In an effort to deal with Los Angeles’ broad housing
crisis, a group of city agencies will contribute an extra $50
million into the city’s housing trust fund, bringing the
fund’s assets to $100 million, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
announced Wednesday.
Speaking at the fourth annual Mayor’s Housing Summit at
UCLA’s Anderson school of Management, Villaraigosa also
pledged to push a $1 billion bond for housing in Los Angeles.
The infusion of money to the housing trust fund, which helps
subsidize housing projects that serve people from very low to
moderate income levels, will bring the fund to a record level, city
officials said.
The conference, sponsored by the Los Angeles Business Council,
focused on the shortage of housing at all income levels in Los
Angeles.
Panelists discussed the Los Angeles Housing Department’s
planned projects, which include developments near public
transportation hubs, such as the planned Exposition rail line, and
low-income housing like Encore Hall, the nation’s first
affordable housing project catering to gay and lesbian seniors.
The high cost of living in Los Angeles ““ where the median
home price is $476,000 and the median income for a family of four
was $53,500 in 2003, according to figures from the California
Association of Realtors and the Los Angeles Housing Department
““ is affecting much of the city’s population.
Villaraigosa lamented the conditions he observed the
city’s homeless population living in on his recent trips to
Skid Row, and added that only 12 percent of Angelenos can afford to
buy a home in the city’s current real estate market.
The new funding allocation and the proposed bond are meant to
address this situation, he said.
“LA has the ignominious … distinction of housing the
biggest homeless population (in the nation),” he said.
“All of us have a responsibility to do something about
it,” he added.
The mayor also called on the business community to work with the
city on housing, noting that the $100 million housing trust fund
will be augmented by $8.5 million in private contributions.
Villaraigosa said he supports inclusionary zoning, which would
require developers to include low-income housing in their projects,
but added that “we would have to build a consensus around
that.”
The money will come from departments including the Community
Redevelopment Agency, the Department of Water and Power, and the
Los Angeles Housing Department.
Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti said the funds that
are being diverted to the trust fund will not negatively impact
other city programs because it is “money that otherwise
wouldn’t have been moving.”
For example, the $20 million from the housing department is
money that was ear-marked for loans for projects that never
happened, Garcetti said.