Month: July 2025

Angela Chen

COACHELLA VALLEY, Calif. (KESQ) – Millennials are the largest generation in the nation and make up the largest share of our workforce. They are at the typical age to become first-time homebuyers. Many are just starting their families.

But as millennials hit their prime years in reaching these traditional adult milestones, they are seeing worse mental health than the generation before them, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield. An examination of the current high-stress lifestyle and its impact on millennials, now 29 – 44 years old, shows the way of life many of them dreamed about has fallen apart, with severe impacts on their mental health is starting to show.

A number of historical crises are affecting them in their prime years, including skyrocketing housing prices and crippling student loan debt.

“It’s the constant ‘you’re never going to catch up.’ You’re playing catch up for what seems forever,” said Becky Cuevas, 37, a digital marketing professional from Indio.

“I know I will not have a second child. I will not have a second child. That decision has, even if I hadn’t made that decision, that decision has been made for me,” said Janelle Burdette Redden, 36-year-old PR agency vice president from Palm Desert.

“They really grew up with those messages about how important it was to feel good about yourself, and they took them to heart,” said Dr. Jean Twenge, the author of “Generations” and a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. “It worked. They did see themselves in a more positive light than previous generations did at the same age.”

Millennial childhood, in the late ’90s and 2000s, was largely a time of economic energy and hope and the promise of a bright future with the emergence of widespread internet use. They dreamed big and were told, if they worked hard and went to college — they could have it all. 

But that picturesque future fell short.

“Constant stress and burnout as a millennial is very true,” said Becky Cuevas, a 37-year-old digital marketing professional from Indio.

We spoke with a group of millennials from different cities across the Coachella Valley.

“Things are tight, but I’m all right. And, like, that’s kind of the feeling. It’s like there’s this existential kind of like, trying to keep trying to just kind of keep together and make it through,” said Rusty Redden, a 35-year-old mental health professional from Palm Desert.

That existential angst  — often popping up on sites like Reddit — where millennials often say it’s been downhill since entering adulthood.

Between what often feels like impossible housing prices, stagnant wages, social media stress, employment burnout, the student loan crisis, historically low birth rates, the great recession and current economic instability, millennials are grappling with enormous crises in their prime years and its subsequent impact on mental health.

They are seeing higher rates of major mental health conditions, including an 18% increase in prevalence rates for depression and 37% rate for hyperactivity, compared to Gen X at the same age, according to “The Health of Millennials” report from BCBS.

“Starting around 2016 or 2017, we started to see a turnaround that, in middle adulthood, millennials started to become more depressed compared to gen Xers at the same ages,” said Dr. Twenge.

With monikers like the “anxious generation,” the “burnout generation” — and the loneliest, 92% are reporting worse mental health since the pandemic, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield.

“To be a millennial is to have the ultimate trauma bond,” said Esperanza Mendez, a 33-year-old communications specialist from Indio, to which the group laughed along.

So why does this matter? After all, every generation has faced unique struggles. Researchers like Dr. Twenge have shown us in previous generations, mental health struggles in youth were connected to death rates in middle age, particularly with what she calls “deaths of despair,” like suicide and drug overdoses.

And with worsening health, both mental and physical, among  millennials now entering middle age  – what will this mean for their future?

The impact is already here.

According to “Generations” and CDC Wonder database statistics, millennials are dying at a significantly higher rate  as prime-age adults than gen X’ers did. If nothing is done, Moody’s Analytics has reported that mortality rates are expected to climb as high as 40%.

Now managers and mothers and middle-aged burnouts, many say they feel they are miles behind where they should be.

“It’s the constant you’re never going to catch up. You’re playing catch up for what seems forever,” said Cuevas.

Dr. Twenge said much of this is social media and being plugged in 24/7.

“We had a lot of political polarization at that time. Social media had certainly become not just optional, like it was in millennial childhood, but almost mandatory. And we know from social psychology studies that the material that spreads the fastest on social media is things that make people upset and angry. So there really was a cultural shift around that time,” said Twenge.

“Ever since we graduated, we were always the generation of like, ‘you will always be available,'” said Janelle Burdette Redden, a 36-year-old vice president of a PR agency from Palm Desert. “We have endless tools that make us be connected to our work systems. And in this really, really bleak job market, we’re more or less like, ‘I have to be the one to respond.'”

The exciting frontier of the internet in 2000 has now settled into information overload, constant connection and perpetual plug. It can be overstimulating and socially isolating, leading to mental health problems.

“..The impact of social media on self-esteem, on body image issues, and how it affects people’s anxiety, especially when I’m treating people with anxiety, sometimes that treatment is to not use social media for some time,” said Carolina Vasquez, a clinical therapist at Desert Insight in Cathedral City.

“Millennials were brought up to have very, very high expectations. They did have high expectations of what their lives were going to be like,” said Dr. Twenge. “So some of that disappointment with adulthood could be playing a factor.”

But that disappointment also stems from what some millennials say are moving goalposts and people now working twice as hard to get half as far.

“I look at my grandparents and their ability to, on one income, raise three kids, two cars, take vacations every year. They have the American dream, and the American dream is slowly falling away. We don’t take vacations every year. We’re getting by, but we’re not doing the same things on a single income that our grandparents could do,” said Andrew Montez, a 33-year-old civil litigation attorney from Bermuda Dunes.

Part of the American Dream — owning your home — is now out of reach for many millennials. 

In 1980, the median price of a house in America was about $65,000. 

In 2025, it’s about $426,000.

Here in the Coachella Valley, it’s skyrocketed to $700,000.

Home prices have outpaced salaries exponentially in some parts, especially in California where homes are now more than 7 times what salaries are, per the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. It was only 4 times in 1980.

In the past 5 years, California wages have grown only 24% — while housing costs have shot up as much as 87 percent, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“So much of life has felt like I have to pick. What is it going to? what is it now? Is it being a mom? Is it being a career person? Is it, but I don’t know. It’s so hard. It’s hard,” said Mendez.

And housing can be connected to birth rates, languishing at its lowest in U.S. history with millennials and Gen z (born 1997 – 2012).

The generational groups have cited financial instability — concerns about the future — and the rising cost of childcare. Daycare now costs about $39,200 for two, about 44% of California’s median household income for a couple.

“I know I will not have a second child. I will not have a second child. That decision has — even if I hadn’t made that decision, that decision has been made for me…it just, it doesn’t make economic sense for us to do that,” said Burdette Redden.

The cost of goods are 23.6% more expensive now than they were before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And this is before the expected price hikes coming down the pipeline from President Trump’s tariffs.

They say that millennials got to be kids during the best time — only to become adults at the worst.

We asked the group what they would say to lawmakers watching this story, what policies they could change or create to improve our way of life and millennial mental health?

In part 2 — morning anchor Angela Chen will explore possible solutions — and ask tough questions to our lawmakers on what changes we should make as a society to improve our way of life and subsequently, mental health, for millennials and future generations.

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City News Service

Updated 7/2/25 1:17 p.m.

BANNING, Calif. (KESQ)- Earlier today, former Palm Springs Mayor Pougent who admitted accepting six-figure bribes was sentenced to two years of probation with a $325k fine for his counts of bribery. 

In court the judge read statements from former council members Christopher Mills and Ginny Float requesting leniency on the sentencing of the former mayor. The DA has noted that they do not agree with the probation sentencing of Pougent, with the judge pointing out that two of their star witnesses are advocating for the lighter sentence. 

While leniency in sentencing has been given the judge did note that Pougent will be considered a convicted felon and placed on probation while needing to pay back the $325k in funds that he owes to the city for his committed “crime of greed.”

Pougnet is currently located in Michigan where he will be under close watch throughout the period of his probation. It is noted that he is still receiving pension from the city of Palm Springs but says he is planning to use that money to pay back all that is owed. 

Stay with News Channel 3 for any additional updates on this case.

7/1/25

BANNING, Calif. (KESQ) – The one-time mayor of Palm Springs who admitted accepting six-figure bribes to publicly support development projects is slated for sentencing Wednesday in Banning.

Steve Pougnet, 62, in May admitted nine counts of bribery by a public official, eight counts of illicit financial interest in public contracts and one count of conspiracy, as well as no contest to three perjury counts.   

Pougnet, who is free on his own recognizance, submitted his guilty plea directly to Riverside County Superior Court Judge Samuel Diaz, at the outset of jury selection for his trial at the Banning Justice Center. The District Attorney’s Office objected to the court’s acceptance of the admissions, anticipating leniency for the ex-mayor, who’s likely to receive probation or mandatory supervision, without incarceration.   

Last month, a Banning jury acquitted one of his former co-defendants, 86-year-old real estate developer John Elroy Wessman, after a three-week trial. Wessman was found not guilty of nine counts of bribery of a public official and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony.

Deputy District Attorney Amy Zois had alleged Wessman and fellow developer Richard Hugh Meaney, 59, conspired to favor Pougnet with high-dollar rewards to gain his support for the men’s redevelopment projects between 2012 and 2014.

Zois said Pougnet’s $3,605-a-month salary during his two terms was “peanuts” compared to the hefty cash infusions into his bank account facilitated by the developers.

She argued it was Wessman’s influence that landed Pougnet work on the Palm Springs International Film Festival, for which he received $150,000 in 2012. The festival board chairman ended the mayor’s consultancy when it didn’t net results.

Zois alleged the developers provided $225,000 in illicit payoffs to the mayor, all to ensure his active support for their downtown renaissance projects, which court records said included construction of the The Dakota, the Desert Fashion Plaza, The Morrison and Vivante.

Pougnet was in office from 2007 to 2015.   

He, Wessman and Meaney were criminally charged, for the first time, in 2017 and later indicted by a grand jury. The case began as a federal corruption probe until it was turned over to county investigators in 2016.   

A judge in December 2020 dismissed all counts against Wessman, characterizing them as baseless, but the charges were reinstated by the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside less than two years later.

“This is … about corruption and the public trust,” Zois said during his trial.

One of the defendant’s attorneys, Elliot Peters, countered that most of the prosecution’s case rested on “speculation, guesswork and the false testimony of Mr. Meaney,” whom Peters characterized as a “dishonest, manipulative person.”

Zois cited evidence confirming Wessman’s signature appeared on numerous checks issued against Wessman Development Inc. in 2012 and 2013. The money was part of the payoff scheme involving Pougnet, the prosecutor said.   

Peters asserted his client took appropriate steps and remained within the bounds of the law to get his projects approved by the Palm Springs City Council.

He said that Wessman was steeped in business affairs, deferring to Meaney to handle smaller details, including direct email correspondence with the mayor.

The defense underscored how Wessman relied on creative financing to contend with impacts of the Great Recession that started in 2008, seeking what amounted to a “public-private partnership” between Wessman Development Inc. and the city to move forward.   

The efforts led to Measure J being put before voters in 2011. It passed, resulting in $43 million in municipal bonds going to the developer’s projects, which began in the winter of 2012.

All the felony charges against Meaney were dismissed over a year ago. However, he pleaded guilty to a reinstated misdemeanor count of financial conflict in a government contract.

He’s free on his own recognizance and is scheduled for sentencing on July 28.

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Haley Meberg

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. (KESQ) – Riverside County Department of Animal Services is calling out for immediate help from fosters and adopters as they continue to push capacity numbers to the highest levels all year. 

RCDAS announced on Tuesday they are operating at 125% capacity for cats with a population of over 300 cats in their care, bringing numbers for this group higher than they have been all year. 

The organization noted that they had not reached capacity for cats prior to this week, with over 80 cats being added in just this month, especially in the Coachella Valley location. 

RCDAS also revealed they are currently at 230% capacity for dogs with over more that 1,000 dogs in their care, continuing to show that levels of unhoused animals are still on the rise. 

Officials say the Fourth of July holiday marks the busiest time of year for lost dogs entering shelters all across the country. This, along with wildfire season that is already affecting parts of the county, makes the situation more urgent than before.

As this weekend approaches, RCDAS says community support and engagement in housing the expected influx of pets is needed now more than ever. 

They say without adopters and fosters they will not have the space at their facilities to safely and humanely house these animals and are in need of immediate help.

Community members can also show their support for these pets by donating to the RCDAS disaster relief fund to help with rescue, sheltering, and treatments of animals or visit https://rcdas.org/support/donate to give a donation directly online. 

For more information on fostering or adopting, visit www.rcdas.org.

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