L.A's Housing Crisis Takes a Toll on Entertainment Biz
*By Samantha Errico*
San Francisco and New York get the ink for being outlandishly expensive, but Los Angeles' housing crisis has become so severe that it threatens the very industry on which the city relies.
According to Katie Kilkenny, an associate editor at The Hollywood Reporter, median rental prices in Los Angeles, Calif., have increased by 32 percent since 2000. Some aspiring starlets and starving artists have even resorted to sleeping in their cars.
Kilkenny told Cheddar Thursday that she wasn't surprised people are "starting to craft their own means of living affordably."
As an industry, Hollywood relies on the rags-to-riches mythos. But in this climate, not all hopefuls can afford to stick it out ー unless they resort to extreme measures.
As of January of 2018, over [9,000 vehicles](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/meet-entertainment-workers-living-cars-housing-crisis-1169781) were being used as homes. And car-dwellers are using every corner of their vehicles ー some even included a small kitchen or a lounging area.
"You can spend as much as a house on these vehicles," Kilkenny said. "In order to save money, people are building it out themselves.
"One of the guys that I spoke with, made sure to tell me that he wants to do it for at least the next five years, in order to save up to actually buy a house," she added.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/working-l-a-actors-turning-their-vehicles-into-homes).
The Tony Awards on Sunday lured 4.85 million viewers to CBS, its largest broadcast audience in six years. CBS says Monday that Nielsen data shows the telecast — hosted by “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo — scored a 38% increase over last year’s 3.53 million viewers. That’s the largest audience for the Tonys since 2019, when the telecast that year nabbed 5.4 million viewers and “Hadestown” was crowned best new musical. The latest version also had to compete with the second game of the NBA Finals, between the Thunder and Pacers,
After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple tried to regain its footing Monday during a developers conference that focused mostly on incremental advances and cosmetic changes in its technology.
Six weeks before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel last December, Luigi Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and expressed that killing the executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming."
Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson once clashed on the court in the 2001 NBA Finals, but now the basketball legends are joining forces to revive the Reebok brand they helped make iconic.
Midea is voluntarily recalling about 1.7 million of its popular U and U+ Smart air conditioners because pooled water in the units may not drain fast enough, leading to mold growth.
