Two Recent Updates on Housing Progress in Los Angeles

Hey readers, I haven’t been very active on my blog lately, partly due to the holidays but also thanks to my involvement with Abundant Housing LA. If you haven’t heard of AHLA, we’re a relatively new volunteer organization that’s focused on increasing affordability and access through increased housing choice.

When Abundant Housing started out, their advocacy mainly consisted of sending letters in support of good projects being proposed for the Los Angeles area, demonstrating that there’s a significant cohort of LA residents who support growth and inclusion—and showing that not everyone in the city is motivated by parochial “in my backyard” interests.

Over the past 6 months we’ve expanded quite a bit, hosting public get-togethers, advocating on behalf of or in opposition to local policies and propositions, meeting with other local organizations, and working on growing our membership and coalition of pro-housing, pro-growth Angelenos.

If you’re in the LA area, I hope you’ll join our mailing list, which will give you weekly access to news and action alerts that allow you to show your support for policies and projects that support our mission of increasing housing choice and affordability. If we’re going to show the city and its leadership that there’s a better path forward, we’ll need all hands on deck. If you’re reading this, you’re definitely the type of person we need standing beside us.

I’ve recently stepped up my work with the AHLA team and have been volunteering as their Policy Director, and part of my job there has been researching where we actually stand in LA with respect to housing production, choice, and affordability. To that end I’ve written two blog posts on the Abundant Housing page which, if you haven’t already read, I think you’ll find interesting.

Los Angeles Housing Development Update, 3Q 2016

The first is a straightforward housing development update for 2013 through the 3rd quarter of 2016, which you can find here. It was created using permit data found on the city’s website; our plan is to post quarterly updates to keep tabs on housing progress on a regular basis. A few charts and tables from the post can be found below, but you’ll have to visit the actual page if you want all the data and analysis.

Don’t Call it a Boom: LA Housing Development Still Moving at a Snail’s Pace

The latest recent post is also heavy on the data, but adds a persuasive narrative to try to make the case that LA’s “boom” in housing development isn’t really a boom at all, and we can do much better. Link here. We need to do much better. Again, a few charts from the post can be found below, but you’ll have to read the actual post to get the whole picture.

Look forward to more here at Better Institutions and over at Abundant Housing LA soon! And if you’re not already on it, be sure to sign up for AHLA’s mailing list here!