Posts

The Data Behind a Worsening Black Housing Crisis

/0 Comments/in /by

A study by UCLA Luskin’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Black housing crisis. Before the pandemic, Black people faced the greatest housing insecurity across the United States, with the highest unemployment rate and lowest income of any racial group. COVID-19 has exacerbated the crisis, with Black and Latino workers facing the greatest job losses. Experts explain that systemic racism has hindered Black households from accessing higher-paying jobs and building wealth through homeownership. The article discussed the displacement of longtime Black communities in South Los Angeles and cited a study by the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, directed by research professor Paul Ong. The study showed declining Black population percentages in Leimert Park, Jefferson Park and West Adams compared to a growing white population, and also found that median income growth in those communities outpaced that of the county.

Read the article

Report Explores Temporary Settlement Options in Wake of Evictions

/0 Comments/in /by

A final report in a three-part series on housing justice and evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic has been released by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. The report draws upon guidance from unhoused people, legal advocates and community-based researchers to strongly advise governments to sanction existing self-organized communities of unhoused people and maintain sanitation stations on-site. The authors also recommend that authorities cease the seizing of property from the unhoused and stop conducting sweeps that result in people’s displacement from public space. The report is offered as guidance for policymakers and organizers seeking to support insecurely housed and unhoused people during and after the pandemic. It was written by doctoral student Hilary Malson of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning and Gary Blasi,  professor of law emeritus at the UCLA School of Law. The authors also cautiously recommend that local governments establish temporary settlements in which tents and tiny structures would offer private, socially distanced forms of emergency shelter.

 

Roy on Shifting Hotels From Hospitality to Urgently Needed Housing

/0 Comments/in /by

Ananya Roy, director of the Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, co-authored an opinion piece for the Appeal that argued for the conversion of tens of thousands of vacant hotel rooms to house Angelenos threatened with homelessness. Given the downturn in the global tourist industry, many of these rooms are expected to remain unused for years to come, said Roy and co-author Jonny Coleman of NOlympics LA. The public acquisition of hotels and motels using tools such as eminent domain is the only way the region can add an adequate number of housing units quickly and affordably, they argued. “It is worth reflecting on how the present moment of compounding crises has broken past the limits of the possible,” they wrote. The piece pointed to the institute’s recently released report, “Hotel California: Housing the Crisis,” which was also cited in media outlets including LAist, Univision and NextCity.

Read the op-ed

 

Vacant Tourist Hotels Should Be Repurposed to House Homeless, Report Urges

/0 Comments/in /by

A new UCLA report calls for the increased conversion of hotel rooms to provide shelter for thousands of people in Los Angeles who are predicted to lose their housing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report makes the case for an effort dubbed by the authors as (More) Hotels as Housing to repurpose tourist hotel and motel rooms that have become vacant during a downturn in global tourism that may extend for many years as a result of the health crisis. “We advocate shifting property use from hospitality to housing through the large-scale public acquisition of tourist hotels and motels,” write the report’s authors, who include Gary Blasi, a UCLA professor emeritus of law, and Professor Ananya Roy, the director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. The report urges public officials to act quickly to protect thousands of newly unemployed workers who will soon face eviction for unpaid rent and are likely to become homeless as a result. The authors note that Los Angeles has a long history of building luxury hotels for which developers have benefited from public subsidies and land assembly. “It is time to redirect public resources and public purpose tools such as eminent domain for low-income and extremely low-income housing, especially in Black and Brown communities where public investment has primarily taken the form of policing,” according to Blasi, Roy and their co-authors, writer and grassroots organizer Jonny Coleman and housing justice activist and researcher Elana Eden.

Wells Updates ‘Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing’

/1 Comment/in /by

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the rapid evolution of green building practices and integrating those approaches into affordable housing may be more critical than ever, according to Walker Wells, a UCLA Luskin Urban Planning lecturer. In “Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing,” Wells and co-author Kimberly Vermeer, a Boston-based sustainability consultant, argue that the best way to meet health and climate challenges is by providing society’s most vulnerable people with housing stability while reducing the environmental, health and climate impacts of constructing and operating buildings. In this fully revised edition of a book first published in 2007, the authors provide guidance on innovative green building practices and green building certifications available for affordable housing. To help builders align design decisions with environment-friendly goals, the authors explain the integrated design process. They also detail best practices for green design, from water management to renewable energy. Acknowledging the complexity of financing green affordable housing projects, Wells and Vermeer also discuss funding sources and the latest financing strategies. New case studies span high-desert homeownership, supportive housing in the Southeast and net-zero family apartments on the coasts. “Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing” seeks to provide information for everyone in the affordable housing industry, including housing development project managers, designers, engineers, funders and housing advocates. Wells is a principal at Raimi+Associates, a consulting service with offices in Los Angeles, Riverside and Berkeley, California. Vermeer founded and leads Urban Habitat Initiatives, a consulting practice that advances sustainability and climate resilience.

Lens on Pandemic’s Effect on Housing Crisis

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to Dear Pandemic about housing market factors that are affecting how the pandemic is unfolding. Lens said he worries about the “short- and immediate-term losses of income of people who were already very tenuously housed.” For many families already spending huge amounts of their income on rent, the loss of one or two paychecks can mean being foreclosed on or evicted. While short-term policy interventions in the form of income and unemployment support and eviction moratoria have been implemented, they generally do not cancel or lower rent. Lens asked, “What happens when the eviction moratoria are lifted and people are still not able to pay?” In the short term, people must be sheltered without sinking into debt or losing their savings. In the long term, Lens said, the systemic problems of the housing crisis must be fixed.

Watch the video

Stoll Comments on How Housing Crisis Affects Black Californians

/0 Comments/in /by

Public Policy Professor Michael Stoll commented in a CalMatters article on how California’s housing crisis is worse for Black communities following decades of systemic racism. The article shows that significant barriers continue to exist for Black communities and individuals in building and retaining wealth compared to whites and other ethnic groups within the state. Data shows that California cities are typically less segregated than in the Northeast or Midwest. In part, this is due to gentrification and displacement pressures on Black communities in urban cores, notably Los Angeles and the Bay Area. “African Americans and to a lesser extent Latinos are moving to suburban areas at the fastest clip we’ve observed since the civil rights era,” Stoll said. But patterns of segregation continue, he said, noting, “It’s hard to become a socially cohesive place if people are living in different neighborhoods and not being able to communicate and work together around common interests.”

Read the article

 

UCLA Research Guides Debate on Evictions and Homelessness

/0 Comments/in , /by

UCLA research on the looming threat of eviction and homelessness in Los Angeles County is guiding debate about how to safeguard residents as the region attempts to emerge from the COVID-19 lockdown. Recent studies from the Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D) and the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK), both housed at UCLA Luskin, have been cited by policymakers, civic leaders and advocacy groups. An II&D report authored by Gary Blasi, UCLA professor emeritus of law, estimated that tens of thousands of households in the county could fall into homelessness due to the pandemic. Blasi called for robust tenant protections, as well as urgent planning for temporary housing for those who lose their homes. His findings have been cited on the news and editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times, as well as on NPR, CalMatters, Streetsblog and Capital & Main. In response to the pandemic, the California court system in April put a hold on eviction proceedings statewide. Despite these protections, some Los Angeles landlords have sought to remove tenants by force or coercion, creating a “web of urban inequality,” according to Paul Ong, CNK director and author of a study on rent burdens that was cited by the Los Angeles Times. As the court considered lifting California’s eviction moratorium, advocacy groups such as Disability Rights California and the pro bono law firm Public Counsel lobbied against the move by presenting research from II&D and CNK, among other sources. The court subsequently delayed its review of the moratorium.

Lens on Overcrowded Housing and the Risk of COVID Infection

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, was featured in a CalMatters article discussing how crowded housing exacerbates the spread of COVID-19. Neighborhoods with large numbers of people per household have about 3.7 times the rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases per 1,000 residents as neighborhoods where few residents live in tight quarters. “The problem has increased in the past decade as neighborhoods have gentrified, pushing rents to rise astronomically,” Lens explained. In some neighborhoods in Los Angeles, two in every five households are overcrowded. A report from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimated that 365,000 households in Los Angeles County are at high risk of being forced out of their homes when the statewide freeze on evictions is lifted, which will push them into even more crowded conditions. “Absent some unexpected interventions and generosity … of course people are just going to be way less able to afford housing,” Lens said.

Read the article

Ong on Evictions and the Worsening Housing Crisis

/0 Comments/in /by

Paul Ong, research professor and director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Fox 11 News about the impact of impending evictions on the housing crisis. A moratorium in Los Angeles prohibited landlords from evicting renters during the coronavirus pandemic, but many families fear they will lose their homes when the moratorium is lifted. The threat of eviction comes as widespread unemployment has pushed many households further into debt. After studying how the coronavirus crisis has affected different communities, Ong said that African American and Latino households in Los Angeles County are at high risk. “These are the same workers that … are on the financial edge,” he said. “By the end of the crisis, [they] will be deeply in debt.” 

Watch the video