Expanding Leadership and Impact through Community-Led Housing Development

Affordable housing and homelessness

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Affordable housing is needed and welcomed in VCH’s home communities on the west/southwest side of LA, but most housing is built by experienced, white-owned or led, and/or out-of-area developers. Completing these projects enables the developers to continue to increase their capacity to develop more affordable housing where and how they see fit. There are often missed opportunities to invest in the neighborhood more substantively, resulting in a diversion of resources and assets from the community where the housing has been built. One of VCH’s partners shared, “Communities of color want to build healthy and sustainable neighborhoods with autonomy over their resources." VCH’s emerging community-led design and development team is committed to capacity building with impacted communities, particularly BIPOC-led neighborhood-based organizations, to change the way affordable housing resources are shared and invested and ensure the expertise of directly impacted people is uplifted.

Community-led design and development is a core aspect of VCH's affordable housing approach and is also integral to the human right to housing. VCH’s project will fill a unique role in the overall efforts to increase the affordable housing supply. While greatly expanding affordable housing development to meet LA’s affordability and homelessness crises, we must explore ways to change and challenge the traditional development process that has been exclusionary at times and has moved away from community-led models. Community-led design and development involves collaborating with historically underrepresented community members, primarily BIPOC and low-income people, and incorporating their expertise and feedback throughout each phase of design and development. VCH Initiated this model in 2021 with a two pilot projects and added a part-time community design manager in 2022. VCH intends to incorporate the model for all new and existing housing sites, and hired a full-time community design and engagement manager to lead this expansion. VCH will identify new sites and partnerships, share its affordable housing development experience, help build and expand capacity of neighborhood-based organizations, and continue the process of implementing an alternative model of affordable housing development that produces much needed homes but also ensures community and tenant participation, leadership and decision-making in that process.

Affordable housing developments can be a significant source of short-term income via developer fees and long-term asset building for neighborhood-based, equity-focused organizations. If our work is successful, these organizations, lower-income community members, and the eventual tenants of our housing developments will expand their capacity to be active partners and decision-makers throughout the life of the development and also expand impact and community control of land throughout the community. Lower-income and BIPOC communities throughout Los Angeles County will also realize and retain resources generated through affordable housing development and reinvest them into their communities through jobs, additional affordable housing, and other community development projects.

VCH’s Community-Led Design and Development project is an existing project, though it is still in its early stages. To date, impacts have included:
1. Two new partnerships with neighborhood-based, equity-focused, BIPOC-led organizations to develop two affordable housing sites, with collective decision making processes, shared ownership, and equitable distribution of resources earned from the development process 2. 176 new affordable homes in development
3. Over 500 lower income, primarily BIPOC community members shaping the design, architecture, and artwork for each project
Going forward, additional measures of success will include:
1. Increasing numbers of affordable housing developments that are community-led, including but not limited to social housing models
2. Affordable housing funding sources that acknowledge and prioritize the value of a community-led model
3. Increasing numbers of directly impacted people working on affordable housing development