Should L.A. Provide a Public Solution to Low-Income Housing?

There is a great debate about affordable housing in the State of California and in Los Angeles, and it has manifested on the last several ballots as residents call for solutions. So far, many of the efforts to develop affordable and low-income housing have been inclusionary measures in private development projects; however, Robert Gross of Nadel Architects says that there is a public solution as well. In a conversation about the adoption of density in Los Angeles, Gross said that Los Angeles might consider a public housing model similar to one implemented in New York City to provide low-income housing to those in need.

“New York has the largest stock of low-income housing units in the country. The city built them, so they run a public housing system,” Gross, multifamily studio director at Nadel Architects, tells GlobeSt.com. “Los Angeles and California in general very rarely builds any public housing. If they build anything, they try to push it off through code, through law or through tax incentives onto the private developer to build low-income housing for the State. The city does this instead of taking it on themselves as a public problem that they are going to solve in a public manner.”

While this is a model that Los Angeles should consider, Gross acknowledged there are many solutions to low-income housing that could work, but this is a program that has worked well in New York City. “I think it couldn’t hurt things to adopt a public program, but there are a number of ways to approach the issue,” he adds.