Vacant Housing For The Homeless And Overcrowded.  All They Need Is Money.

PLANNING WATCH - In Los Angeles there are so many vacant rental units that in my mid-Wilshire neighborhood there is about one vacancy per block.  As for unposted vacancies, my guess is there are a lot, even if we do not know the exact number. 

Nevertheless, the housing developers still maintain that building new housing -- in lieu of renting vacant apartments and houses -- is the solution for the nearly 50,000 homeless people who live on LA’s streets.  These homeless people cannot afford to buy a house or even rent a vacant apartment.  Lack of money, not a lack of vacant units, is the reason they live outside.  This obvious fact apparently eludes most of the housing “experts” and the media.

Another significant group of people that the corporate media and elected officials rarely mention are the overcrowded, who number over a million in LA County.   Even though the overall population of the city and country continues to slide, the number of people who live in overcrowed housing conditions continues its relentless rise, at least 10,000 people per year.

Over one million people live in overcrowded conditions like this in LA County.

Why permit more housing, when so much vacant housing in readily available?  The answer is obvious.  Home builders exert political control over City Halls in the Los Angeles area, not the region’s residents or the owners and managers of vacant apartments and lots.  These conditions could theoretically change, but this is today’s political reality.  Furthermore, the corporate media rarely covers this aspect of the overall story, even though these two aspects of the housing crisis, homelessness and overcrowding, are found in all local communities.

What would it take to change this missing coverage of housing conditions, more specifically the large number of homeless and overcrowded residents, despite the LA region’s continually declining population?  The City of Los Angeles has a net loss of at least 10,000 people a year and LA County about 30,000.   As for the nearby smaller cities and unincorporated areas, the exit of people is continuous, freeing up even more existing housing, an obvious news story that is rarely reported.  For example, the State of California Department of Finance reports that in 2026 L.A. County has 9,800,000 people, but it will decline to 8,413,000 by 2070.   This L.A. County loss of 1.4 million people over the next 44 years averages about 30,000 people per year.  In the City of LA, this disaggregates to about 10,000 people per year, a significant number for a city whose elected officials expect the private and nonprofit sectors to build the City out of homelessness (and overcrowding?)

Will this strategy work?  So far, it has not worked, and given the private sector’s need for at least 15% profit, we know why.  It is a money losing proposition.  The most obvious strategy to change this is profitless public housing.   Too bad President Nixon scuttled these programs 50 years ago.  If they had continued or were revived, the country would be able to significantly reduce homelessness and overcrowding.  Given the opposition of political leaders from both parties to this option, I don’t advise you hold your breath.

(Dick Platkin is a retired Los Angeles city planner who mostly writes about planning issues in LA.   He is a member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA).  Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives.)