Brand New Home for Housing
Los Angeles suffers from a severe shortage of affordable housing. Poor families, as many as 300,000 of them, are spending more than half of their meager incomes to share overcrowded, squalid or unsafe quarters. The worsening crisis warrants new leadership, which Mayor Bradley is expected to provide today with the creation of a city Housing Preservation and Production Department and a Commission on Affordable Housing.
One hopes that this new partnership will maximize public resources, eliminate duplication and give the housing crisis even greater visibility at City Hall.
For starters, the new department will take over housing responsibilities from the city’s troubled Community Development Department, an agency that also has had to provide job training, social services and housing assistance. Housing services often got lost in the shuffle of that hodgepodge.
The new department’s budget will be funded from federal block grant money, rent stabilization fees and proceeds from bonds. It is expected to top $50 million for the first year. Much more money is needed.
That housing budget could double if the mayor and city council set a fee on commercial development. In Los Angeles, the amount will be determined by a study due in two months. If set at $5 per square foot, as some propose, the linkage fee could generate $50 million a year for housing. Fees linking commercial and residential development are used in San Francisco and Boston. The rationale is simple: New office buildings, hotels and stores require employees who need places to live.
The city housing department will implement policies set by the new Affordable Housing Commission, a panel of seven members appointed by the mayor and the president of the council. The commission will determine priorities, encourage aggressive lobbying for scarce federal housing dollars and generate greater support for nonprofit housing developers.
The new department and commission face a tough challenge. Thousands of poor families, senior citizens and homeless people need a decent place to live--today.
