Low Income Housing

Twenty-seven low-income families who recently moved to new apartments will celebrate Sunday as owners of the East Fullerton Villas dedicate the project, built to provide affordable housing in the city. The project, comprising six one- and two-story buildings with two-, three- and four-bedroom units, is owned and operated by Fullerton Interfaith Housing Development Corp., a nonprofit organization made up of local churches and synagogues.

A coalition of anti-poverty groups has agreed to drop a lawsuit involving the developer of a proposed NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles, clearing the last remaining legal obstacle to the city's approval of the $1.2-billion project. Developer Anschutz Entertainment Group said Thursday that it has pledged $15 million for a low-income housing trust fund to end the litigation, which sought to invalidate a recent state law that limits legal challenges against the stadium. The settlement comes days after the deadline for filing environmental challenges to the stadium.

Residential developers must now build affordable housing or pay steep fees, but not as steep as city leaders originally intended. This week, the City Council gave final approval to an Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that forces developers of 10 or more units to set aside homes for low-income families or pay an "in-lieu" fee. The resulting funds will go toward the city's Infill Housing Program, which offers strategies to transform abandoned and neglected properties into quality affordable housing.

A government committee created this summer in response to the massive social protests that swept through Israel delivered its much-anticipated report Monday, calling for tax hikes on the rich to pay for an increase in funding for low-income housing, education and welfare. The panel, headed by Tel Aviv University economics professor Manuel Trajtenberg, submitted its recommendations to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised the committee for achieving "the impossible. " Netanyahu said the recommendations would "fix the distortions in the economy.

Saying he is concerned about setting a statewide precedent, Gov. George Deukmejian on Monday announced his veto of legislation that would have allowed Indian Wells, California's wealthiest city, to build much of its state-required low-income housing outside its borders. In his veto message, the governor said there is not "sufficient cause" to exempt the desert resort from the housing requirement applied to all cities that use state redevelopment funds to bolster their treasuries.

Several dozen corporations announced Monday in Los Angeles that they will invest $300 million to purchase federal income tax credits designed to help finance low-income housing nationwide. The credits are the principal federal program to encourage low-cost housing, and $60 million will go toward affordable housing in California. The announcement by the nation's leading syndicator of housing tax credits, an affiliate of the Local Initiatives Support Corp.

Starting April 15, crews will begin moving run-down houses in the Victoria Street area to other parts of the county to provide low-income housing, county officials said. The county's plans may save as many as half of the 69 homes that the city wanted to tear down to make way for a $25-million project to widen Victoria Street. The homes stretch along a 1 1/2-mile strip of Victoria Street between Harbor Boulevard and Canyon Drive.

Los Angeles officials are mounting a major lobbying effort to preserve a temporary federal tax credit that in just one year has infused millions of dollars into desperately needed low-income housing in the city. Developers and nonprofit groups have built or are planning to construct nearly 1,000 low-rent apartments in Los Angeles because of the tax credit and a similar state credit, which grant a generous tax savings to for-profit companies that invest money in low-rent housing.

A new program designed to prevent deterioration and overcrowding in low-income rental housing has been approved by the City Council. The Rental Rehabilitation and Assistance Program will provide loans, mostly in the form of second mortgages, to owners who wish to maintain their housing without raising rents, officials said.

When it comes to housing poor people, one city's vision of progress can be another's nightmare. As officials in Los Angeles promote a plan to put Jordan Downs, one of the city's more rundown public housing projects, into private hands, officials in Boston are trying to figure out how to repair damage done to a low-income housing project in the many years it has been in the hands of private owners there.

Celine Rosales stepped into the water at Bolsa Chica State Beach, suspicious of what was lurking beneath the surface of the chilly gray-blue ocean. Wearing a black wetsuit, the 13-year-old was scared but ready to take the plunge for her first surfing lesson. "Oh, my gosh, I'm going to die," Celine said she thought as she climbed onto the surfboard with the help of a volunteer. Photos: Surfing builds confidence for teens Celine, of Norwalk, was there with other teenagers as part of a college-awareness program run by the nonprofit Orange County Community Housing Corp.

Like millions of Chinese priced out of this nation's booming housing market, Lao Yang could only dream of owning an apartment. Crammed into a run-down rental courtyard home about the size of a typical U.S. bedroom, Yang and his wife increasingly were ashamed of raising their daughter in a neighborhood with communal bathrooms and charcoal heating. Desperate for a bigger place, the retired steelworker applied to buy affordable housing from the local government. He wasn't optimistic.

Bell's former Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo and two other top officials got a portion of their lucrative compensation by taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fund that was supposed to be used to provide housing for low-income residents, according to a state audit released Wednesday. The audit of the Bell Community Redevelopment Agency also found that the city wrongly spent about $180,000 of the affordable housing funds on cellphones, car washes, car batteries and landscaping while City Council members ?

The din of construction is missing from the eastern edge of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where workers had hoped to break ground on a 70-unit affordable-housing complex months ago. No nail guns are firing. No hard hat-wearing workers are milling about. And it's not the only would-be construction site that's silent. Plans to build more than 16,000 housing units in California, many of them for low-income residents, have been frozen in bureaucratic limbo since July. Voters approved funding four years ago. Last summer, state officials chose the 121 projects they want to build.

Re "Utopia a hard sell in Jordan Downs," Aug. 22, Having lived in Los Angeles for all of my years, this article brought back images of Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill: promises of affordable, safe, low-income housing and the reality of the residents never coming home again. This looks a lot like a twist on the same old L.A. story. Historically, the middle-class families displace the lower-income residents who can no longer afford the gentrified housing. How about following through on a promise, Los Angeles?

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes announced a plan to invest $587 million in public spending programs in an effort to stimulate the economy. Funes, a leftist elected this year, said the money would build low-income housing, provide farm supports such as seeds and fertilizers to the rural poor and hire more police to curb spiraling crime. He told reporters that the funds would come from internal tax collection and support from international lending institutions. Funes led the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, founded by former Marxist guerrillas, to victory in elections in March for the first time since the end of the 1980-92 civil war after a series of right-wing governments.

The Irvine City Council postponed action early Wednesday morning until Aug. 22 on a controversial plan that would require developers to price 10% of all future housing for very low-income families. The council asked city staff to provide additional information about the establishment of a nonprofit corporation to develop low-cost housing and to study a top figure on a fee that might be imposed on businesses to finance housing for employees.

Using language that political consultants say plays on racial and economic fears, both opponents and supporters of a Santa Clarita slow-growth initiative are raising the specter of "low-income" housing in an effort to win the April 14 election. "We must control growth and low-income housing. . . .

A nonprofit organization founded by California's largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose -- to develop housing for low-income workers -- during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show.

Just a few miles from multimillion-dollar homes in this central Mexican resort town, the countryside yields to dirt-floor lean-tos made of sticks, rocks, cardboard, blankets or tarps. If residents are lucky, they have a panel of sheet metal as the roof. Out here in the campo, most have no running water, no electricity, no sewer system, no paved roads.