Housing Effort Gets an Activist : Appointment: Bradley names a vocal critic to run the city’s affordable housing programs. But experts cite a lack of experience.

Michael Bodaken, a Legal Aid Foundation attorney who has repeatedly criticized City Hall for pouring funds into downtown skyscrapers while shorting the needs of the poor, was named Thursday by Mayor Tom Bradley to oversee the city’s affordable housing programs.

The announcement was a surprise to many, and Bodaken himself said at a news conference that he was “very surprised and very pleased” when Bradley asked him to take the job three weeks ago. Bodaken, 40, begins his new job March 5, at a salary that has not yet been set.

Many housing experts say Bodaken’s job as city housing coordinator will be the single most critical post as Bradley attempts to usher in a wide-ranging package of affordable-housing reforms over the next several months. Most of the programs have been only tentatively approved by the City Council.

One of Bodaken’s key assignments is to lobby the council for creation of a permanent fee to be collected from commercial developers and paid into a housing trust fund. Such fees, long levied against commercial developers in cities from Boston to Seattle, would be used to create several thousand low-cost apartments for poor families.

Bodaken also is expected to take a lead role in creating a city Housing Commission that would oversee programs now handled by 11 disparate--and in many cases duplicative--agencies.

Asked by reporters if holding a city job would “co-opt” his efforts to change what he sees as bad policies, Bodaken said: “I don’t think that’s possible. . . . I wouldn’t take this job if I knew (proposed housing reforms) could not be achieved. I’m not that kind of guy.”

Bradley said he chose the often feisty Bodaken because he believes he can tackle the city’s affordable housing crisis, which has forced an estimated 40,000 families to live in garages and has helped create a massive homelessness problem.

“We have a real crisis in affordable housing in the city,” Bradley said. “Young families are simply out of the housing market, and people are paying 50% of their incomes to rent.”

Bodaken will be “a strong coordinator of all housing efforts . . . and pull them all together, and that’s what we need,” Bradley said.

Bodaken, a 10-year veteran public interest attorney, has been involved in a wide range of issues involving the poor, including battling slumlords and forcing Los Angeles County to increase general relief welfare payments to the very poor.

But some housing experts privately questioned his appointment, pointing to his lack of experience in developing housing.

“I just don’t know what to say,” said one longtime housing advocate who asked not to be named. “Housing issues are not the same as Legal Aid issues and they certainly hired someone who has no background in creating housing.”

Others, however, pointed to Bodaken’s prominent role as an advocate for the poor during his five years at Legal Aid.

Arnold Stalk, director of L.A. Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit developer that builds innovative and inexpensive housing for the poor, called Bodaken’s appointment “great,” adding: “ The more I hear about what’s happening in housing in Los Angeles lately, the more optimistic I am. There’s quite a change going on.”

Bradley and Bodaken have not been so agreeable with one another in the past. Last June, Bodaken told The Times he found it “unbelievable that the city is subsidizing developers with millions of dollars to lure yuppies downtown”--a reference to one of Bradley’s favored redevelopment efforts, known as South Park.

Among the uses of public funds that have angered Bodaken was the Community Redevelopment Agency’s $10-million subsidy to help build a South Park luxury high-rise known as The Metropolitan, where rents exceed $1,000. Under state law the agency also must construct affordable housing.

But during questioning by reporters Thursday, Bradley denied that Bodaken’s appointment signaled a new activism or a change of heart in how he fashions his Administration.

Bradley pointed to the last person to hold the job, Gary Squier, an outspoken advocate of affordable housing, who left the position nine months ago to serve as acting director of the city’s Housing Authority.