Affordable housing still matters

Affordable housing must continue, despite state actions.

Redevelopment agencies may have begun with noble ideals. But all too often in recent years they have devolved into slush funds for insiders—not to mention a bureaucratic means of denying our schools, social service agencies and fire departments the resources they needed to make California a better place to live and work. Auditors throughout the state are now starting to open the books of these agencies. And I believe the public will be shocked by what they find—including huge sums wasted on frivolous projects or left to idle in agencies’ coffers while vital community needs were ignored.

So I applaud the California Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold state legislation that puts redevelopment agencies out of business starting February 1.

But that doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore the funding stream that some of these redevelopment agencies—notwithstanding their glaring flaws—provided for desperately-needed low- and moderate-income housing, along with some other legitimate local development purposes.

So this week, we took the first steps toward making sure our current affordable housing programs transition smoothly to new management as our redevelopment agency dissolves, and receive the strong and appropriate levels of oversight mandated by the new state law. (Here is the motion I co-sponsored with Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.) We also directed county staff to begin working on a new framework for how we will fund and manage affordable housing programs going forward. (My motion is here.)

There’s not a moment to waste.

At a time when federal housing resources are being slashed by nearly 50% each year, Los Angeles County must take the lead in quickly identifying ways to continue providing the means to build affordable housing for the most vulnerable among us.

Over the past few years, the need for such housing has skyrocketed as the resources have shrunk exponentially. A recent survey found there were nearly 200,000 people on the waiting list for Section 8 housing in Los Angeles County—and that the waiting period is now 10 years. It’s even worse in some cities within the county, including one, in our own 3^rd District, where the wait is an astronomical 399 years.

As Los Angeles County and other jurisdictions up and down the state adjust to the complexities of life after redevelopment agencies, we must not lose sight of all the human need behind those terrible statistics.

And we can’t let California’s decision to dismantle these agencies deter us from our responsibility to help people get access to housing they can afford.

Posted 1/18/12