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Mukhija, González on Legalizing Informal Housing Units

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Urban Planning Professor Vinit Mukhija and Latino Policy and Politics Initiative research director Silvia González were featured in a New York Times article about the prevalence of informal housing units nationwide. The affordable housing crisis has prompted people of every income level to decide to build themselves, creating a vast informal housing market that accounts for millions of units. “This is one of the most significant sources of affordable housing in the country,” Mukhija said. Priced out of many housing options, many renters choose unpermitted living situations that are unsafe or overcrowded, González said. Legalizing informal housing would make units safer, add value to homes and give tenants the security of a sanctioned unit, she said. González participated in research for the nonprofit Pacoima Beautiful that found that informal units can help combat gentrification by creating low-cost housing and allowing families to pool resources.

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Manville on Showdown Over California Housing Laws

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An NBC News report on a looming showdown over new California laws aimed at building more housing included insights from Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville. The laws going into effect on Jan. 1 include Senate Bill 9, which will allow property owners to construct more than one unit on lots previously reserved for single-family homes. Opponents say the laws will strip cities and counties of control over zoning and will not ensure that new units will be affordable. A proposed constitutional amendment that would undo several of the laws may appear on the November 2022 ballot. The debate illustrates how difficult it is to address the state’s affordable housing crisis. “It took a long time for us to get into this hole, and it’s going to take a long time to get out,” Manville said. “It’s going to take some time to see so much construction that rents are going to fall.”

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Disadvantages Magnified by Pandemic, Ong Says

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UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge Director Paul Ong was featured in a USA Today article about the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black families. Black people are more than twice as likely to rent as white people, eliminating the safety net that comes with owning a home. Furthermore, Black renters are more likely to be low-income and cost burdened, the article noted. The pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities due to racial discrimination and historic inequities in education, employment and housing. “The pre-pandemic disadvantages that were there already – paying a higher share of one’s income to afford housing, having a much more precarious economic standing, not having the same financial fallback with huge differences in wealth and assets – those disadvantages during the pandemic got magnified,” Ong explained. “During the pandemic, our research and other people’s research clearly shows that African Americans were displaced at a much higher rate.”

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Monkkonen on California’s Student Housing Needs

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy Paavo Monkkonen spoke to CalMatters about the $500 million in state funding allotted by Gov. Gavin Newsom for affordable student housing. The housing crisis in California has also impacted students, and the funding is meant to help public colleges and universities build affordable housing or renovate existing property through a grant process. Monkkonen noted that the housing aid is a good use of state money. “Unlike grant money or financial aid, housing is a one-time expense that pays dividends because it can be used repeatedly,” he explained. However, experts have agreed that the $500 million package will not be enough to create all of the necessary housing units for public students across California. “A better system would be one in which there’s a long-term plan to grow the stock sufficiently that everyone that wants to live there, can,” Monkkonen said.

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Roy Fears Housing Crisis Growing Worse

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Professor of Urban Planning and Social Welfare Ananya Roy spoke to the New York Times about the affordable housing crisis and growing issue of homelessness in California. While the eviction moratorium has been a “safety net of sorts” for communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a “postponement of the crisis, rather than a solution,” Roy said in a lengthy interview. “Its disappearance will be sure to expand and expedite evictions.” Roy, director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, called for “full rental debt cancellation and public investment in housing for working-class communities.” She predicted that the economic impact of the pandemic will result in a “housing crisis worse than the Great Depression,” prompting mass evictions and exacerbating homelessness. To avoid this, Roy recommended that the government buy and convert vacant and distressed properties into low-income housing, a solution that is faster and less expensive than building new housing.

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