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Roy on Need for Bold Policy Solutions for L.A.’s Housing Crisis

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Ananya Roy, director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, spoke to KPFK’s “Living in the USA” program about Los Angeles’ crisis levels of housing insecurity. Roy protested the Los Angeles Police Department’s recent dismantling of a homeless encampment at Echo Park Lake. The action violated CDC guidelines calling for a halt to evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as international housing standards and protocols set forth by the United Nations, she said during the broadcast, beginning at minute 23. Roy called on Los Angeles’ leaders to take bold steps to tackle the crisis, including canceling rental debt and providing stigma-free social housing. “Not only do we have 70,000 people who are unhoused, we know that when the eviction courts reopen later this year, which they will, thousands more will be evicted and there is no place for them to go,” Roy said. “What, then, is that policy vision? What is the plan?” 

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Roy on Shifting Hotels From Hospitality to Urgently Needed Housing

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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.

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Manville on Efforts to Relax Parking Requirements

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to KPCC’s AirTalk about parking requirements for new housing developments in California. Manville was surprised to see that San Diego succeeded in eliminating minimum parking requirements for new housing developments. While this would be tough to implement in Los Angeles, he said, he believes it would be a good idea because parking requirements have been harmful to the city. Parking requirements for new housing do not promote the city’s stated goals of encouraging transit use, sustainability and more housing development, Manville said. More parking demands additional land or capital to build expensive underground parking, which results in smaller developments, he said. Manville also discussed proposed legislative solutions that would reduce local jurisdiction of land zoning in order to build more densely near public transit.

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