Time To Show We Are Serious About Fixing Our Housing Crisis

by Gary Toebben

Last week, the coalition that successfully supported Proposition HHH in November 2016 reconvened to announce that every Council district in the City of Los Angeles was pledging to support a minimum of 222 new units of permanent supportive housing by July 2020. Six members of the City Council, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the LA/OC Building Trades committed to supporting and creating these 3,330 citywide units in the next three years.

This announcement follows some important policy changes the City is weighing to build homeless housing quicker. The Permanent Supportive Housing Ordinance creates a streamlined process, removing unnecessary red tape in order to save millions and speed up the approvals of housing with supportive services.

The Interim Motel Conversion Ordinance is a strategy to convert existing motels into homeless housing. These proposals have been met with a variety of objections, but the Chamber strongly supports both. Transforming HHH dollars into concrete action requires policy changes, political will, compromise and fresh ideas.

One fresh idea to address our statewide housing crisis has come from California State Sen. Scott Wiener.. SB 827, the wonkily named Planning and Zoning: Transit-Rich Housing Bonus, is landmark legislation that would increase allowable density and modestly raise height limits in qualified areas near transit. As the L.A. region invests billions in expanding our transit network, it only makes sense to increase the residential opportunities near those investments.

We also need to support housing at all levels. In a frustrating decision last week, the City Planning Commission disapproved a development agreement for The Lake on Wilshire project over a dispute between whether ten units are designated very low-income or workforce housing. This is a project supported by the community that will provide 478 units with 39 already set aside as very low-income. Holding up this project over the designation for an additional 10 units is fruitless when we need it all.

The time for "yes, I support more affordable housing, but not here" has passed. Every Council member who spoke at the press conference last week said his or her district stood ready to do its part. That is a really big step. If we are serious about solving homelessness and our housing affordability crisis, it will require support from every neighborhood. It will also require consideration of new ideas.

And that's The Business Perspective.