When Garages Serve as Homes : Growing housing crisis in Los Angeles requires federal, state and local initiatives

Mayor Tom Bradley met Wednesday with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros in search of good news. Los Angeles needs all the help it can get from Washington in order to build more affordable apartments and houses.

The housing crisis is getting worse, according to an analysis of 1990 census figures recently commissioned by the city’s Housing Preservation and Production Department. One in four renters lives in crowded conditions, according to the report, authored by Dowell Myers, an associate professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at USC. That compares to one in 10 in 1980.

Severe overcrowding is on the rise because more families--and many strangers--are doubling up to beat the high cost of rent (at least four out of 10 tenants spend more than 35% of their pay on rent). Some of that doubling up takes place in garages, in which an estimated 40,000 families are living. In illustrating the severity of the housing shortage, the study noted a case of 10 single men renting stalls as living quarters in an East Los Angeles garage.

Homeownership is out of the question for nearly 60% of the people who live in Los Angeles. Housing prices grew by 154% in the last decade, according to the analysis, to a median price of $244,500. That rise enriched elderly homeowners but consigned many of their children to apartments.

Price isn’t the only pressure. Blame part of this shortage on a 17.5% population surge over the last decade, during which housing units increased by only 9.3%. The federal government should help close that gap.

President Clinton and Congress can increase housing in Los Angeles and other cities by permanently extending the low-income housing tax credit. That tax break, one of the few left, would funnel millions of private dollars into housing renovation and construction; it would also create jobs.

Creating more apartments isn’t the only solution. To boost homeownership, HUD should also commit more funds to a new city program intended to build houses on 1,200 vacant lots in South-Central.

The state is hard up, but state pension funds are flush. The funds’ managers should invest in nonprofit housing developments.

Such initiatives wouldn’t cure overcrowding or homelessness, but they would chip away at the crisis.