social
5.8K followers 329 following 984 posts

Housing guy. Researcher at UCLA Lewis Center, host of UCLA Housing Voice Podcast, author of The Affordable City, resident of Los Angeles.

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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 2h
Haha. That is not how this is supposed to work!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 3h
🎵Democrat for Senate, California🎵
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 4h
Yes, that impact fee justification study, with that statement, was published in 2026!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 4h
Link to the 2026 impact fee justification study and other LAUSD impact fee-related publications: impactfee.lausd.org/apps/pages/i...
impactfee.lausd.org
Impact Fee Office Publications
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 4h
I'll note that the fee studies use total enrollment, which includes independent charters, but I couldn't find a clear chart showing the long-term combined enrollment history. In any case, the 2024 and 2026 fee justification studies show a 9.6% decline in combined enrollment.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 4h
Another entry for the "impact fee nexus studies are bullshit" file! Student enrollment at LA Unified has fallen for 24 years straight, ~48%. And yet! We have an impact fee because: "As new development occurs, additional school facilities will be needed to house the growth in the student population."
A screenshot from the Los Angeles Unified School District 2026 School Impact Fee Justification Study. The text reads: "Education Code Section 17620 allows school districts to assess fees on new residential and
commercial construction within their respective boundaries. These fees can be collected without
special city or county approval, to fund the construction of school facilities necessitated by the
impact of residential and commercial development activity. In addition, these fees can also be used
to fund the reconstruction of school facilities to accommodate students generated from new
development projects. Fees are collected immediately prior to the time of the issuance of a building
permit by the City or the County.
As new development occurs, additional school facilities will be needed to house the growth in the
student population. Because of the high cost associated with constructing school facilities and the
District’s limited budget, outside funding sources are required for future school construction. State
and local funding sources for the construction and/or reconstruction of school facilities are limited."

Source: https://4.files.edl.io/0bc1/05/22/26/161250-26fd9501-6360-44fb-a158-3bb37a543fd9.pdfA chart showing TK-12 enrollment in LAUSD declining in every year since 2002-03, from 724,000 in that year to 408,000 in 24-25, and a projected 376,000 in 27-28. 
Source: https://gpsnla.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Facing-the-Decline-Building-A-Resilient-LAUSD_FINAL.pdfCurrent school impact fee rates effective August 11, 2026, per square foot by construction type:
Residential: $5.38
Commercial/industrial: $0.87
Rental Self Storage: $0.32
Parking Structure: $0.44
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
If you're looking for a primer on programs for reducing homelessness, the challenges with measuring success, and what we know about the effectiveness of different kinds of interventions, this is a great place to start: lewis.ucla.edu/2026/09/30/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 124: Reducing Homelessness with Rapid Rehousing with Brian Blackwell
Rapid rehousing provides short-term rental assistance to help people experiencing homelessness find market-rate housing. Brian Blackwell shares new research finding that it may be more effective than ...
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Lots of great stuff in this episode, including a conversation about the role of caseworkers in implementing these kinds of programs.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This might sound unsurprising, but the best-known prior study of rapid rehousing suggested that it might not be effective, at least for families—and it didn't look at the benefits to single adults at all.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In their analysis of roughly 3,500 participants in Los Angeles' RRH program, Brian and Max found that it *does* work for many people, and the benefits continue after they exit the program.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
But for that model to work, the homelessness-reducing effects of RRH have to continue after the participant stops receiving assistance.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
RRH can support multiple individuals or families over time: someone gets help for as little as a few months or as much as a few years, then, when they're able to support themselves, that money can go toward helping someone else.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
New episode! We talked to Brian Blackwell at California Policy Lab about his research on the effectiveness rapid rehousing (RRH), a program that provides short-term rental assistance to help people experiencing homelessness find market-rate housing: lewis.ucla.edu/2026/09/30/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 124: Reducing Homelessness with Rapid Rehousing with Brian Blackwell
Rapid rehousing provides short-term rental assistance to help people experiencing homelessness find market-rate housing. Brian Blackwell shares new research finding that it may be more effective than ...
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Left-NIMBYs love to pit welfare state expansion against land use reform, but the latter can 1) can achieve significant poverty reductions 2) without means testing or administrative burdens, and 3) at a net gain for the public budget, which can then be used to expand the welfare state.
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.
Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
NEW from me: Over the last 4 years, America has lost more than 200k jobs in creative fields like publishing, film, TV, or graphic design. It's the worst stretch for arts jobs outside of recessions. How much is AI to blame? And can the arts' business model survive?🧵 www.apricitas.io/p/ai-and-the...
apricitas.io
AI and the Fall? of the Creative Class
America is Losing Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs in Media, Film & the Arts. How Much is AI to Blame?
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
At the same time, we see people wanting to tax developers because they're wealthy, but taxing development specifically (rather than wealth) just means we encourage investment by rich people into other assets/ventures, and that's bad for housing abundance and affordability.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
FWIW, I think that we'd be better off taxing wealth directly in general *and* I still think it's important to tax land based on its value regardless of the owner's circumstances, because (e.g.) an underused site can have negative social consequences that are agnostic of who owns it.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Could you elaborate this? Could Oregon (or any other state) not just adopt the international standards and buy elevators through that market? I guess even if they could do that, there's the question of who will install and maintain them...
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There are other things, like mandatory fire curtains that lack demonstrated safety benefits but add $7k/floor. The Coalition for Elevator Reform, launched this month by accessibility-forward housing developer The Kelsey, has model legislation. elevatorreform.org
elevatorreform.org
ElevatorReform.org
Where to take action on elevator reform.
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Reposted by Shane Phillips
Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I have a confession to make. The townhomes I & others spent most of a decade trying to legalize are popping up all over Oregon & elsewhere...and I love that...but they're a problem in one big way. (get ready for a twisty thread about the housing report @sightline.org just published)
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Maybe I'm just a partisan hack and this happens all the time with both parties, but it seems like putting the flag of a major geopolitical rival literally on top of the Oval Office is kind of insane???
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
People say it wouldn't make a difference if [pick your city] built more housing because it can't meet a whole region's demand, and it strikes me that in a place like SF those same people believe (rightly IMO) that we should invest in climate solutions even though the US can't solve it on their own.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It's like saying Rivian is a top 10 US automaker lol (It have no idea if it's actually in the top 10, but there aren't many so it sounds plausible)
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So many problems, in so many states, are downstream of our unwillingness to tax real estate at its market value, and more generally of our unwillingness to acknowledge that housing wealth is, in fact, wealth.
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Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰 @urbanlandrent.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My new market rate apartment is affordable to households making ~80% AMI. It was built 5 years ago. I need every skeptic of “filtering” to spend five minutes looking at rentals on Zillow for Sacramento. Actually, let’s do it together: www.zillow.com/sacramento-c...
zillow.com
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I was at an event a few years ago and made a point about Texas building a lot more housing than us, and some high-up labor person went absolutely unhinged on me in front of like 100 people, saying how I wanted to adopt Texas' labor practices, etc. I was genuinely so taken aback by the reaction.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On this week's reading list we cover the supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more. uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/23/26)
The supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
You just discovered the next opposition argument in the sequence: Sure, building housing isn't going to be dangerous or unhealthy for the kids, but they'll be so obsessed with the big trucks and cranes that they won't be able to focus on their studies!!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I haven't looked at it in a while, but this resource is also regularly updated by Todd Litman at VTPI: www.vtpi.org/sg_save.pdf
vtpi.org
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Full report here: www.pew.org/en/research-...
pew.org
Building Homes Near Jobs, Stores, and Transit Saves Public Dollars
Amid a national housing shortage, momentum is growing at the state and local levels to make it easier to build more homes—a proven way of reducing unaffordable rents and home prices. A key question fa...
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not anything I'm aware of that's super in depth, but the report we summarize here is helpful: uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (7/29/26)
Investigating which conditions are most likely to lead to redevelopment, comparing infrastructure costs for urban vs. suburban housing, checking in on a major Los Angeles zoning reform, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wouldn't it be nice! I think the case is quite strong that development isn't reducing tree canopy coverage, but the reality is that any large *increase* is going to be the result of investments and programs completely unrelated to development.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
And we share some highlights from California YIMBY's check-in on SB 79's first month, and a few different resources on the federal 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/23/26)
The supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We talk about expanding the tree canopy in Seattle amid rapid housing and population growth (though I argue that the numbers presented in the linked blog are misleading), and I'm reminded of these Tree People from a few years ago www.youtube.com/watch?v=30C8...
youtube.com
YouTube
Share your videos with friends, family, and the world
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We cover a few dashboards built to help people understand what determines the cost and feasibility of new housing, and a nice little tour through new French suburbs with Eric Kronberg
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We also cover Pew Charitable Trusts' report on overly restrictive lending standards. Lots of great stuff in here, and a call-back to our previous Housing Voice episodes with @kerdmann.bsky.social
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Our research overview is on "How Housing Supply Expansions Reshape Cities" by Marco Giacoletti, Matthijs Korevaar, and Franklin Qian (2026). It's about what happened when the Netherlands expanded the areas open to development around its major Randstad cities in the 1990s. (Hint: good stuff.)
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On this week's reading list we cover the supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more. uclahousingvoice.substack.com/p/ucla-housi...
uclahousingvoice.substack.com
UCLA Housing Voice Reading List (9/23/26)
The supply and affordability impacts of suburban expansion, tight mortgage lending standards, tools for estimating housing development feasibility, growing the urban tree canopy, and more.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Ouch
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This one was wild to me: Only 63% of people who voted for Bass in the primary know they're voting for her in the general, compared to 89% for Raman. Raman is also supported by likely voters who didn't vote in the primary by more than 2-to-1, though with lots still undecided.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Thanks!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Ha, I had the same thought. bsky.app/profile/shan...
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I agree it's useful. Having done it, I also agree with the spirit of the original post that it's completely impossible to nail down even with a very wide confidence range. But valuable to think about how you'd do it, if nothing else to help reveal your theory of change!
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I'm talking about when you have to replace or upgrade public infrastructure as a condition of building the project, most often water and/or sewer. Particularly where as a first-mover putting demand over existing capacity, and later developers can just tap into the infrastructure you built.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Oh interesting point! Seems like you could set things up to transfer the ownership of the claim on those funds, but point taken that this creates another barrier.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It's a good question! I suspect it would be difficult to get right, which is sort of unfortunate because I think a system where everyone pays roughly the same (if not upgrading off-site infra) is actually probably more pro-housing than first-movers paying a ton and others paying nothing.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
In what sense? I'm not sure I follow. The reimbursement money would be coming in after the project is complete either way.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
(But to be doubly clear, this is still a cool project, and it's important to have a broad and deep empirical basis for this association, if it exists, before you can assert it in places where noise hasn't been measured directly. I'm just thinking about how this scales up.)
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Question for Michael and for anyone else out there: How much does street (car) noise simply correlate with road width (lanes) and vehicle speed? This is a cool project, but if road width and speed are what matter, we can do this for basically any street, not just ones where we install monitors.
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