Three Los Angeles councilmembers introduced a resolution to the city council on Wednesday, April 19, in support of social housing following a rally outside City Hall in which tenants and housing advocates called for more public housing.
At a time when the city’s homelessness and housing affordability problems have reached crisis levels, supporters of social housing say this model, employed in other countries, would produce permanent, affordable housing and potentially provide a pathway for more Angelenos to become homeowners.
“Over 70% of tenants in L.A. are rent-burdened and almost half of tenants spend over 50% of their income on rent,” Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said in a statement. “By building social housing, which is publicly-funded and permanently affordable, we can start taking the profit motive out of housing to benefit the working people of Los Angeles instead of billionaire Wall Street developers.”
Soto-Martínez, along with Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Nithya Raman, introduced the resolution which has to return to the full council for a vote.
Supporters note that this form of public housing has been adopted throughout Europe and other parts of the world.
“What this model represents, and what I’m really excited about, is something that looks different from the expiring covenants that we’re seeing disappearing from our housing stock today,” Raman said during Wednesday’s council meeting. “It’s an opportunity for us to invest in housing that is permanently for the people.”
Currently, an owner of affordable housing may have an agreement with the city requiring them to rent units at below-market rate for only a certain number of years. Once the agreement expires, the units can be rented out at market rate, leaving tenants who can’t afford the rent hikes scrambling for housing. Sometimes, they become homeless.
But with social housing, a building on land owned by the city, a nonprofit or a community land trust…
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