Keeping Los Angeles County homes cool under pressure
When unincorporated Los Angeles County passed a landmark heat ordinance, we built the communications infrastructure to ensure residents have what they need to make their homes safer, healthier, and more comfortable.
Unincorporated Los Angeles County’s new indoor temperature ordinance sets an 82°F maximum for rental units, affecting its more than one million residents. We designed and built the communications program for the public health measure from the ground up, bringing together a broad coalition of stakeholders to reach tenants and landlords with clear, actionable guidance.
Challenge
Extreme heat is a growing public health crisis, and rental housing sits at its center. Research cited during the ordinance’s development found that deaths from all causes can run as much as 10% higher on hot nights. And when heat waves strike, the vast majority of casualties occur inside people’s own homes. Yet before this policy, no enforceable indoor temperature standard existed for rental housing in unincorporated LA County.
In January 2024, the LA County Board of Supervisors directed the Department of Public Health to develop an ordinance establishing a safe maximum indoor temperature for rental dwellings. The challenge wasn't just policy and program design—it was communication. Landlords needed to understand new obligations and compliance timelines. Tenants needed to know their rights and options. And both audiences needed to trust the information they were getting, across language barriers, housing types, and varying levels of prior engagement with County government.
Solution
Working together, ICF and LA County designed the Cool & Healthy Homes program from the foundation up. Rather than starting with a finished message to push out, we began with listening: conducting stakeholder engagement across renters, landlords, public health professionals, and other community groups and other County departments to understand the real concerns and information needs on each side of the equation.
Those insights shaped everything: the program architecture, the content strategy, the tone. Our work spanned the full communications stack—website design and content, multilingual materials, video production, and storytelling tailored separately for tenant and landlord audiences. The Cool & Healthy Homes website serves as the program’s central hub, featuring distinct pathways for tenants and landlords to financing and support resources, and content available in four languages.
Results
The program launched ahead of the ordinance’s first compliance milestone, giving residents and landlords the runway they need to prepare. Complaint-based enforcement for most landlords takes effect January 1, 2027, with small property landlords having until January 1, 2032, to bring all habitable rooms into compliance.
The program also earned a DC American Advertising Award, recognizing its innovative approach to public-facing digital communication. By establishing a trusted, multilingual communications platform before enforcement begins, LA County is giving its residents the information they need to stay safe and the ordinance the foundation to work as intended.