Some heavy seriosity in affordable housing
I know Antonio has a sense of humor about himself. I wonder if this Jon Regardie send-up will push it to its limit. Regardie emphasizes Team Tony's penchant for driving home action-oriented focus group memes at media events.
Funny thing was, as I was reading this piece just this morning, I heard some actual "we're so serious" memes on KPCC. Antonio said that he was letting people know that his people were serious about affordable housing. But affordable housing wasn't the forceful part of the message. Antonio said (I'm transcribing):
The gist was that the Mayor's team was very serious about something. And he was letting everyone know that his people were serious.
It seemed a bit surprising, that degree of gravitas for this announcement. After all, there is indeed already an Affordable Housing Trust, and that's what it's there for: being debited to kickstart affordable housing. But what could have been a routine bureaucratic transaction was made into Agincourt, an enormous battle, a declaration of unflinching resolve.
You could have cut the text of Villaraigosa and pasted into the Regardie satire and not noticed anything was different.
I'm guessing that "affordable housing" is a fairly hollow meme all by itself, the left's response to "compassionate conservatism." Think I'll quote myself this time, from last November:
Affordable Housing was more sharply defined by the Mayor today, to the tune of $50 million. Who are the winners? Are there any losers? Whether or not there are either, one thing is sure: The mayor wants you to know he's serious about affordable housing.
Funny thing was, as I was reading this piece just this morning, I heard some actual "we're so serious" memes on KPCC. Antonio said that he was letting people know that his people were serious about affordable housing. But affordable housing wasn't the forceful part of the message. Antonio said (I'm transcribing):
Addressing this crisis demands swift action. I'm here to tell Angelenos that we're not waiting around.
The gist was that the Mayor's team was very serious about something. And he was letting everyone know that his people were serious.
It seemed a bit surprising, that degree of gravitas for this announcement. After all, there is indeed already an Affordable Housing Trust, and that's what it's there for: being debited to kickstart affordable housing. But what could have been a routine bureaucratic transaction was made into Agincourt, an enormous battle, a declaration of unflinching resolve.
You could have cut the text of Villaraigosa and pasted into the Regardie satire and not noticed anything was different.
I'm guessing that "affordable housing" is a fairly hollow meme all by itself, the left's response to "compassionate conservatism." Think I'll quote myself this time, from last November:
Whether “affordable housing” is deliverable to many classes of citizens, or whether it remains an ill-defined, abstract promise that is more false home than deliverable, is something that will indeed be determined by the future of California politics. But all citizens will be well-advised to watch closely how our newly empowered mandates at the City and even the State level will define affordable housing in upcoming weeks, and especially in carefully analysing who they are targeting to most benefit from it.
Affordable Housing was more sharply defined by the Mayor today, to the tune of $50 million. Who are the winners? Are there any losers? Whether or not there are either, one thing is sure: The mayor wants you to know he's serious about affordable housing.
Posted by Joseph Mailander @ 3/13/2006 03:34:00 PM
11 Comments:
Is it legal for affordable housing developers build in poor neighborhoods only. Why not build in Mt. Washington? Hermon? Century City
This is bullshit. Affordable housing is just another way for Eli Broad and the rest of the developer leeches to steal money from the City.
The best way to create affordable housing is to allow the market to be built in South LA, improve the infrastructure there.
And the snobs and yuppies living in Century City and Mt. Washington will be the ultimate NIMBY's because this "blight" will bring their Property values down.
"Affordable housing" is, as Anonymous at 4:59 p.m. points out, a pretext to redistribute tax revenues to rich developers.
Is housing here expensive? Sure. But that's true in every major urban area: London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong. Some people can afford to buy real estate here; most can't. It doesn't mean they're going without shelter, or they're hungry, or they're going to die ahead of schedule.
When someone tells you there's an "affordable housing" crisis, ask him to define the term for you. You can have a six-figure income, yet not be able to afford to buy a house in Beverly Hills, Malibu, or Palos Verdes. Does that mean there's a "crisis" there? No. It means some places are more expensive to live than others.
And when someone says we need to tax the public to pay for "affordable housing," ask him if he's going to tax renters to subsidize the new homeowners who will get to buy the "affordable" housing. Renters, after all, are paying sales tax, and their rent goes towards their landlords' property taxes, too.
County May Seek Bond to Fix Jails..LA Times
There is no way these idiots can tax us again to get $500 million fix the jails. Tell Baca to give ack that private $10 milion plane.
Antonio getting beat up in the paper today and rightly so.
Elephants?
Re "Latest elephant plan not peanuts"(March 11):
The mayor is considering a new $39 million home at the Los Angeles Zoo for three elephants. After reading that Los Angeles is leading in human homelessness, you would think he could spend the money on these people, or on the schools, streets, police, public transportation or anything else that would help the city - not $13 million for each elephant.
- Carl Fowler
Burbank
The bigger story
In Saturday's Daily News, one article dealt with the $40 million to be spent on Los Angeles' elephants. A second was about Los Angeles' homeless situation, said to be the worst in the United States. What was shocking was that the elephant story received more space.
Have you as a paper and we as people lost our humanity? I love animals as much as anyone does, but right here in L.A. we have real people - families - living on city streets in boxes, freezing in the cold, wet, starving and dying every day. Elephants become a bigger story than people. Is this because we believe we can't make a difference? Maybe it's because we just no longer care about each other. I hope and pray that's not the case.
- Alan Levy
Studio City
Sanctuary
The Los Angeles Zoo controversy is not so much about Billy, Ruby and Gita, the one males and two female elephants. It's about who has to pay for the $30 million to $60 million to enlarge the exhibit. This would include $13.9 million in Municipal Improvement Corporation of Los Angeles funds. MICLA debt is paid for out of the General Fund. With interest, this would be $22.4 million. Don't forget the $13 million of county funding. Currently, we spend $341,670 on the normal elephant expenses plus $96,000 annually on treatments for Gita's chronic condition...The exhibit, no matter what size is decided upon, is an Asian forest. There are no African elephants in the Asian forest. This means Ruby will have to be disposed of. Sanctuary. Anything less would be fiscally irresponsible.
- David Hernandez
Valley Village
Not inherited
Re "Rewarding mediocrity" (Editorials, March 10):
We should reject Mayor Villaraigosa's self-serving claim that he "inherited" a "structural deficit of $300 million." Villaraigosa was sworn in as a City Council member in 2003 and then as mayor in 2005. This is not a problem he "inherited," but a problem he himself helped create in the first place.
- Walter Moore
Los Angeles
The public trough
Before he can become the mayor of the Los Angeles Unified School District, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should be required to clean up the fiefdom he already has: the political and governmental cesspool known as the city of Los Angeles...
He could get a good start by reducing the L. A. City Council to five members. That would not only save millions for taxpayers; it would also be a boon for lobbyists by easing their mother hens roles in feeding the gaping mouths of so many at the public trough.
- Ralph Smathers
Newhall
What will he do?
Before we get too worked up about disbanding the Los Angeles Unified School District and putting the mayor in charge of our schools, let's ask the mayor one question: Once you're in charge, exactly what are you going to do differently? If he can't say, then we should pass on the reform. And if he actually does have good ideas, then the LAUSD can implement them right now, without merging into the city government.
In my opinion, the problem with our schools isn't whose name appears at the top of the flow chart. Changing that name won't teach children to read.
- Walter Moore
Los Angeles
Walter Moore:
Do you know anything about the cities that you talk about?
Hong Kong, otherwise a bastion of free-market economic thinking, subsidizes and has the government directly fund and build 75% of its entire housing stock! London has at least twenty times more public housing (built and owned by the government) than London. Paris is imposing a 30-40% inclusionary zoning policy because it has become a playground for the rich only and their iz proposal doesn't include density bonuses AND applies retroactively to existing housing stock (not just new construction). And on and on.
You also show a fundamental misunderstanding that the programs of the city are for both homeownership AND rental. And most of the so-called billionaire developers are non-profit community organizations operating at a low margin (though I will grant at a lower efficiency than some market-rate developers).
This is good, necessary money. Three cheers for the folks from the community who called for the Trust Fund, for the council that embraced and grew this to be the largest fund in the country, and even the mayor, who claimed credit yesterday for the hard work of communities, councilmembers, and folks at the Housing Dept. who really made this possible.
To anonymous at 7:07 a.m.:
I looked into the price of housing in all of those cities. It's expensive. That's the point. The idea that everyone, regardless of personal income and expenses, should be able to purchase a home in every city, is absurd. Nor is subsidizing developers, in my opinion, a legitimate reason to tax hard-working renters and home-owners.
You omit, moreover, to mention the effect of rent control in our city: it drives the price of new, non-rent-controlled units by tying up the supply of rental housing. Rent control also discourages maintenance, and subsidizes not just poor people but rich ones who have rent-controlled apartments. You also omit to mention Section 8 housing subsidies for low income people.
"Affordable housing" construction is a scam. If we, as a society, decide that poor people need more money to purchase housing -- or even to rent it -- then we should give that money to the poor, not to developers. When the mayor announces that the city is "investing" your money in affordable housing, it typically means he's giving your money to developers who contributed to campaigns.
Not everyone can afford to live or buy here. But that's not a human tragedy. It's life. There's always Riverside, Fresno, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.
Nor am I wild about the incentive structure of proposed "affordable housing" apartments. If you work hard to get ahead in life, and your income goes up, say "good-bye" to your unit! Is that the message we want to send to people?
Finally, one reason it's so expensive to live here is that all these rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul programs are funded through taxes on the very same people who are trying to live here.
Aside from that, though, I think "affordable housing" programs are terrific.
This is the reason why Hahn made the Housing trust the way he did so that developers can build as normal the individuals through a long process will recieve the subsidy. Not the way AV has it now where he is just getting his developer buddies lined up to rape the city.
Does anyone know anything about the day to day operations of the proposed program? I assume someone in the Housing Department will be in charge. Any guesses?
Eli Broad and AV conspired to build that utopian fantasy fiasco of a High School and diverted funds from the city budget to do so. We were defrauded out of $170M dollars on a project that was originally going to be $50M!
And all of this for a bunch of illegal anchor babies who can't even speak English, read or write! Right in the middle of gangland USA! AV has this insane delusion that downtown is going to rise from the ashes and become that shining light on the hill. The only shining light that will ever shine is that of a squad car and the helicopters chasing the criminals thru the streets of the barrios downtown. It's the Blacks and the Spics going at it in a 170M boondoggle!
Affordable housing is such a crock of shit! Get rid of the MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS and there will be no need for ANYMORE HOUSING because there will be more supply than demand.
STOP THE MADNESS BEFORE AV AND HIS CRONIES TURN THE PLACE IN INTO TIJUANA! WE'RE ALMOST THERE NOW!!!!
WAKE UP AMERICA! AND LOS ANGELES!
Housing supply scarce? Zoning code, and "community character" too precious to defile? There is only one solution:
Ignore the long term needs of the region, fight to keep your corner of the City totally free of multi-family housing, and force your elected leaders to dance around this "Affordable Housing" subsidy fire, praying to the gods of real estate to solve their regional housing needs.
Scarcity is a bitch, and with any luck, it will f**k up your little ranch-style fantasy - just give it some time.
But it ain't the market that put the Los Angeles region in this housing crunch. It's the void made by a culture that actively spurns community involvement and is unwilling to help the little guy out. Affordable housing is a freako socialist policy trying to fill that void.
Los Angeles may be diverse and full of amazing people, but the I-Got-Mine-F**k-yoU (IGFU) attitude has more to do with this region's woes than any public policy.
Couple that with the paranoid, anti-immigrant federal laws that keep wages cheap, and housing expensive ... and you've got Los Angeles of today.
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