Back to: Address potential adverse impacts to housing affordability and people experiencing homelessness.

Action: Secure funding for affordable housing in parallel with funding for river projects.

With the understanding that housing affordability is a priority concern throughout LA County, it is imperative that, in conjunction with the results of a housing impact assessment, any projected adverse effects on housing affordability caused by a planned river project be mitigated in lock step with the project’s progression.

Waiting until a project is in progress or complete to address housing affordability would mean confronting an exacerbated problem, which is likely to be even more costly in the long term. Funding for housing should be made available up front, when steps can still be taken to preserve affordability.

County Lead

LA County Chief Executive Office

Potential Partners

LA County Public Works

Geographic Boundaries

LA County

Potential Funding Sources

Click above for other actions that involve the implementation lead or potential partners or that apply to the same geographic boundaries.

Methods

specific, tangible ways to reach the goal

  • As new financing tools are created to fund river improvements, set aside a portion of funding to support land acquisition and permanently affordable housing whenever possible. While many infrastructure financing sources will not allow use for affordable housing, using a portion of river specific funding for housing, when possible, can leverage additional affordable housing financing and expand the amount of affordable housing built adjacent to the river.
  • Consider commissioning a study of the potential for an affordable housing specific tax increment financing tool as a means of significantly expanding funding for affordable housing along the river by capturing a small share of future growth in property tax revenue exclusively for affordable housing.
  • Leverage existing housing subsidies to finance permanent supportive housing for people formerly experiencing homelessness on key sites adjacent to the river.
  • Consistent with the County’s Community Benefits Policy, require residential projects receiving commitments of more than $10 million of County resources (including land) to set aside at least 20% of the units to be affordable to extremely low, very low, and low income households.
LA County Map
Displacement Risk in LA County. In some areas, if rents were to start to increase faster than they are across the county as a whole, the risk of displacement would increase. These areas are marked as “rent tipping points.”
Map developed based on research by the Urban Displacement Project: Chapple, K., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Waddell, P., Chatman, D., & Ong, P. (2017). Developing a New Methodology for Analyzing Potential Displacement.
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