Affordable Housing Los Angeles

A new 75-unit affordable housing complex for low-income senior citizens will be built in Pacoima by a Los Angeles nonprofit group, housing officials announced Thursday. The Pacoima project and several others in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, will be developed using $43 million in grant funds awarded this week to nonprofit housing developers by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Ever concerned about urban sprawl, Crescenta Valley residents also are worried these days about the lack of recreational facilities in their community. In recent years, they said, they have seen horse-riding stables, swimming pools and a bowling alley either shut down or move away. Now residents are faced with a proposal to demolish the 50-year-old Verdugo Hills Golf Course in Tujunga and build 229 single-family homes.

A record-breaking number of applications--nearly 150,000--have poured into the Los Angeles Housing Authority office after city officials announced last month they would offer Section 8 rental assistance for the first time in more than eight years. The large number of applicants who applied for assistance prior to the Oct. 1 deadline shows the need for affordable housing in Los Angeles is greater than ever, said Los Angeles Section 8 Program Director Steve Renahan.

Richard Riordan's years as mayor of Los Angeles are remembered by some housing advocates as a time of drought, when money once used for affordable housing flowed to other needs. Activists responded with a years-long campaign to bring more dollars to their cause--an effort that seemed to be paying off at last when finalists in the mayoral race embraced the idea of a $100-million affordable housing trust fund. When freshly elected Mayor James K.

A housing task force convened last fall by the Los Angeles City Council warned Thursday that the city must allow property owners to build more housing on their lots and convert commercial buildings into apartments to solve the city's worsening housing shortage. The dramatic land use changes recommended by the group are certain to be challenged by homeowners and environmental groups opposed to any measure that would increase crowding and traffic congestion.

Fearing it would force thousands of tenants into the streets, the Los Angeles City Council delayed action Wednesday on a plan that would impose criminal fines against landlords who rent out illegally converted garage dwellings. Instead, after an emotional debate that touched on the need for more affordable housing in Los Angeles, the council unanimously adopted a less controversial program that would educate residents on the dangers of living in garages.

Construction has begun on Casa Heiwa, a $16-million, 100-unit affordable housing complex that represents another step by a community-based organization toward replacing housing demolished for commercial development. The nonprofit developers of Casa Heiwa (Peace House) said it is the first modern, affordable family housing built in the historically Japanese neighborhood, which has had much of its housing replaced by commercial developments since the 1970s.

When Mayor Richard Riordan offered a plan last month to divvy up the coming budget year's pool of federal human services grants, he said he wanted to make sure to get the most bang for each buck.

When Los Angeles officials unveiled an ambitious plan a few years ago to renovate the decaying and gang-infested Pico Aliso public housing project, they said it wasn't just a job of laying bricks and mortar to reshape one of the toughest neighborhoods in L.A. It was billed as a $140-million roll of the dice that would be watched across the country as a prototype of how public housing projects could be transformed in the next century.

The drab western fringe of downtown Los Angeles has become center stage in a battle between a successful apartment developer and advocates of affordable housing. Here, amid the empty lots and narrow streets that front the Harbor Freeway, Geoff Palmer's plans to build luxury apartments renting for $1,100 and up have been stalled by housing activists and city officials.

When Habitat for Humanity broke ground on a 53-home project in Pacoima last November, organizers for the nonprofit group hoped to move needy families into the first 10 homes by this Christmas. Today, though, the site remains mostly dirt, with only two houses framed out behind a chain-link fence. A late December move-in date is unlikely. Clearing the trash-filled area took time, as did obtaining permits and compacting the earth to make it stable.

Sheila Bernard moves from one neighbor's apartment to the next, like a doctor visiting patients in a trauma ward. She knows her neighbors' histories, their fears, their dismal prospects for finding new homes. As president of the Lincoln Place Tenants' Assn. in Venice, she lobbied to keep them from losing their apartments. She attended meetings with housing representatives, enlisted the help of legal aid attorneys, staged a protest.

The Los Angeles City Council has voted unanimously to uphold a city requirement that 15% of units in new residential developments near downtown be set aside for low-income residents, effectively ending a months-long effort by a luxury apartment builder to gain an exemption to the rule.

A Los Angeles developer was dealt a major setback Tuesday when a City Council subcommittee decided to uphold a city requirement that sets aside 15% of units in new residential developments near downtown for low-income residents. Luxury apartment builder Geoff Palmer has sought an exemption from the rule.

The drab western fringe of downtown Los Angeles has become center stage in a battle between a successful apartment developer and advocates of affordable housing. Here, amid the empty lots and narrow streets that front the Harbor Freeway, Geoff Palmer's plans to build luxury apartments renting for $1,100 and up have been stalled by housing activists and city officials.

Acknowledging 13 years of fund-raising help from Jerry and Pam Offsay, the L.A. Family Housing Corp. kicked off construction Sunday of Offsay/Steinhauser Village, a 15-family affordable-housing complex. The complex, the first facility built by the housing group in three years, was named after the Offsays' parents. "Our parents were, and are, simple people," said Jerry Offsay, a producer with Showtime Networks. "They didn't have much money, but they made things work."

Los Angeles city officials have known for a decade that there are tens of thousands of garages illegally converted into living units like the one where five children died in a fire Thursday morning. But they still don't know what to do about them. The Building and Safety Department only responds to complaints. It's the same for firefighters. And city prosecutors wait for building inspectors to bring them cases.

Despite objections from homeowner groups, the Los Angeles Planning Commission recommended Thursday that the City Council consider proposals to ease restrictions on the construction of affordable housing. Current conditions and city planning rules have resulted in a net annual increase of about 3,000 units of affordable housing, when 8,000 units are needed each year to meet the demand of the city's growing population, Commissioner Rodger Landau said.

Dozens of placard-waving demonstrators marched into the downtown offices of the city of Los Angeles' Housing Authority to turn in their Section 8 applications for federal housing assistance and to protest the severity of the city's affordable-housing crisis. The 100 or so protesters, organized by the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, pressed their case to the Housing Authority's Section 8 director, Steve Renahan.