Potential Private Land Suitable for New Temporary or Permanent Housing in the County of Los Angeles

Housing and Homelessness

County of Los Angeles

Research (initial work to identify and understand the problem)

Los Angeles currently has the largest population of unsheltered people in the United States. Many of these individuals end up seeking shelter in streets, sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces that are not equipped for human habitation. As a result, these spaces often develop serious issues relating to sanitation, public health, fire hazard, crime and public safety. As Los Angeles continues to face a worsening housing scarcity and unaffordability crisis, we must determine and implement policies that will help our neighbors avoid homelessness by providing adequate shelter and housing both in the immediate as well as permanently.

This study would provide a comprehensive list of privately-owned potential sites for rapid housing development in Los Angeles County as well as an inventory of precedents from various cities that should be considered by local policymakers in addressing homelessness in our communities. A publicly available web browser interface will be created to allow dissemination and review of the selected sites list, to illustrate the spatial relationships between sites and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) homeless count, the location of known encampments, and interim housing projects. Additionally, we will prepare a Google Earth KMZ file to facilitate decision maker and key stakeholder site review and discussion in the process of final site selection. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet will be provided, which will contain data fields that are included in the previously mentioned web browser interface and may serve decision makers and key stakeholders in creating further pivot tables and filtered lists as desired. To illustrate the viability of a sample site, a schematic architectural set of drawings will be prepared for a select sample site.

Los Angeles County will benefit by having a publicly-available inventory of County-wide sites that are suitable for the immediate building of housing. The need for housing production & mitigations of the worsening homelessness crisis in Los Angeles is an increasingly urgent topic of public discussion. Current efforts to provide emergency temporary and permanent housing have been limited due to an apparent lack of data available to public agencies that are tasked with providing adequate shelter to those currently living on the streets. By providing a comprehensive list of suitable sites the public, opportunities for public-private partnerships for housing developments can be identified and implemented throughout the County at a rate that has not yet been realized. Healthy, and dignified housing can be provided in the short term to our most vulnerable neighbors.

Success for this project will ultimately be measured in the reduction of homelessness, but also in the development of housing units, and the occupancy of said units by community members with emphasis on those currently unhoused or in danger of becoming unhoused.