Shortage of Housing for Poor

“Housing Gap for Poor Is Widest in Southland” (June 16) will undoubtedly result in demands to restrain the greedy landlords. Restrictive legislation against property owners won’t create more rental units, but it is a cheap way to buy votes and give the appearance of solving the problem. If this report generates a debate like the debates in the past, the real causes of our housing shortages, zoning laws, building codes and a hostility to development, will be ignored.

As a housing provider for some 20 years, I’ve followed these debates closely. When nonprofit housing developers go to work, their first action is to request (or rather demand) many different waivers: increased density, waivers of parking requirements and the like. While we certainly need minimum standards, we need to face the fact that it is the political environment and the bureaucracy that have been restricting the amount of housing. Restrict supply in the face of increasing demand and prices go up, one way or another.

DENNIS A. GURA, Santa Monica

*

The city of L.A. responds to housing problems by punitive inspection programs that raise landlords’ legal and repair costs and eviction controls that limit landlords’ authority over their property. The result: Only those who have no intention of following the law are willing to be landlords in poor neighborhoods.

A tenant lawyer, Elena Popp, is held up as the hero of the piece. However, like other tenant lawyers, she raises landlords’ legal expenses and allows tenants to stay for long periods without paying rent. No landlord is going to be willing to put up with this abuse unless the other tenants make up for it by paying increased rent.

RICK SMETS, West Hollywood