Project Applies Power of Net to L.A. Housing Woes
Despite the booming economy and the unprecedented wealth being generated by high tech, U.S. cities face serious problems with housing, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
An interesting project at UCLA, with an impressive array of local and national partners, is using the Internet to do something positive about housing in Los Angeles.
Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (https://nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu) is a Web site aimed at improving and preserving neighborhoods. NKLA is an online tool that provides easy access to a vast collection of data about properties and neighborhoods that are in danger of falling into urban blight.
The conditions the project and its partners are trying to fix are sobering. Using U.S. Census data from 1997, the Los Angeles Citizens Committee on Slum Housing found that the number of L.A. area rental units occupied by tenants living below the poverty level grew from 217,200 in 1989 to 422,500 in 1995, a 95% increase over six years. The Census’ American Housing Survey reported in 1995 that in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area there were 154,400 substandard apartments in need of major repair, 107,900 units infested with rats and 131,700 units without working toilets. Such grim statistics are the product of severe pockets of poverty in Los Angeles, one of the wealthiest cities in the world but one in which one-third of all children live in poverty, according to U.S. Census data. The United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles County reports median rent for an apartment in L.A. is $654 per month, or nearly $8,000 per year. More than a fifth of L.A. families live below the poverty level of $16,450 a year for a family of four, according to United Way and L.A. County. A full-time minimum-wage worker makes about $11,000 per year.
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Leaders of the NKLA project, which is based at UCLA’s School of Public Policy and Social Research and funded by the city of Los Angeles Housing Department, Fannie Mae and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program, use computer data from a variety of public sources to look for “early warning signs” that properties in Los Angeles are headed for unlivable status.
“One of the best predictors of housing abandonment is tax delinquency,” said Neal Richman, director of NKLA and associate director of UCLA’s Advanced Policy Institute. The researchers involved with the NKLA project use tax data to look for a characteristic pattern in housing serving low-income residents. Property tax delinquency is often followed by building code violations and tenant complaints, then by abandonment of the property. The worst violators are slum landlords who “work the system” by buying a building and milking the tenants for rent without paying for maintenance or taxes, and then disappear when the government threatens legal action.
The NKLA project and similar community data projects in other cities are good examples of two phenomena made possible by the Internet.
The first is that the Internet tends to blur the boundaries between institutions--in the case of NKLA between a university, the city and county governments, and community activist organizations. This blurring is very common in the private sector but is only beginning to emerge in the public and civic sectors. It needs to happen more, which means public officials need to think more creatively about developing innovative partnerships like NKLA.
The second phenomenon is that NKLA shows what can be done with what would otherwise be underutilized public information. Richman says that the key value that UCLA brings to this project is its researchers’ ability to use public data to serve specific ends, particularly community development.
Finally, the story of NKLA is that new technologies can be used in ways that give people left out of the high-tech boom some real hope, when those technologies are used as tools for solving specific, concrete problems.
The NKLA site and its online databases allow citizens and housing activists to look for properties with tax problems, code violations or other difficulties, such as tenant complaints or fire violations, that could be precursors to abandonment, neighborhood deterioration and urban decline. The Web site offers searchable databases by ZIP Code or other parameters, and shows individual properties on interactive maps of L.A.
NKLA researchers also work with grass-roots community organizations, tenant groups and activists to promote code enforcement by government officials. Richman said the NKLA project and its community partners played a role in developing the city’s comprehensive slum housing ordinance, which mandates that all properties be inspected for code violations every three years. That, in turn, is having an effect on improving compliance by property owners.
One group that finds the NKLA tools useful is Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles, a nonprofit community organization that works with residents to improve conditions in South-Central neighborhoods.
Executive Director Juanita Tate says that the organization is developing a land trust for housing in the South-Central community, which has the oldest housing in the city. The organization buys properties that are available because of tax delinquency or other problems, such as loan defaults, foreclosures, then helps first-time home buyers acquire the properties and refurbish them.
“The NKLA tools have been very, very helpful to our program,” Tate said. “We can use the data and the maps to research the condition and status of a property and get a very clear picture for our program clients. It’s just fabulous.”
All of this is made possible through access to information gleaned from public data. “We couldn’t do this on our own because we can’t afford this kind of research or these kinds of people,” Tate said. “Our university partnerships with UCLA and Occidental have been great.”
Another Concerned Citizens’ project is POWER (People Organizing for Worker and Environmental Rights). Under the program, 10 students from Jefferson and Vermont high schools use NKLA’s tools and data to research community sites for new public schools in the area. The community wants to avoid repeating the problems of Jefferson Middle School, which was built on top of an environmental hazard.
“The technical skills come together with the organizing work,” said Melodie Dove, director of youth programs for Concerned Citizens. “We provide the computers for these young people because a lot of them don’t get access in school, and they’re interested in developing their computer skills.” The group has a computer-training facility with 20 computers that was funded by Microsoft.
The students and others also can look at maps of hazardous waste areas in Los Angeles on a Web site developed by Occidental College, Liberty Hill Foundation and the California Endowment (https://www.oxy.edu/departments/ess/ejmpst.htm).
These are some inspirational ways to use computers and the Internet for hope instead of hype. The people doing this kind of work are true local heroes.
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Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
