Los Angeles needs social housing to address our worsening affordable housing and homelessness crises.
Through public ownership or community land trusts, social housing can create communities that are affordable to teachers and nurses, grocery workers and restaurant employees, seniors and students.
Social housing can be part of multi-faceted strategy that creates affordable housing, addresses homelessness, and prevents predatory speculation that fuels gentrification and destroys and displaced neighborhoods.
Our current system to produce affordable housing -- based on federal tax breaks or density bonuses --is not producing enough housing that is permanently protected from a market where median housing prices far exceed median incomes.
This means government needs to provide ever deeper subsidies to preserve a dwindling number of units that people can afford. It is costing more to do less.
We need to break the paradigm and do different things. Social housing has worked well in Western Europe, particularly in Vienna. prospect.org/infrastructure…
Today the council’s Housing Committee will consider a motion I wrote directing the city to explore social housing models in Los Angeles and create demonstration pilots.
I introduced this proposal in February, as part of a #HomesGuaranteeLA. With this pandemic, the need is even greater now - and we have an opportunity to use federal CARES or other stimulus funds to jumpstart it.
