The Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”) is the largest public school system in California and the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. LAUSD has 670,000 students enrolled in 1,386 schools (see more highlights).

In many ways, LAUSD is a social services provider – serving 129 million meals a year, more than 720,000 meals a day to our most vulnerable families in the city. Housing affordability is a central theme for LAUSD, with more than 19,500 students experiencing homelessness in any given school year and more than 8,500 living in foster care (sources).

LAUSD owns an extraordinary amount of real estate. LA Unified’s real estate portfolio—schools, administrative buildings, operations facilities, parking lots, and vacant lots— is vast and complex, owning 1,200 schools and centers, over 6,400 acres and 3,200 parcels of land, and 21,000 buildings.

Put in context, LAUSD’s total building square footage of 78 million square feet is more than the Downtown Los Angeles office market or all of downtown San Francisco. Total land holdings of 6,400 acres, or 10 square miles, which is larger than the cities of Santa Monica or Newhall Ranch.

Efforts to develop affordable housing for teachers, staff, and vulnerable families on LAUSD’s underutilized properties has been a fragmented, staggered, underwhelming effort. In their own words, “the District lacks a comprehensive strategy to manage these properties and utilize each asset at its highest and best use to support the District’s goals.” However, LAUSD’s Real Estate Advisory Task Force is now looking for innovative new ways to build more housing – their next steps are outlined here.