Los Angeles' Housing Crisis Escalates as Former Mayor Escapes from LA.
Biden's newest ambassador to India leaves behind a tattered legacy and broken promises.
Analysis Reveals Staggering Growth in Homelessness across LA.
Last year one of the greatest accelerations in the history of Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis occurred.
Despite billions of dollars being spent to combat the problem and ambitious promises from figures like Mayor Eric Garcetti who — long before he left Los Angeles as Biden’s newest ambassador to India — pledged to eradicate homelessness during his tenure as mayor, the number of Angelenos experiencing homelessness continues to balloon.
With the economic stagnation brought on by COVID-19 thousands more find themselves unemployed and facing housing insecurity.
This resulted in a widespread increase in the homeless population across nearly every one of Los Angeles’s 15 city council districts. The numbers are staggering - with outlying districts 6,8 and 11 experiencing the most profoundly accelerated growth.
72% in district 8 which consists of neighborhoods: Baldwin Hills, Chesterfield Square, Leimert Park, Jefferson Park, Crenshaw and West Adams.
40% in district 11 the home of Venice Beach.
42% in district 6 which includes Arleta, Van Nuys, North Hollywood and Panorama.
(Data provided by the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority)
(Data provided by the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority)
Even with more districts experiencing profound growth in their homeless population — Skid Row still looms as an outlier.
With an unhoused population of 7,617 district 14, where Skid Row resides, is the epicenter of the crisis.
On a national level, the per-capita rate of homelessness for every 10,000 American citizens is 17.
Every district across Los Angeles has a per-capita rate of homelessness that eclipses the national average — some many times over.
District 3, the least affected area in the entire city in terms of the number of residents experiencing homelessness, still boasts a per-capita rate of 28 — meaning that the least crisis-ridden district in Los Angeles is still boasting rates of homelessness 64.7% higher than the national average.
District 14 has a per capita rate of 287 — a figure 15 times greater than the national average.
Catch 41.18
It was a packed scene on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall on the morning of Wednesday, July 28th.
The steps were filled with demonstrators protesting a new city ordinance that outlaws public loitering in such a broad frame that it prohibits the homeless from creating improvised housing or even sleeping on sidewalks.
Members of activist organizations from across the city gathered to make their voices heard as the city council convened inside on whether or not to pass the controversial piece of legislation.
Theo Henderson, the lead organizer of StreetWatchLA and host of the “We the Unhoused” podcast led the protest effort on Wednesday morning.
“You can’t live like you live in a house when you’re unhoused. The weather, how long can you last during a heatwave? How long can you last when someone has the nerve to come and tell you to take your tent down?” Henderson said before the packed crowd.
For the vast majority of the 41,290 members of the unhoused population in Los Angeles, the refuge of a temporary shelter, car or family members couch isn’t available.
More than 28,800 of those experiencing homelessness across Los Angeles are unsheltered, meaning they don’t have any form of reliable refuge from the elements.
It’s a problem that is only amplified by those who don’t understand the plight of unhoused people, Henderson explained.
“There are unhoused people that I know now that are working 40 hours a week and living in a tent. Many of the people that are making these ridiculous claims would not last a week.”
General Dogan, an unhoused resident of Skid Row, veteran and activist — spoke out at the rally in front of the crowd of activists and fellow unhoused Angelenos.
To the chorus of the cheering crowd, Dogan proclaimed that the city of Los Angeles was failing as an institution to create equitable housing, “This building right here (city hall) leads the nation in criminalizing the homeless.”
“They're building houses, look at all those damn cranes. They’re building houses, they just aren’t building them for everybody,” said Dogan.
(Housing Development in Koreatown, Los Angeles)
The Iceberg
Dogan’s words about the disparities in housing priorities ring true.
According to a study co-published by UCLA School Of Law Community Economic Development Clinic and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment titled — The Vacancy Report — there are over 93,000 vacant housing units in Los Angeles, many of which are luxury apartments owned as second homes or pure investments for the richest Angelenos.
The report also found that there wasn’t a lack of building being done in the city, but that the projects being greenlit were predominately Downtown and consisted of luxury housing developments to service the richest Angelenos.
According to the report, “12,000 units have been built Downtown alone since 2014, and 3,500 more were expected to be completed before the end of 2019. Unfortunately, this building spree is unlikely to make even the smallest dent in the city’s housing crisis, because the housing is not the type that is most needed.”
The report goes on to specify that downtown is an incredibly top-heavy rental market. They found that 97.2% of the units now under construction are in the most expensive category. Of 32,393 units in the neighborhood, 72.33% (or 23,431 units) fall into this ‘4 & 5-star’ class, with an average rent of over $2,800 a month and per-square-foot rent of $3.27.
Strategic Actions for a Just Economy; which also contributed to The Vacancy Report, and operates out of South LA, has also done extensive research on the corporate takeover of Los Angeles real estate.
Haley Feng — who works for Abundant Housing LA suggested that “homelessness is the tip of the iceberg.”
Beneath that tip is the massive gap in housing options for the most income-insecure Angelenos. Feng’s organization estimates 700,000 homes need to be built to address the scarcity of Los Angeles’ affordable housing options.
The most evident symptom of a systemic problem — homelessness is the visible edge of the deeply rooted economic inequalities intrinsic in American society and particularly rife within Los Angeles.
Under the surface a plethora of institutional failures to address the housing crisis coagulate with corporate opportunism as rents continue to swell more Angelenos face housing insecurity.
Garcetti’s Escape from LA
As leadership continues to falter and flee, passing the housing baton forever forward in a relay race to the bottom — homelessness continues to be Los Angeles’ greatest albatross.
Nothing short of an institutional overhaul will stem the tide of this monumental crisis.
Without reigning in corporate landlords, establishing emergency shelters, filling vacant homes with the unhoused and the fast-tracking of affordable housing developments — there are no viable paths forward.
But, without an authentic political will; these aren’t solutions, just concepts without an infrastructure of action.
The housing crisis has proven to be a cudgel employed by both parties in California politics. A political beatstick used to bludgeon incumbent regimes — a useful rhetorical tool employed by political opportunists on both sides of the aisle. When these political adventurists gain any real power their rallying calls for housing as a human right become feigned ineffectual flickers of their roaring campaign season flames.
Yet another textbook showcase in the Great American tradition of failing with an upward trajectory; Garcetti heads to India — a nation that has its own monumental housing crisis — leaving behind a tattered legacy of false promises. In stark contrast to the lofty rhetoric which shot the former mayor to prominence, Garcetti’s parting gift was the signing of ordinance 41.18 into law — an Irish goodbye to the unhoused Angelenos whom he’d pledged to serve.